Jim Barrow stretched out his legs on cold concrete, exhaling billows of smoke and passing the blunt sidelong to Jay, who took it silently. His half-amputated leg was propped up on a backpack—Yadiel had said he was pretty sure he needed to elevate it.

"You know, all these cars are basically free for the taking," Jim mused.

Jay glanced over briefly, eyes half-closed. "Not much good with water in the engines. Or without keys." Too slow he realized they were high up enough that most of these cars were untouched by the tsunamis and somebody probably knew how to hotwire a car, anyway. Jim either didn't see fit to correct him or didn't notice.

"The stuff inside, I mean."

"You wanna raid people's cars?"

He shrugged. "Someone's going to. Might as well be us."

Rosalynn wandered over, undoubtedly to check on Jay. It was everyone's obligated kindness now, a responsibility they all seemed too afraid to shirk after already having lost one member of the class. Or she was trying to get away from Fray's loud arguing with Rich about God-knew-what. "How you guys doin'?"

"Fantastic as always," Jim said cheekily. Rosalynn released a half-laugh and pulled a section of her hair over one shoulder, running her fingers through it. It was a tangled mess after everything they'd been through, and she was already attempting to flatten her appearance back to normal, seemingly self-consciously.

"I'm starving," she muttered.

Jay huffed a cloud of smoke her way, holding up the blunt in offering. "Takes the edge off."

Rosalynn eyed it uneasily and shook her head, shoving her hands in the pockets of her capris. Like everyone else, her soaked clothes still stuck to her like shrink-wrap. Jim felt it necessary to politely avert his eyes from the sleeveless lavender crop top plastered to her skin. His own mildly ironic white tee that he'd grabbed thoughtlessly during a thrift store haul—it read I AM A MOM AGAINST VAPING!—was probably looking equally see-through. "No thanks."

Jay frowned at his leg, wincing as he adjusted its position. "Gah, I'm bleeding again already." He was taking the whole thing surprisingly well, Jim noted. He hadn't expected such resiliency from him. Then again, he had little choice.

"Kalani's coming with bandages."

Their woodshop teacher approached as if on cue, bringing first aid supplies. Seeing the boys made him halt in his tracks.

"What are you two doing?"

Jim looked at him as if he'd grown two heads. He figured out what he meant quickly enough, but playing ignorant was more fun than acknowledging the oddity of the situation.

"Havin' a smoke. Why?"

He shut his eyes, bringing a hand to his temples, before opening them again. "You can't get away with acting like this just because—"

"Just because the world ended?" Rosalynn deadpanned with a slight glimmer in her eye. Jimmy watched her curiously. He didn't know much about Rosalynn Kay. The most he'd ever heard her talk to any of them before today was that time she'd cussed out Jay for climbing on the roof of their team's shed before it was done—which had collapsed it—and Rich for daring him to do it.

"I hate to be the bearer of bad news," Jay said lazily. "But school's out. You're not our teacher anymore." He shrugged. "You're just Kal."

It was an uncomfortable truth, and a step too far so soon.

Mr. Kalani clenched his jaw, stepped forward, and snatched the weed from his hand, tossing it aside. Jay would have looked scandalized if he wasn't clearly so relaxed and unbothered. "We're not doing this today. Today you're going to behave. Both of you," he added sternly, shooting Jim a pointed look which he pretended not to notice. "We're all focused on making a plan for our survival, and you're both going to contribute."

Jay leaned back. "Well, the painkill was good while it lasted."

Jim looked over his shoulder to glance toward the others, catching several of his classmates in his peripherals. Some were pacing, others downright panicking, others making heated conversation. "Yadiel still tryin' the phone?"

Rosalynn shook her head, her voice low. "Don't mock him."

"He's not gonna get service in a parking garage."

"I know." Her eyes cast toward the ground, shoes squishing as she kicked up a few stray pebbles. "I already tried."

Kalani crouched down beside Jay, unraveling the bloodied t-shirt covering his residual limb and tearing off a length of medical tape with his teeth, beginning to re-dress the open wound with gauze. "This should hold you over until we can find somewhere to clean it and sew it up. We're going to monitor the swelling, okay?"

