They'd been traveling for so long that the sky was beginning to darken around them. Fray had tried a thousand times to determine the time, but had so far been unsuccessful, and none of his companions seemed to be equipped with a watch, waterproof or otherwise. The reports had arrived that the asteroid had hit early on in fourth period, the storms arriving at the class's doorstep some forty or fifty minutes later. So they must have left the classroom to venture into the parking lot around noon or sometime a little ways past it. How many hours had it been since, barely clinging onto survival amidst the waves, and walking through floodwater, and idling about once they'd reached the parking garage? How long had they been walking now, if the sun was beginning to fade over the horizon?

"We're gonna figure out how to get back after all this, right?" Aziel asked, making Fray's eyes, focused on the road ahead, slide sideways. Everything they were wearing felt oddly permanent, stuck to their skin and frozen in time. Like this was what they'd live and die in. Az was wearing a tee printed with a colorful graphic of some exotic bird he wasn't enough of a dork to recognize, which was par for the course with his usual attire. Sam's denim jacket was tied around his waist, shirt long gone, and Lasko looked starkly out of place in a cream-colored, collared button-up and a pair of professional slacks. "Back home, I mean. Because I'm finally almost due to get my braces off," Az was saying, baring his teeth and running a finger over teal ligatures. "I'm not wearing these stupid things forever."

"You should've thought of that before waiting to get them until you were sixteen," Fray replied with dry humor in his tone, holding an arm out to bar Aziel from going any further as he peered around the corner. All their friends, and himself, were a little protective of Az, which was a phenomenon he could only possibly attribute to the baby effect. He was small—yes, even smaller than Fray, thank you—and wore t-shirts with animals on them and had the personality of an eager, friendly puppy. Even at school, nobody got away with giving him a hard time, under any circumstance. Generally, he was a people magnet anyway, everyone always seeming to gravitate towards his charming constant chatter and his million-dollar smile. It was something Fray would never understand, since people tended to consider him a stuck-up, bossy asshole. Well, that was what Rich said, anyway. And his mom always claimed he was "too insensitive".

The roads and parking lots swam with strewn cars, trees, and everything else under the sun. Bodies were beginning to float to the surface as the tide pulled out, bogged down by debris and palm branches. It was an effing catastrophe. But in the center of the shopping center that lay before them stood an all-too-familiar grocery store. Fray exhaled. They'd made it. They'd found a Publix. Thank God.

In the middle of a silent, lifeless world where the only things that survived crawled with hungry eyes in the shadows of fallen remnants of everything that had existed mere hours ago, Fray and the other boys included, this felt like a rush of home.

The enormous, rounded green letters smiled down upon them as they trekked across the lot towards the store, sidestepping trash and lumber and weaving around vehicles permanently jerked in odd positions—some whose drivers had appeared to escape and some who clearly hadn't. Fray, looking out and around at the nearby road to triple-check that things were clear, paused briefly to stare at one. He could picture tires screeching along the road, splashing into a frenzy, and spinning to a crushing halt after hitting the telephone pole head-on.

He swallowed, squeezing a shaking hand tighter around the nail gun. His tremor was flaring violently, fingers barely grasping on. He clenched his other fist, flexing his fingers, to regain a sense of control.

"Where's all the people, anyway?" Sam wondered aloud, forcing Fray to shove down the urge to roll his eyes.

"I mean." Aziel looked blankly at him. "Probably. You know. Like. Dead."

"Give it a day, they'll come out," Fray said. "Lassie, keep up."

Lasko increased his pace to catch up with everyone, shoving a Sharpie in his pocket. "Lassie?" he muttered under his breath. Aziel reached up to grab his shoulder, and Lasko couldn't tell whether it was for a sense of reality to ground himself or to make sure Lasko didn't stray behind them again.

"He gives everybody nicknames. It's retaliation. You'll get used to it."

"Retaliation?" Lasko repeated.

"Yeah, everyone nicknamed him first."

The boys reached the Publix entrance. It was all dark through the windows, making Lasko uneasy. Sam switched off the safety on his pistol, and Lasko jumped at the sudden noise—it seemed to echo endlessly in the quiet. Sam laughed and elbowed him as they went in. Hard. Lasko rubbed his side. That was unnecessary.

"Did you bring a flashlight, Frankenstein?" Sam called. Fray pulled the mini flashlight from Yadiel's survival kit out of his pocket, clicking it on.

"Do I look like an idiot?" he replied.

"Kinda."

"Be quiet, there could be other people."

