It took us nearly an hour to get near their encampment. We drove for about thirty minutes, then walked the rest of the way. The slower pace was agony, but we were worried that the sound of the engine would give us away if we got too close in the truck. Again, Shane left the keys in the ignition.

Lisa led us through the last few houses toward what appeared to be a high school. I stared at the fences covered in black tarp. Barbed wire had been looped over the tops of the fences and along the bottom. I couldn't see or hear anyone from where we were, but that certainly didn't mean anything.

"Stop here," Lisa whispered, halting us at the edge of a house that was four blocks away from the fences encircling the school. "Any closer and we risk their sentries."

Both Kyle and Shane looked around, scanning for any signs of these look-outs. Eventually, they seemed satisfied that we weren't under any immediate observation. I fervently hoped that was because Lisa really had kept us out of their range, and not because they were too busy doing God-knew-what to Aaron. Kyle took up a position at the corner of the house, half turned so he could keep an eye on the school while also listening to Shane.

Both Lisa and I followed suit as Shane crouched down. He grimaced and quickly shifted to where he was kneeling, his bad leg held as straight as possible, then pulled his knife out of its sheath. We watched as he carved a rectangle onto the ground, followed by a line of smaller squares and ending with an 'X'.

"This is us," he said, tapping the 'X' with the blade. He scowled at the dry look I sent him but just moved the blade to the rectangle. "The school."

"And the houses," Lisa said, running her finger along the line of squares. She looked up at him with a raised eyebrow. "What else do you need to know about?"

Shane let out a sigh through his nose, glaring down at his rudimentary map. Then he pointed at the side of the rectangle closest to Lisa and myself. "What's here? Along the back?"

"Mm." She looked over her shoulder for a moment, then turned back to us. A thoughtful wrinkle had formed between her brows. "Nothing really. I think some of the sports fields are back there. Football, baseball, stuff like that."

Both Shane and I grimaced. Big empty fields didn't really lend themselves to a discreet approach. I looked up at Kyle, who was still leaning against the side of the house keeping one eye on the school and another on Shane's map. As Shane drew first a rough diamond-shape, then an oval, Kyle glanced over at me, frowning. Neither of us said anything though, knowing Shane would have understood the problem this presented already.

"And behind those?" Shane asked, gesturing to the empty ground around the map's new additions.

Lisa pursed her lips, fingers running nervously up and down the shoulder-strap of her rifle. "I think nothing. I don't think there are even really any houses back that way."

"You think?" I asked.

She scowled at my tone. "Yeah, I think. We don't exactly get out here all that much."

Now it was my turn to scowl, even as my stomach clenched itself into a tighter and tighter knot. I dreaded every whisper of wind through the branches of the trees lining the street, sure I was about to hear a scream or a gunshot at any moment. Sure that I was going to have to put another person I loved in the ground later that night.

"So we need to go see what's back there," Kyle said. He pushed off from the house and leaned over me to look at the map more clearly. He squeezed my shoulder. "Come on."

I glanced at him in surprise, then got to my feet. Shane looked up at us from where he was still kneeling next to the lines carved into the ground. The blade of his knife caught the sun and the reflected light danced over the dark lines as his hand shook slightly.

"Raleigh and I will be the fastest," Kyle said, sounding almost apologetic. "We can't risk—"

"My knee giving out," Shane cut him off. When he pushed to his feet, there was an audible popping sound from his knees, like they were proving a point. "I know."

I bit my lip at that, looking away. The past few years had been rough on us, Shane possibly most of all, and his body was beginning to show the signs of it more and more frequently. My mind went back to just the other night, when all it took was him jumping down from a ladder to make his knee give.

All it would take was one faulty step, one bad landing and our hopes of rescuing Aaron would be reduced dramatically.

"Go," Shane said, making me look over at him. His face was pale and strained, but his voice stayed steady. He nodded toward the school. "We need to know the lay of the land and Kyle's right. You two will move fast."

Both of us nodded at that.

"What about us?" Lisa asked, gesturing toward herself and Shane.

My heart froze inside me as I realized that my going with Kyle would leave Shane alone with her. I was sure I didn't trust her enough for that, even if I trusted that Shane could take care of himself. What if she somehow signaled those people? What if she ambushed him and traded him for Noah?

Trust is a hard won thing, and she certainly hadn't won it yet.