Slowly everyone congregated to their smoking spot, evoking an amused sigh from Jim when Lasko began a coughing fit worthy of an asthma patient. It made him a little worried that he might actually have asthma, but he seemed to be fine after wrinkling his nose and waving away the lingering smoke. They hesitantly circled around, most eventually coming to sit on the ground and muttering amongst one another. Fray remained standing, hauling backpacks into a cluster in the middle of the group.

Madeline had pulled an old-fashioned radio player from her bag and was shaking the water from it, placing it on the ground in front of her. She made a half-hearted attempt to dry the outside with the hem of her shirt, which turned out to be rather counterintuitive given that her clothes had sustained much more water than the radio that had been, at least mostly, shielded from the tsunami.

She turned it on, frowning when it only emitted static, and picked it up to shake it out some more.

"Alright. This is all the supplies we've got," announced Fray, gesturing widely to the pile of backpacks, first aid, and stray pocket clutter that had been dumped in the center of the semicircle the kids had formed. Among the more useful things were Sam's assortment of stolen tools, Yadiel's and Rosalynn's respective emergency kits, and Max's multi-use pocketknife. Fray's own pockets had really only contained paperclips, loose hardware from class, a crumpled receipt he'd forgotten to throw away, a folded copy of the bell schedule, and a half-empty pack of slightly soggy gum. He unwrapped a stick and popped it in his mouth anyway; at least it gave him a minimal way to expel nervous energy and distracted him from his hunger.

"Once things die down, we should be able to travel back to the school," Kalani told everyone, wincing as water crashed loudly somewhere outside. From here, the biting cold of the wind and rain coming in through the open windows barraged their faces, making it impossible to ignore how freezing they all felt in their wet clothes.

"Right now we should be prioritizing our safety," Yadiel pointed out. "Food, drinkable water, medical assistance." He glanced around. "This'll have to suffice for shelter for now."

Fray nodded. "Agreed. I don't think we can risk going out to find food until the rain dies down, though." He kicked around the pile of stuff, brushing things out of the way to reveal someone's lunch box. "We can pool together the food we have and all share it. It won't be a lot." Several of them probably ordered school lunch, and others hadn't brought their lunch boxes with them in their backpacks when they'd initially ventured out from class into the parking lot that got them stuck in the storm. Of those, several backpacks hadn't survived the tsunami, his included. He wouldn't even have his phone if it wasn't plastered to his ass in the back of his cargo shorts. Not that it was much good now, anyway. Waterlogged and no service.

A couple of protective lunch box owners made disapproving faces, but they seemed to know better than to argue. This was the best they were all going to get, and they were going to have to learn to share—there was no telling when their next meal might be.

Aziel helped the two of them organize what they had: sandwiches, bags of chips, a container of trail mix, some scattered fruit and vegetables, a package of Zebra Cakes. Fray frowned, assessing the number of people around him. Fourteen, if he included himself. They wouldn't be able to feed everyone, even temporarily.

"Make sure the girls get food first. And Jay," he added.

"Seems a little sexist," Rosalynn commented, Aida nodding her agreement. Rich nodded vehemently, adding a "very sexist", which Fray suspected was motivated by personal gain. Madeline, however, wasted no time snatching a sandwich from Yadiel's hands.

"As confident as I am that you three can starve just as well as us menfolk, I'd prefer to be polite. We don't have enough for everyone. But we could always just hand things out in alphabetical order instead."

"Relax," Rosalynn said easily, folding her arms. "Take a joke, will you?"

Fray eased his rigid posture, realizing how tense he was. "Whatever."

"Still a little sexist," Aida pointed out, but there wasn't much arguing after that. Madeline had gotten the radio working, although most of the channels had gone dead. She spun the volume up, continuing to fiddle with it.

Henry brought a hand to one ear, face contorting into severe distaste. "Oh, augh, what's that awful noise?"

"Country music," said Max.

He turned beet red. "Oh. Sorry. I don't mean to be rude."

"No, it's horrible."