They roamed the aisles of the abandoned store. Anyone who had been here at the time of the storm warning had long fled. Sam followed behind Fray and Aziel and collected mostly nonperishables from the aisles, using Lasko as a personal carrier. Some of the shelves were disrupted, and a few cans were strewn across the floor, like someone else had been here doing the same thing, but they never ran into anyone.

After deciding that there weren't any signs of a threat, Fray and Sam led the boys back to the front of the store, and they dumped everything they'd gathered in a grocery cart, taking it with them to continue to shop. Well, it was really less shopping and more stealing, but that couldn't be helped. Fray motioned for everyone to head towards the medicinal supplies aisle. He turned the corner and halted.

The beam of the flashlight landed on a figure curled up against the wall of first aid. The person looked up and froze, eyes wide like a deer in headlights. It was a girl, her hair frizzed around her head in a halo and gauze wrapped around her shoulder, which was soaked with blood.

Fray nearly lost grip of the nail gun completely.

"Celeste?"

Her brows furrowed, understanding washing over her features. "Fray?"

"You know her?" That was Sam.

Fray was immobile for just a split second before he remembered to move again, going over to crouch down beside her. "What are you doing here?"

"I crashed my car, what are you doing here?"

"You crashed your car?" he repeated.

"That's what I said."

A pause. "You're far from Avalon."

"Yeah, well, you're far from Lovecraft." Her tone was defiant as ever. Celeste nodded behind him. He didn't miss the wince when she shifted. His eyes adjusted to the dark, glancing over her. She looked pretty beat up. "Who're they?"

Aziel waved. Fray pointed to each of them in turn. "Az. Sam. Lasko. They're from my woodshop class."

She glanced back and forth between them. "Just you guys made it?"

"No, no, there's more of us. We had to leave to get food and stuff. Supplies. Shoot, that reminds me. We came over here to get shit for Jay. He's—he's not doing so good."

Celeste pushed rolls of gauze towards him. "You're not the only ones who came through here. But the other guys left me alone. I don't have anything worth taking, anyway."

Fray eyed her carefully. "Cel, how'd you get here?"

She looked like she was about to give some snarky response, but seemed to give in, letting loose a deep breath and cradling her hurt arm to her chest. "Um." She cleared her throat, then did it again. "I... I always—" cleared her throat— "leave school during lunch period." Cleared her throat. Sniffed and twitched her nose. "I was eating in my car—" cleared her throat a fifth time— "in the Subway parking lot, and there was this huge wave, and... and then..." Her explanation quickly dissolved into fretful mumbling in Spanish.

Fray tentatively reached for her hand. She jolted, recoiling. Too far. He lowered his hand, never looking away. "Hey. Gonna need English from you, Cel."

Sniff. Twitch. Throat clearing.

"I, ah. I did what I do best. Drive." Celeste wiped the underside of her nose, like that would make the tic stop. Her nose scrunched up once, twice, then one more time, before finally stilling. "The road was crazy. Everyone was trying to do the same thing as me. People panicked, I guess. We thought we could outrun the storm. Somebody hit me. I don't... I don't remember a lot. I got out of the crash—lady behind me wasn't so lucky—and I went somewhere, but I think I blacked out, 'cause I forget where. Anyway. I woke up in the water. A lot of swimming and walking after that. And then I found my way here. To patch up."

There was a stretch of silence once she'd finished. She swiped at dried blood that streamed from a gash across her face.

"Stop looking at me like that."

Fray rocked on his ankles. "Like what?"

"Like you feel sorry for me."

He reached out to grab her hand again and Celeste glared, but didn't resist as he helped her up, straightening to his feet and taking her with him. "You injured too bad anywhere?"

"I can walk, if that's what you're asking," she said.

"Good. You can come with us." Fray directed the flashlight behind her, toward shelves of medicine bottles and bandages. He skimmed for painkillers, picking up Ibuprofen and then retreating to the first aid section for antibiotic ointment. Az came over to help, collecting a few large boxes of bandages and dropping them in the cart.

"What happened to your friend?" Celeste asked after they had sufficiently stocked up on supplies.

Fray opened his mouth to respond but was beat to it by Sam. "Fray chopped off half his leg." He made a swinging motion with an imaginary ax, although that wasn't quite how it had happened.

"Now we're trying to stop him from developing sepsis," Aziel added helpfully. Fray gritted his teeth. It wasn't like he needed to be constantly reminded. "You know, I watched this nature documentary like, a month ago, where this gazelle escaped from a lion—"

Here we go.

