Gunfire still echoes through the night as Seth leads us farther into the thick woods. I keep looking over my shoulder, hoping to see Doyle and Rogan catching up to us, but they're never there.

"Where are we going?" Izzy demands after about five minutes of stomping through dense underbrush.

"Farther away from stray bullets," He mutters, slashing at some vines and sticker bushes with his knife.

"We should find somewhere close by to wait for them," Mara suggests quietly, Pirate trotting along beside her.

Seth steps over a fallen tree. "What do you think we're doing?"

"They will find us, won't they?" Izzy asks, suddenly stopping in her tracks.

Seth doesn't answer, but instead begins taking out his frustration on another tangle of vines and thorns that cross our path as Mara, Pirate, and I stop walking.

"Seth?" Izzy's voice sounds different than I've ever heard it. Softer, I guess.

"I don't know!" He rumbles finally, looking over his shoulder at us before resuming clearing a path for us.

Mara looks over her shoulder, her eyes frantic.

"I'm sure they'll find us soon," I try to sound reassuring, but the thing is, I'm not sure. Will they find us? Will they get caught? K-killed? Oh, shit.....

"Let's just keep going," Seth says finally, and we resume our journey through the dark woods.

+++++

Through the trees I can see the eastern sky lightening. The far off pop-pop of the gunfight stopped hours ago. We'd been walking for hours after that before we finally got Seth to stop.

He led us to this small clearing and sat down on a stump, and hasn't spoken to anybody since we got here. Izzy's pacing all over the place, and Mara is sitting on a log crying to herself. Pirate's around here somewhere.

And I'm just here, leaning against a tree, staring at the sky and praying to God or Thor or the Universe or whoever the hell runs everything to please, please let Doyle and Rogan find us, and everything be okay.

"Arghh! Where are they?" Izzy mutters as she stomps past me for the hundredth time. "They should've gotten here already!"

Yes, they should've. But they haven't. And I'm so scared that they never will. And damn it's cold out here.

"Are we able to start a fire?" I ask to no reply. It might help Doyle and Rogan find us, but if Ellie's people are searching for us, they'd see it, too. "I guess not."

Izzy stalks past me again, muttering under her breath.

I absently bring my hand up to rub my arm to generate warmth, but instantly regret it. All I do is anger the graze on my arm.

"Okay, you know what?" Izzy says loudly, "I'm going to find them."

"Izzy, you can't do that," I tell her, "You'll just get lost."

She scoffs. "No I won't. I'm not an idiot."

"I know you're not an idiot, but you don't need to go," I say, watching the sky grow brighter by the minute. "We need to stick together. We shouldn't have split up in the first place."

"Yeah, I know. That was a shitty decision on Doyle's part," Izzy grumbles.

I stop looking at the sky and turn on her. "Look, he did the only thing he could do, okay?" I snap, surprising myself and her, apparently.

"Jesus Christ, Wynne, sorry," She says, eyeing me warily.

"Sorry," I mumble, bringing my eyes back up to the sky. The sun will be bursting out on us at any minute.

"It's fine, I know you're stressed," she says, beginning to pace again. A moment later, she raises her voice, saying, "what do you think we should do, Seth?"

I see him shrug as he sits on the stump. "Wait, I guess."

"For how long though?" I ask, walking toward him.

He shrugs again. "As long as we can? I don't know, I'm not good at making decisions! Doyle always does that."

"Well, he always did that, considering the fact that we might never see him - or Rogan - again," Izzy juts in bitterly.

Her negative, yet very likely true comment, is met with nothing except for a muffled sob from Mara.

"Well, it's true!" She shouts, waving her katana around angrily. Thank Thor she's far away from us. "Sorry to burst your little naive optimism bubbles, but they're probably never coming back. Do you know how many people were shooting at them? And if they get caught, that bitch Natalia's probably going to make up some story about how Doyle and Rogan 'took advantage of her' or some shit and killed Matt because he tried to save her! I wouldn't put it past her!"

Izzy turns and glares at me, pointing at me with her katana, "You should've let me kill her when I had the chance."

I return her gaze, debating whether or not I should back away.

"I just don't want y'all to get your hopes up, only to have them crushed when by this time tomorrow, we're still waiting," she concludes, her voice lowered. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to the edge of the woods to see what's going on," she turns away from us, tucks her katana into a handle on her backpack, and starts toward the trees, "I won't be seen, I'll be really careful and quiet. Pretty soon the sun will be up, and I'll find my way back."

Seth rises slowly to his feet. "No."

Izzy stops, and looks over her shoulder at him. "What? Seriously, after the speech and everything, you're gonna try to stop -"

"Izzy, I'm not gonna let you go on a wild goose chase, okay?" Seth tells her, "sit down, go to sleep, something, just don't go looking for them. Like Wynne said earlier, we need to stay together."

Izzy glares at him before turning on her heel and marching up to him. She gets in his face and spits, "Make me stay." And despite the fact that he's over six inches taller than her, he and I both know that she can totally kick his ass.

I expect him to walk away. He knows by now not to mess with her. But to my utter bewilderment, he grabs her by both arms and -

A twig snaps.

I whip around in the direction of the noise - somewhere to my right in the woods. Whatever was about to go down between Izzy and Seth is forgotten as I hear both of them walk up behind me.

I hear the slide go back on Seth's gun, and the soft sound of Izzy's katana being drawn. I follow suit by pulling out my Glock, quickly pulling back the slide.

The seconds drag by as the sound of crunching leaves and breaking twigs nears us.

Whatever is approaching is making a lot of noise, too much to tell whether it's moving quickly or not.

"Doyle?" I call out, despite the fact that I should probably stay quiet in case it's one of Finley's guards. "Is that you?"

A second later, a runner bursts through the tree line, its rotten jaw hanging limply open, it's dead eyes bulging, arms outstretched - BANG!

Seth's bullet hits the center of its forehead, and it crumples to the ground.

We all breathe a collective sigh of relief. Disappointed, I uncock my gun and slip it back into the waistband of my jeans, and Seth starts back to the stump. But Izzy remains alert.

"Listen," she hisses.

Seth freezes, and I strain my ears. Not that the sound of a thousand feet slamming the ground and maniacal snarls is hard to hear.

Even before the first dead thing breaks into the clearing, we're all running in the opposite direction, Seth pulling Mara to her feet, Izzy screaming at us to hurry.

I scoop up my backpack and Seth's, Izzy flying past me, and a few feet away I hear Mara gasp, "Where's Pirate?!"

Seth shouts the dog's name, but there's really nothing else we can do.

All we can do....

                 ....is run.