Madeline switched it and grimaced, not looking especially happy with the peppy J-Pop that replaced the previous working channel. She changed it again. Static. Static. Everyone rolled their eyes when Justin Beiber came on, except for Aida, who began to hum along absentmindedly, and Max, who might have even been mistaken for enjoying it, but certainly wasn't, thank you very much. Finally, a talk show came on. News. Madeline looked disappointed, like it wasn't what she was hoping for.

"The reverberations of the fallen asteroid have made their way up to the United States, where the South is taking the brunt of the environmental damage. Reports of earthquakes, oncoming tropical storms, and even tsunamis are sweeping the lower half of the nation, especially on the east coast, where entire cities were demolished this morning. Sources say the president will be releasing a statement within the hour. We're coming to you live from Flint, Michigan, and will be back soon with more updates."

Everyone had fallen silent, and when Jimmy finally spoke, all he said was, "Michigan?"

"I think it's a national broadcast or something," Madeline muttered.

"This is one of my apocalypse nightmares, right?" Max said uneasily. "I'm gonna wake up and all you idiots will be gone?"

Madeline didn't look at him, eyes constantly moving and always averting eye contact. "This is one of my nightmares where only like, six stations on the radio actually work."

"Lines must be down," Jay mumbled hazily, one foot in numbing stupor and the other perched precariously in reality. Jim was starting to feel the 'reality' bit more than he'd like.

"Or the people are dead," Henry said quietly, before his eyes widened in alarm at what he'd just said. Everyone shot him sour looks. "I mean—" He cleared his throat. "I mean, they could just be busy. Or the radio towers could have suddenly stopped working. But radio stations don't use power lines."

"Smartass," Aida huffed under her breath.

Fray let the words from the news show hosts swirl aimlessly around his brain as he and Yadiel passed out food. The only people who actually got the chance to eat much of anything were the girls, Jay, Az, and Lasko—the latter three because it would have bothered Fray not to take care of the obvious weakest in the group. Out of everyone else, the lunchbox owners got first dibs, leaving the last of them with very little or nothing at all.

Sooner or later, they were going to have to venture out and find food.

He considered the asteroid, catering into the earth and crushing everything in its path, and what that meant. The world was not over, only part of it. After all, he and his classmates were still here, and so were the reporters on the radio, somewhere up in Flint, Michigan. He had always thought that these sorts of things would be sudden and unforgiving, but maybe after all the world would end slowly, one devastating storm at a time.

Or maybe he was too cruel, too pessimistic, to think of it as the end, to lose sight of hope. But he did not know if his father and mother and his brother were alright, and with no way of knowing, he had nothing—nothing to anchor him to before, to what had existed just hours ago.

So even if the world remained, his life could be gone. All that was left to hold onto was this gaggle of half-competent highschoolers and a woodshop teacher. He hadn't come to terms with it yet, hadn't cemented it as feeling real, but his family could be dead. His future, certainly, had enormously shifted; from plans of adulthood to plans of surviving in the moment. Fray had nothing but what was right in front of him.

▿▿▿

Waiting for the rain to die down was agonizing with hunger tearing viciously at his stomach.

"Okay, I'm going out," Fray eventually told everyone, hefting up the nail gun from Sam's backpack. He felt uneasy leaving the parking garage without any sort of tool or weapon, but the circ saw's motor had given out, and a jigsaw or a drill wouldn't exactly do much good, so this was the best he had, for now. "Azzy is obviously coming, but I want Sam too. You're the one with the gun. And... oh no." Fray trailed off as he realized who Sam's partner was. "Alright, Lassie, I guess that means you too. You cool with that?" His eyes flicked to Lasko, who was straightening the collar on his button-down and looking very nervous indeed.

"He's cool with it," Sam said immediately, jumping to his feet and buzzing with an energy that sent him teetering from one foot to the other. "Let's get outta here."

Lasko made a squeaking noise that might have been anywhere between a yes and an absolutely not.

Mr. Kalani, who was nearby, turned to him, alarmed. "Fray," he began patiently, his voice low, "we don't know what's going to be out there—not just the storms, but survivors, too—and we have no way of communicating with one another."

"I know," Fray replied as if it were obvious, tapping the nail gun with far less patience. "What about it?"