"We'll scout around here—," Shane began.

"Maybe we shouldn't do this," I blurted, cutting him off. At his and Kyle's incredulous looks, I shook my head, holding up my hands. "No, I don't mean—I just think maybe we should reevaluate a little here."

"Reevaluate what, Raleigh?" Shane asked, looking stunned. "Aaron's in there. No amount of reevaluating is going to change that. We have to go get him."

Kyle was frowning at me and even Lisa looked surprised. Panic was slowly beginning to bubble up inside of me again, getting harder and harder to choke back. "That's not what I meant," I said, my voice cracking a little. "Of course we need to get him. But we just rushed over here. Maybe we should have gone back."

"We've already been over this," Lisa said, bristling. "They're not soldiers. You can't make them fight your battles."

"I didn't mean them," I snapped back before turning back to Shane. "But Cassidy and Danielle would make a difference. Sacha would make a difference." My voice wavered again, my eyes beginning to sting. I didn't know how everything had spiraled so spectacularly out of control. I turned back to Lisa. "We don't need the help of your people. We take care of our own."

"I noticed," she said, her eyes cold and her fingers clenching into fists. "In fact, that is abundantly clear seeing as how it's your damn fault we're here in the first place! That we're in this situation at all."

"Okay, that's enough," Shane said, jumping in before I could dump any more gasoline on the fire sparking between Lisa and me. He carefully avoided my glare. "There's no use arguing about that anymore. We took the stuff. Maybe we shouldn't have. It can't be changed now." He turned to look at me. "I would like to have the others here, but I don't think we have that kind of time."

"Why not?" Kyle asked.

Shane blinked. "What?"

"Why don't we have the time?" Kyle ran a hand through his hair. He peered around the edge of the house just to jerk back, his finger going to his lips. We all froze, huddling up against the house beside him, careful to not make so much as a sound.

The longer we sat there, the faster my breath came, until I had to put a hand over my mouth to keep myself quiet. It had been awhile since I'd last been so terrified. I hated that I couldn't seem to keep it under control, but I knew I wouldn't survive losing another member of my family. Or, at least, I wouldn't survive well.

I don't think any of us would.

Shane threaded his fingers through mine, squeezing hard enough to almost be painful. I clung on to him, trying to force my breathing to slow down.

"What did you see?" Lisa whispered.

I turned my head to look over Lisa's head at Kyle as he licked his lips. He turned his head and carefully inched closer to the edge of the house again. He peered around the corner, his chest moving with rapid, nervous breaths.

"What did you—"

"I'm not sure," Kyle hissed, turning back around to look at Lisa beside him. "I thought I saw someone looking through a gap in the tarp."

We all stayed silent for a moment. Then Shane asked, "Do you see anything now?"

Again Kyle looked around the house, keeping as much of himself concealed as was physically possible. We waited as he stared at the fences around the school. When I couldn't bear the wait anymore, I turned to look at Shane, my knuckles whitening as my fingers gripped his. He was already looking at me, his eyes flicking over my head every now and then to look at Kyle.

I held his gaze, willing myself to be as calm as Shane appeared on the outside. He tipped a little closer to me so he could speak directly into my ear.

"I'm not sure how patient these people are. I don't know what they want." He sighed, his breath  warming my skin. "I don't really want to give them the time to figure out what it is they want."

"I don't see anything now," Kyle whispered before he slowly stood, moving back from the corner of the house. "Not that that really means anything."

"Then let's move back a little more, just to be safe," Lisa suggested, standing and walking back toward the street at the front of the house. The three of us traded a glance, but followed her all the same.

Shane grabbed my elbow as the other two passed, keeping us a step or two behind them as he continued to argue his position. "They know they got Vik. They don't know how bad they hit her, but I don't think they'll be expecting us to come at them so quickly."

"Why do you say that?" I whispered.

At the same time, we heard a muffled "Shit!" and the wet squelch of a weapon meeting flesh followed by the dull thud of a body hitting pavement. A chorus of excited growls followed. Kyle responded with a string of muttered expletives. 

Shane and I came out of the narrow gaps between houses and swore at the same time. Zombies littered the street, shambling their way toward Lisa and Kyle who were already standing over a couple of bodies. They stood back to back, weapons held ready in hand.

One problem at a time is a foreign concept in the post-apocalyptic world.