" —but, like, with an injury, and she almost made it, but the bite on her side got infected and she died. It was really..." Aziel looked sheepishly at Fray, voice becoming less confident as he realized what he was saying. "Sad."

"You think we have enough food?" asked Fray, quickly changing the subject.

Sam shrugged. "For now. We can only fit so much in this cart."

Lasko still hovered by the cart, seemingly too intimidated to talk to this new stranger.

Fray blew out, making the hair stuck to his forehead flutter. "Now for the hard part," he said with a grimace. Sam looked over at him quizzically.

"What's the hard part?"

"Going back the way we came."

Fray worried his bottom lip, glancing around at everyone as his brow furrowed, trying to come up with some sort of plan without a map or working smartphone. He remembered the few paperclips he had stashed in his pockets and shoved his hand in to grab one, sticking it in his mouth with slightly shaky hands. Thin metal ground between his teeth. His eyes darted back and forth from Aziel to Celeste to Lasko to Sam and then back to Lasko again, freezing. A wiry arm shot out, grabbing Lasko by the wrist.

He cried out in surprise, dark eyes going wide. Fray examined the markings he'd apparently been doodling with Sharpie on the underside of his forearm. "What's this?"

Lasko rubbed it. There were little arrows running all the way up to his elbow. "Um, turns," he said hesitantly.

"What?"

"T—turns. Every time—um—every—every time we, um, took—we took a, a turn I—"

Fray gestured for him to shut it, figuring out the rest. If he waited for Lasko to finish that sentence he'd be there all day. "So you know the way back."

"More, more or less," Lasko squeaked. Sam clapped him on the shoulder.

"Look at that! He's useful after all. We've got ourselves a navigator."

"It's dark," he protested.

"And he has eyes, too."

"No, he's right," Aziel said. "It probably isn't safe to travel after sundown."

Celeste raised an eyebrow. "What, are rabid alligators gonna come after us?"

"People might."

"The longer we wait, the longer everyone's waiting for us," Fray argued.

Aziel shrugged. "They'll be sleeping, like we should be. Lasko won't be able to navigate well with no light."

He had a point. The streetlamps were all out. "There's still some light," he huffed, as the sun hadn't yet fully been replaced by a blanket of night, but he had to concede that they were far less likely to know where they were going once it went completely dark in the next half-hour. After a moment of paperclip-twisting he gave in. "Alright, fine. But what are we gonna do? Stay in here? It's not like the air conditioning works."

"But there's a lot less water in here than there is out there," Az pointed out, lifting his feet, which were sloshing in a couple of inches of floodwater.

Fray rubbed his forehead. All this stress was making his headache from earlier return. "Okay. Let's at least go to the back. Behind the deli is probably dry."

▿▿▿

Celeste was poking at her eye, eventually pulling out a lens and flicking it onto the sink. "My contacts are fucked."

Fray leaned next to the mirror, feeling awkward. She'd asked for help with her injuries, but he still felt like an intruder on her space here in the women's room, unsure where to look.

"Well, I guess I have to go without them," she sighed, splashing water from the sink onto her face and motioning for him to hand over the tube of ointment. Once she'd rinsed the blood off her face she looked brighter, less weary. She was still trembling slightly, like she hadn't shaken off the car crash just yet.

Fray was silent as he unwrapped the gauze from her shoulder, wiped it down with soap and wet paper towels, and began to bandage it. He was close enough now to make out the faint freckles across her nose and cheekbones. Her fingers rapped against the side of the sink, just like she did with the bottles on the counter at his work.

He tossed the paper towels in the trash bin. "We'll leave the second the sun comes up. Can't afford to waste more time."

"Always know what you're doing, don't you, Fray?" Celeste told him wryly. "Always have to be in charge."

He shook his head, eyes lowered.

"No. I don't. I have no idea what I'm doing. I'm terrified."

Celeste gave him a good, hard punch to the shoulder, jostling him. "Good. You're just like the rest of us."

"An idiot?" he deadpanned.

"Human."

▿▿▿

Fray's clothes were still damp when he woke sweating, the remnants of some already-forgotten night terror swirling incomprehensibly in the back of his mind. Downpour pounded against the ground outside. His hands trembled slightly more than usual as he pushed himself up from his less-than-comfortable position in the corner, the towel he'd taken from one of the houseware aisles sliding off him in the process. That unpleasant feeling of stickiness on his skin and in his hair remained as he shook off the last of the nightmare. The store was quiet.