His teacher pulled him aside, taking the both of them behind a pillar, one row of cars over from the students nearest to them. Fray stared him down; or rather, he stared up, as he stood nine inches below Kal, an often humiliating five-foot-six and the shortest player on the basketball team. Both of them remained in place, defiant and immovable, one giant brute of a man and one teenage boy with something sharp in his eyes.

"You're not just going to start making decisions for everyone all of a sudden."

"I'm not," said Fray smoothly. "I'm making decisions for myself, and the boys are coming willingly. I'm not forcing anyone to do anything, like, I dunno, stay with a partner twenty-four-seven."

Kal shot him a look. "I'm the adult here. I'm trying to keep everyone safe."

"Whether you like it or not, Kal, you and I are both adults." His frown deepened, but Fray did not budge. "You're not going to stop me. I refuse to hang around here like a sitting duck. If I don't come back, I don't come back. Whatever."

Kalani folded his arms, clearly not liking his passive dismissal of the very real danger at hand, which Fray figured he was better off not acknowledging if he was going to keep his calm. "If we go anywhere, we need to go back to the school."

Fray ran his fingers through the annoying locks of hair plastered to his forehead, making them stick up, still wet. "Jay's in no position to travel. I'm not going to starve in the meantime. Besides, for all we know, there's nothing left at the school."

Kal's jaw tightened at the suggestion.

"You might be a legal adult," he said, finally, "but it's still my responsibility to watch over you, and everyone else. That's my job."

"You weren't there!" Fray snapped, surprised at his own outburst but not nearly as surprised as his teacher, who drew back, eyes widening. He slumped, and his violent tone fell once more, giving way to resignation. "You weren't there," he muttered, eyes darting away. "And that's not your fault, but I took care of it myself. I can take care of things myself."

Neither of them really needed to voice aloud what he was talking about. They both knew.

There was a long, uncomfortable silence.

"Alright." Kal straightened, looking at him carefully. "I guess I trust you, kid. I'll be here, watching everyone." He hesitated. "Don't get into trouble."

Fray exhaled in relief. Maybe a small part of him had needed his approval after all.

"We'll be back." He didn't know when.

▿▿▿

Jay wouldn't stop squinting.

"What happened to your glasses?"

Jay glared at him, like that was the dumbest question he'd ever heard. "Take a wild guess."

"You could always steal Lasko's glasses. Well—whenever he comes back. You definitely need them more. Dracula." Blind as a bat. The insult was half-hearted.

"I wouldn't wear Lasko's dorky-ass Harry Potter glasses if they were the last pair on the planet."

Jim traced invisible circles on the concrete. "You think everyone at school is okay?" The words that came out of his own mouth surprised him, leaving a sour taste behind and making his lips curl. The way he'd said it made him sound vulnerable. Like he cared.

"I mean, it's supposed to be a flood shelter." He was echoing something Jimmy had said to Lasko much earlier. "And we're fine. Fine-ish." Jay turned toward the other side of the garage. "What—what the hell are they doing?"

Several of their peers were taking off their wet shirts, presumably to wring the water from them. Jim cupped his hands over his mouth, taking the opportunity to poke fun at the jocks. "Now is not the time for an orgy!"

Rich spun, his perpetual grin wide. "You sure you don't wanna join in?"

"Thanks for the invite, but I think I'll pass," Jim called back, resting his hands behind his head. The girls minus Madeline had elected to stay over here, away from the rampant testosterone-fest. Rosalynn was half-asleep near Jay with her arms folded tightly over her chest, occasionally jolting awake and glancing around apprehensively, while her assigned partner leaned against the wall, doing what Jimmy could only describe as shamelessly staring.

Aida stood with her hands stuffed in her hoodie pockets for any sense of warmth she could get, watching a few of the boys wring out their shirts and pull them back over their heads, and thought that teenage boys weren't quite so appealing as they always seemed to be in movies. The absence of mystical washboard abs and Channing Tatum bone structure was staggering. Even among the jocks there were only a few notable exceptions, namely Rich and Max—and Sam, she remembered—but as far as she could tell they were kind of assholes. Like it was a trade-off.

As if on cue, Max spotted her and shot a glare in her direction. "What are you looking at?" he snapped. She quickly glanced elsewhere, reddening.