Shane had already darted toward his brother, knife flashing as he sank it into any rotted skull within reach. I lingered a moment at the edge of the house, slipping the hatchet free of my belt as I looked along the street. The dead were mostly coming from the north, though a few had begun to trickle into the street from the south.

We weren't cut off yet, but we needed to move fast if we didn't want to get trapped between the dead and the people who'd taken Aaron.

I turned just as a zombie lurched at me, the tips of its fingers little more than rotted bone. A small squeak of surprise left me and I leapt to the side, swinging at the same time. The blade of the hatchet went through what was left of the zombie's ear and promptly stuck in its skull. The hatchet was ripped from my hand, making me swear angrily. I bent to tear the weapon free, my eyes on the zombie closest to me. It stumbled forward, cloudy dead eyes locked hungrily on me.

The hatchet popped free just as the zombie's fingers brushed my shoulder. I lifted the hatchet, snarling back at the zombie. Before I could lower the hatchet, there was a muted pop. The side of the zombie's head exploded. I stood frozen, staring down at the body.

"Raleigh, run," Shane yelled. A hand grabbed my wrist, yanking me after them.

I realized Lisa was the one who'd grabbed me and pulled free of her grasp so we could run properly. We zig-zagged our way down the street, dodging as many of the dead as we could, cutting down the ones we couldn't.

There was a brief smattering of silencer-muted gunfire that made my shoulders bunch up toward my ears. Fear burned acidic in the back of my throat as bullets screamed past, ricocheting the asphalt at our feet. I saw Shane draw his pistol and turn. He let off a few shots, the sound explosive without a silencer. He yelled for me, waiting as Lisa and I caught up. My heart stopped as I saw chips of concrete thrown up at his feet, and Shane ducked, scrambling back a few steps. 

"Run," I screamed. "Just go!" 

Shane just raised his pistol again, but Kyle grabbed his arm and hauled him backwards, forcing him to turn and run.

"Goddammit," Lisa snarled, now holding her rifle and casting wild looks over her shoulder as she sprinted beside me. "Goddammit!"

"Where do we go?" I asked, feeling like a rabbit running right toward the snare.

Lisa's only answer was to dart off to the side, the rest of us scrambling to follow her as she ran through a narrow gap between houses. We scraped our way past an overgrown hedge and popped out onto the next street. The sound of shouting behind us let me know we hadn't gained much of a lead.

"Come on," Lisa gasped, angling toward a grey house with a bright red door on the other side of the street. She flew up the concrete steps and slammed into the door, fumbling with the doorknob. 

To my surprise, the door popped open and we all piled through, practically tripping over one another. Kyle slammed it closed behind us and we all stopped for a brief moment, panting and staring at one another.

"We'll circle," Lisa gasped, clutching at a stitch in her side. 

Sweat streamed down my face, burning my eyes. A screeching sound made me jump out of my skin and I turned to find Shane shoving a sofa toward the door, its feet squealing over the hardwood floors. Kyle leapt over the sofa and joined in the effort as Lisa locked the door.

"It can't hurt," she said in response my bewildered look before she began to thread her way through the house.

I met Shane's eyes and he nodded, gesturing for me to go first after her. My eyes couldn't adjust quickly enough to the sudden darkness, so I more or less tripped and fumbled my way through the house until Lisa opened the back door and peered outside. She waved us forward into the overgrown backyard.

Kyle shut the door as quietly as he could and we took off running again, following Lisa in a loop through the neighborhood. Every now and then we stopped to catch our breath and watch our back trail. We could still hear faint shouts—obviously they weren't worried about drawing the dead, which worried me—but we seemed to have shaken them for a moment.

The last time we stopped was in the yard of a house on the opposite side of the high school from where we'd started. Breathing hard, we peered through the gaps in a slat fence. Now there was plenty of movement, with their people buzzing around the front gates. Occasionally, one of them would leave the fences and run into the town, disappearing behind the line of houses.

"They won't expect us to be getting closer. They probably think we're headed back the way we came," Shane whispered. "They've just given us the best chance we'll get."

Hands on my knees and bent over to catch my breath, I just nodded. 

"We need to move fast," Kyle said. "If they know who we are, they might just kill Aaron."

We looked at Lisa, but she just shook her head hopelessly. "They're not much for negotiation," she said.