If he didn't want people to stare, he probably shouldn't have gotten a Spiderman tattoo on one arm and a Nightwing tattoo on the other.

"Hey, Jay," Jim whispered, before swearing under his breath. "No, you can't come. I keep forgetting you're crippled now."

Jay chucked a nearby rock at him for the comment. "Go where?"

"If we're gonna raid cars, we have to slip out while Kal's not looking."

"Oh, this again."

Jim ignored him. "Hey, Aida, you wanna come with?"

Aida's eyes bloomed wide, crystal blue. "I—I think I'm supposed to stay with my partner."

"Eh, she's asleep. She won't notice."

Rosalynn's fierce dark gaze snapped in Jim's direction, suddenly fully awake. "What won't I notice?"

Jim's face fell. "Dang it."

"She's not going anywhere with you," Rosalynn said curtly, to which Jim rolled his eyes.

"Relax. You're not her mom."

She shot him a nasty look. "We don't so much as go to the bathroom alone." She meant girls, he quickly realized. "She's not gonna follow a man, by herself, to who knows where. I wouldn't expect you to understand."

He fiddled with the hem of his shirt. "Trust me, I understand more than you think."

Rosalynn's eyes narrowed. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He swallowed, straightening. "Nothing. I'm just saying you don't know me. Don't be condescending." He scratched at the side of his hair. "Anyway, I'll just go myself. Don't let the cripple fall over and hurt himself while I'm gone."

Jim successfully ducked the rocks that time. Rosalynn shook her head, stretching to her feet. "Are you kidding? I'd kill to do literally anything but sit here."

Aida pushed off the wall, eyes sparkling. Damn, Jim realized, she was tall. "We can all go."

"You guys are all leaving me?" Jay whined, and Jim shushed him.

"I can't drag you around by your good leg, now can I? Now keep quiet so Kalani doesn't look over here."

"He's not paying attention to us," Jay grumbled. "He's trying to stop everyone from harassing that British kid."

Jim glanced over. Sure enough, Max and Rich were entertaining themselves by making ginger jokes. Henry did not look happy. Kal kept badgering them to leave him alone. Usually they would just fight amongst each other, but after being here in the parking garage for a while with nothing to do that had gotten boring. Henry was a quiet kid, an easy target.

"Okay," Jim whispered, sparing Jay one last half-sympathetic glance. "Don't die. We'll see you."

"Bring me back some aspirin or something."

"We will, we will."

Jim took a hammer Sam had stolen from the school out of their collective pile of things, dangling it at his side and triple-checking to make sure no one was looking. He and the girls made as little noise as possible, slinking back behind a row of cars and ducking out of sight. They started down a ramp to the level below—he didn't want to risk their teacher spotting him smashing into cars. He smacked the hammer against his palm a few times, wondering if it would actually provide enough force to break into a car.

They scouted cars through the windows, on the lookout for anything worth taking. If anyone planned to come back and get into their car again after the storms, oh well.

"We're just gonna have to check glove compartments," Jim decided with a shrug when nothing stood out as particularly valuable. He picked the nearest SUV, then readied his swing. He hesitated, lowering his arm and flashing Aida and Rosalynn a grin. "You want to do the honors?"

Aida wasted no time in taking the hammer from him. He was surprised at the force of her swing, but then again, she'd been surprising on the first day of construction class when she won second place in the hammering contest. Maybe he'd underestimated her a little.

"Try the other side," he suggested when the hammer wasn't initially as effective as any of them would have liked it to be, and she flipped it to the sharp end. "There we go."

It took several hits to crack and eventually shatter the glass—she probably weighed more than the average female junior given how tall she was, but she still had thin arms. She dropped the hammer to her side, exhaling heavily.

"Wow! Okay. I feel so scandalous, like we're breaking the law."

"Well, yeah," Rosalynn said, and Aida's eyes darted to her as if that were just now dawning on her. Jim almost laughed.

Jim reached through the window, careful to avoid falling glass, and unlocked the door from the inside, swinging it open. He hopped into the passenger seat, yanking open the glove compartment. His lips pursed into a disappointed frown. What he was looking for certainly wasn't here. Just paperwork, some travel tissues, pain medication. He took the pill bottle and ducked around to clamber into the backseat, but neither that nor the trunk contained anything especially interesting. He huffed an annoyed sigh.

Rosalynn and Aida were watching him as he slid out. He shook the pill bottle in the air. "This is all I got. Let's keep looking."

So that was precisely what they did, breaking into window after window, sometimes coming up with flashlights or food stashed in the middle compartment, often coming up with nothing. The three of them shared a half-empty box of stale Cheez-its someone had clearly been hoping to finish that had been left on the passenger floor. Some people actually bothered to lock their glove boxes, but it was usually nothing a little finessing couldn't fix.

"Why do I get the feeling you've stolen before?" Rosalynn asked wryly.

He waved her away, turning the lock in with a satisfying click. "I haven't. I've just gotten locked out of my house a lot." Or forgotten the passcode to the home safe. Or been locked in rooms for hours by my mom. He didn't say any of that.

His eyebrows practically shot off his head upon seeing what was inside.

"No wonder this one was locked." Jim pulled out a handgun, handling it like it was nuclear. He fumbled through the gun safety rules in his head. Never treat a firearm like it's loaded. No, wait. The opposite. He quickly pointed it away from the girls, angling it downward and pulling the slide back to check for rounds. Shoot. There was one in the chamber. He was going to eject it, but Rosalynn motioned with her hand.

"Give it to me, I'm tired of being unarmed."

After a moment's hesitation, he handed it over. He would rather leave it behind, but he understood where she was coming from. "Fine by me. I don't want it."

Rosalynn dropped the magazine. "Nine rounds. Plus the one." She snapped it back in. "That's all we've got. Don't jumpscare me."

Aida ogled her new weapon with equal parts fascination and envy. "Sick."

These two were a tad less delicate than he was pretty sure teenage girls were supposed to be. That would probably turn out to be a good thing.

Rosalynn kept the gun low and mostly out of sight, which did little to ease his mind, but guns just weren't especially his thing. After a run-in with a real threat in the house once, in which he was forced to use one on an actual person, the excitement was lost on him. Now guns—and being home alone—just proved stressful. He hammered in a few more windows to take his mind off it. Aida was content to take turns so long as she got to do some of the raiding.

This whole exercise was making him realize that most people were terribly boring. Jay would be so disappointed to learn that no one seemed to have any drugs in their car. He pocketed a pack of cigarettes, though, just in case he wanted them. Of course, that wasn't what Jim had been hoping to find. He didn't even care at this point what it was—vodka was too much to hope for, but he'd kill for anything at all; cheap beer, hell, he'd even settle for hard lemonade—

"Ugh, this one's just got alcohol in the glove box," Aida said, shining a flashlight into the front seat of a hatchback. Jim had never swiveled in one direction so fast.

He was at her side immediately. Sure enough, this one was equipped with a cooled glove compartment, stacked with cans of Bacardí cocktail. Rum wasn't really his style, but hey, a fix was a fix. Aida jolted in surprise when he snatched up three of them.

"What are you—"

"It's illegal to keep those in there," he said matter-of-factly. "I'm helping this guy out."

Jim, Rosalynn, and Aida sat against a wall, surrounded by cars, endless rows of no one. The first can popped open with a sizzle, and it took barely two minutes for him to knock it back. The second made both of the girls look at him warily.

He held it out to Aida in offering. "You want some?"

She shook her head, and he shrugged, offering it to Rosalynn instead. She just stared at it.

"I've seen you drinking vodka in French."

The comment was so sudden it made him laugh, just a little. "Yeah." He didn't know anyone had noticed. That anyone was paying enough attention.

Even his father didn't notice, but some girl from his French class did. Ironique.

After some apparent mental deliberation, Rosalynn took it. This surprised him, too. Both of them were full of surprises, he decided. He flicked the top of the third can. It hissed open.

"So, Rosalynn Kay," he mused. "Tell me about yourself. What's behind all that mystery?"

She paused before answering. "I don't really know," she replied quietly.

"Well—" He tapped out a rhythm on the concrete. "I'll start. You're the new kid. You're afraid of natural disasters. You hate living here."