Acidic fear once again began to bubble in my veins, but I just swallowed hard against my dry throat and gestured for the brothers to lead the way. We crept along the line of houses until we were out of sight of the busy gate. Then we darted across the road to move right along the tarp-covered fence line. 

It wasn't the most ideal, but Shane had guessed right when he said they weren't expecting us to get closer to them. All of their attention seemed concentrated toward the front of the school.

Our luck held, and we were able to hit the back of the building. The back of the gym towered above the fence, a faded mural of a wildcat snarling at us from its lofty perch on the side of the wall.

"Yes," Shane whispered under his breath, pointing to the rolling hills that rose up from the fences circling the back of the school. They were dappled with trees and bushes, a perfect place to get a look at what we were heading into.

We traveled in silence as we hiked up the side of the nearest hill, moving from tree to tree and bush to bush, trying to make sure none of us were silhouetted against the sky. About three quarters of the way up the hill, we started to get a look at what lay behind the fences.

"I might need to take back a couple of the things I've said to Danny over the years," Kyle muttered under his breath as we stared at what used to be a football field. 

Now it was a lush field of corn, the plants nearly as tall as Shane.

"Why?" I asked, unable to stop the smile flickering at the corner of my mouth.

"Because thank God." He raised both eyebrows, shaking his head at the cover so kindly provided by our enemies.

"Maybe thank Him after we've got Noah and Aaron back," Lisa suggested, lifting her rifle to her shoulder so she could peer through the scope. "We've still got to get out."

"Well first we have to get in," Shane said. "Let's not get ahead of ourselves. Tell me about the fence line."

Lisa's shoulders bunched with irritation, but she just scanned along the fence. She made three sweeps before she was satisfied. "I can't see if there's anyone right up against it, but I don't see anyone along the back of the school or in the field."

We all turned to Shane and he just shrugged, suddenly looking exhausted. "Do we have any other choice?"

Silence met his question. Neither Kyle nor I were going to waste the energy answering and Lisa obviously knew she would be outvoted. 

One thing I will say for her, she never even hinted at backing down, at leaving us to our own fate. I have yet to figure out if it was because of Noah, because of Aaron, or simply because she didn't have it in her to abandon us just because it was dangerous.

She earned a lot of my respect that day. And I honestly am hoping that one day we can learn to move past what happened, because she is one of the few that I genuinely would like to be friends with among you.

"Then let's just go," I said. "Let's just do it." My fear had evaporated for the moment, leaving me with a hard knot of resolve in my chest. I didn't know how long it would last and wanted to make the most of it. In that moment, my fear over losing another member of my family wasn't ruling me.

Shane's throat bobbed and he closed his eyes for a second, his fingers beating a nervous tattoo against his thigh. When he opened his eyes, he looked directly at me. I had no idea what he saw on my face, but it prompted him to turn sharply on his heel and start picking his way down the hill.

Biting my lip, I followed after him, doing my best to follow in his footsteps and keep to cover. Behind me, I could hear Lisa and Kyle moving down the hill. It seemed to take less than a second before we were right next to the fence. We crouched there, checking weapons and listening, hoping that we would hear anyone on the other side.

Finally, Shane slipped a pair of wire cutters from one of his pockets. He grimaced at the thick wire of the chainlink but just nodded toward me. I slipped over to his other side, Kyle shifting into the spot I'd previously occupied.

We both threaded our fingers through the links and pulled, trying to keep the fence as still as possible while Shane wrestled with the cutters. The noise felt appallingly loud as he made his way through link after link.

I don't know if I really breathed the entire time. I suppose I must have, just because of how long it took him to create a slit everyone could fit through, but I was never actually conscious of drawing a breath.

The only time I was aware of breathing was when I let out a deep sigh of relief as Shane slipped the cutters back into his pocket. Kyle grabbed the new edge and slowly peeled it back as far as he could.

I moved forward but Shane's arm shot forward, barring my way.

"I'll go first," he said, and his tone brooked no argument.

So I just nodded and helped Lisa hold the fence in an effort to keep it from rattling. Shane took a deep breath before he laid on the ground on his back. He pulled his pistol from its holster, met my eyes one last time and wiggled under the fence. 

It felt like a small eternity passed before I heard his soft whistle, signaling that the coast was clear.

"Okay," Kyle said, nodding toward Lisa. "Let's get this show on the road."