Her brow furrowed. "How do you know I'm—"

"You were monitoring that storm report like a hawk, and you're one of those crazy people who takes the asteroid seriously."

"Who took the asteroid seriously," Aida pointed out.

Ah, yes. Now the truth was plain and simple, wasn't it? No denying something that had already cratered into the earth, although he was sure someone would find a way to. The thought was funny enough to bring a smirk to his face.

"You ride your bike to school," he went on. "And I know you work a lot, 'cause you're always rushing to finish your homework in class right before it's due, and you're not the lazy type." He shifted against the wall, turning to her. "So I think there's something very mysterious about you."

Rosalynn shrugged, eyes flicking to Aida, and switched the subject. "What about you? You're quiet."

Aida hugged her knees to her chest. "I don't think I'm all that mysterious. I just get nervous around people. I'm a pretty boring person. My family is normal. I've lived here all my life. I just got my first job. I play softball. I go to our shitty school and study for my shitty classes. That's it, really."

"No, that's good," said Rosalynn softly. "Hold onto that."

Aida poked Jim with her shoe. "And you?"

His eyes sort of just conveyed a dead, emotionless stare, but he smiled all the same. "Just trying to move through every day. One foot in front of the other."

The three of them sat in silence for a while, and eventually Jim's can tumbled to the ground, eyelids having grown heavy, and he slept off his hunger.

▿▿▿

"They'll come back, right?" Yadiel's slightly accented voice pulled Max from his thoughts.

He cleared his throat. "Yeah. Azzy's with them." His confidence grew as he said it, forcing himself to believe it. "Fray wouldn't let anything happen to Az. He's like a little brother to him."

Henry made a face. "They're the same age, aren't they?"

Rich had finally exhausted some of his boundless energy, and had settled for kicking around a stray piece of trash like a soccer ball. "He's everybody's little brother," he explained with a glimmer in his eye. "'Little' as in short. Not 'little' as in young."

This made Max chuckle. Rich relaxed, relieved he'd gotten Max to chill out. He could tell he was pissed being away from Azzy and Fray, and it didn't help that he only had this bunch for company. Rich was cool with everybody in construction class—the more the merrier—but Max was usually on edge, even around the rest of the football team. Fray didn't even play football, but it seemed like he had a sort of calming effect on him. Of course, Aziel didn't play anything. They'd all just adopted him for whatever reason.

Rich knew Max didn't really like him, only tolerated him, but he didn't have a whole lot of feelings to hurt, so it was fine. Max tolerated everyone. Rich could only try to have fun and make light out of dark situations, and he couldn't make everyone like him. It was funny, though, how this group seemed so clearly to eye him with irritation. He was typically surrounded by football or baseball or basketball players, all of whom seemed to think he was the hottest thing since stuffed-crust pizza. But Madeline, the girl who hid behind Yadiel and glared at everyone, passive-aggressively turned up the volume on her radio every time he talked. He would have found her annoying if that wasn't hilarious.

"Kalani's too lax," Yadiel muttered under his breath. "He shouldn't've let them just leave like that."

Rich let his usual grin settle onto his face. "They're fine. You guys all worry too much. Az couldn't find a road on a map, but I'm sure one of them can navigate. It's not like we don't all live here. Just talk about somethin' else."

Mr. Kalani was nursing his migraine, Rich noticed as he glanced over. He kept pacing and clutching his head, but he gave up eventually and came to sit with the rest of them, shutting his eyes. Dried blood crusted under his nose.

"You think you've got a concussion?" Max inquired, looking at him with uncharacteristic concern. Kal rubbed the bridge of his nose, sighing and sitting back.

"Probably. But I'll be fine. Just dizzy. And maybe—not making the best decisions."

Letting them go, he meant. "If they're not back by tomorrow we'll have no choice but to travel on our own," Yadiel said quietly. "But we should sleep."

Kal drew in a breath. "No, you're right. Hey—how's Jay doing?"

Rich bounced on the balls of his feet, pointing across the lot. "We don't have him. He's over there with Black James."

"I told you, you can't just call them Black James and White James," Max said with an eye roll. Max had to roll his eyes about a thousand times a day. Rich didn't know how he didn't constantly have a headache.

"Okay, then. Tall James and Average James it is."

"Jay would club you over the head if he ever heard you call him 'Average James'."

"I'll just run away," Rich said, amused by the hypothetical. "What's he gonna do, hop—"

"Where did they go?" Mr. Kalani asked suddenly, getting to his feet. Rich turned, frowning.

"Who—"

Kal was saying lots of words that were not appropriate for a high school teacher's vernacular. Curious, Rich followed him to the supplies pile, where it appeared that Jay had dozed off. Aida, Rosalynn, and Jay's assigned partner, henceforth to be called Tall James, were nowhere to be found. Mr. Kalani's dizziness was getting to him. They must have left without him noticing.

Kal shook Jay awake. "Where did they go?" The urgency in his voice was a bit silly. It wasn't as if they could've gone far.

"What?" Jay mumbled groggily. He rubbed one eye with the broad of his palm. "Oh, Jimmy just left to go... raid cars. Or something."

Rich's jaw dropped. "Somebody is doing illegal things without me?"

"He said he'd bring me back some pain meds."

A growl escaped from deep in Kal's throat, his eyes already scouring the garage. "You know, I thought the lot of you were a pain in class. Apparently I hadn't seen the half of it."

Rich beamed. "Did I ever tell you about my time in juvie, Mr. Kal?"

He let out a sigh that conveyed all the exhaustion of an adult left in charge of a large group of teenagers. "Let's just go find them."

▿▿▿

As it turned out, Rich was right—the girls and Jim hadn't gone far. Mr. Kalani seemed more disappointed than he was angry when he found them just one floor down, Rosalynn and Aida playing tic-tac-toe on the concrete using rocks as chalk and Jimmy knocked out cold.

"You know better than this," Mr. Kalani said, shaking his head and wiping blood off his nose with his collar. Rosalynn just shrugged, giving him a soft, indecipherable smile.

He kicked the cans out of sight and lifted up Jim by the shoulder. His eyes fluttered open, but he was only dizzily half-awake.

Rich beckoned for Aida to give him the hammer. "Hang on, hang on, I wanna try."

Kal swiveled. "Don't—" But it was too late. He'd already smashed in a window, giddy with the power in his hands. "Richard!"

The hammer dropped to his side. "Ew, full name. Now I feel all guilty for some reason."

"We're really going to have to address this drinking problem of yours," Kal grunted as he helped Jim stumble forward. "But not right now. I already have enough of a headache."

Rosalynn stuffed her newly acquired gun in her waistband while he wasn't looking, trailing behind him and hoping that he wouldn't notice. In hindsight, she regretted picking out this cute crop top this morning. It didn't do much for hiding weapons.

When they returned, Jim stopped just short of passing Jay, mumbling something like, "Wait, wait, wait." He dug the bottle out of his pocket, tried to hand it to him, dropped it. "Advil."

Jay reached across the floor for the pill bottle and shook it. "You're a real one. You can murder Fray for me next."

Jimmy performed a staggering salute.

"You think we should leave tomorrow?" Yadiel asked later, while several boys were piling together homework and old papers from backpacks in the absence of sticks and attempting with Jay's lighter to start a fire. A few handfuls of leaves collected from near the windows were being tossed in.

Mr. Kalani worried his lip. "I don't like it. But we'll have no choice."

"If they're not back—"

"If they're not back, we'll get back to civilization, we'll send somebody out to find them." He sounded surer than Yadiel felt, but maybe that was the hunger he was feeling. His sister, Paola—that's what he remembered the police saying. We'll find her. She'll come back. Today, his little sister would have waited for him to pick her up from school. And it was just like that day, waiting for hours for Paola to come, feeling his blood turn to lead, knowing something was wrong, except this time he was the one who never arrived.

Nayelis was somewhere, alone. He could only hope alive. Yadiel's classmates were somewhere, alone. Maybe they were coming back. But he'd seen this happen, and when people disappeared, they never came back.

His teacher flicked a stray leaf into the blooming fire. "Maybe they'll be back by tonight."

They did not return that night, nor in the following morning, when the sun rose over a city reduced to ruins.

⸻