His eyes traveled upward, around the deli kitchen. Sam was asleep on his back on the counter, one knee in the air and the other leg splayed out in front of him, his hands resting on his stomach. He'd been offered a towel to use as a blanket when Az and Celeste came up with the idea last night, but he claimed he wasn't cold. Fray didn't believe that—more of a hypermasculine front than anything else. That was how Sam went about everything. He was too cool to hang out with the rest of the jocks, too cool to show up to class on time, too cool to be affected by the weather. The basketball team might've constantly mocked Fray for his height, but at least he didn't play football and have to deal with the self-importance of Sam Pierce.

Not that that mattered now, he thought sourly.

Aziel, Celeste, and Lasko were all scattered throughout the kitchen, still dozing. Fray figured he'd leave them be for a few more minutes. He got up and meandered throughout the deli, picking up an unopened box of breaded wings and shrugging. Cold, but probably hadn't gone bad just yet. After a long moment's deliberation he grabbed a bottled blackberry lemonade from the drinks display and sat down on the floor. It didn't take long for the smell of fried chicken to reach Azzy, and if there was anything that could wake him up, it was food.

Aziel rubbed his eyes and came curiously over, helping himself to a drumstick. "Thought I'd be more dry in the morning," he commented. He folded himself into a seated position, his eyes widening in alarm mid-chewing upon realizing how spicy the chicken was. Fray wordlessly handed him the lemonade.

His hair had dried, mostly returning to its usual state of neatly faded coils, although some of the front had gotten fluffier since he couldn't seem to keep his hands out of it. He ran a hand through his hair now, mindlessly. Fray's hair, on the other hand, was flattened in some places and stuck in various directions in others, curling behind his neck. He'd seen it in the mirror yesterday and figured there was nothing to be done about it. Meanwhile, their clothes continued to stubbornly refuse to fully dry. Fray felt like he was being taunted—you're just going to go out in the storm and get wet all over again anyway.

"Do we know what we're gonna do now?"

Fray snapped a wing bone. "Go back, I guess. Figure the rest out after that."

"Fix up Jay," Aziel hummed.

"Yeah, fix up Jay." His throat stung. "Kal wants to go back to school. So I guess we'll do that."

"I wanna see my mom again," Az said. "My mom and my sister."

Fray turned to look at him. "You got a dad?"

Aziel hesitated.

"No, not anymore."

Fray cleared his throat. "You've never said that." He felt weird for bringing it up at all.

"I don't like talking about it."

"Sorry."

Aziel cracked a smile. "Fray Harkness saying sorry. Now there's something new," he said amusedly. Fray stifled a smile of his own—he'd never really noticed that he didn't apologize often. Az tilted his head. "Hey, why d'you go by Fray, anyway? Kind of an obscure thing for everyone to call you."

He shrugged. "My brother used to call me that when we were little," he told him. "It was easier to pronounce than Franklin. Kinda just stuck. Feels like it's too late to change my name now."

"How old's your brother again?"

"Twenty-one. Your sister?"

"Nineteen."

"Oh, wow." Fray's eyebrows shot up. "You guys are one year apart, that's crazy."

"Yeah. She's my best friend." Azzy was beaming. "She started college back in the fall. I'm really proud of her."

"You know what's freaky? Your sister and my brother are close enough in age they could be dating. I'm glad they haven't met. That would be weird as hell."

"She's already got a boyfriend, she doesn't want your deadbeat brother," Azzy pointed out, and they both started snickering despite themselves. Once he'd caught his breath again Aziel added, "He came over for New Years' and I kind of hate him, but he's like, six-three and super jacked so I don't exactly think I could take him."

Fray snorted. "Take him—Az, stop trying to fight your sister's boyfriend!"

"Well, I'm just saying if he was being a jerk to her I'd at least try."

Their chatter must have awoken the others, because Fray looked up and was startled to see Celeste peering down at them. Given that she was only about five feet tall, this was a rarity. He smirked. "Does it feel good to look down on people for once?"

"Hand over the food, Jersey," she sniped, but she did lift her chin, basking in the power she held over them by standing while the two of them sat. Fray handed over the food.

"You want lemonade?" he asked her. "It's kinda spicy."

"Of course you think it's spicy," Celeste said smugly.

"Mhm."

"'Cause you're a cream cheese bagel. A... walking Elmer's glue."

He lifted an eyebrow. "That's it, that's what you came up with?"

She swung around a drumstick. "Yes."

"I think it's spicy," said Az, and she jabbed him with fried chicken.

Sam stretched from the counter, swinging his legs over the side and dropping to the floor to come see what they were doing. He kicked Lasko on the way, startling him out of his sleep. "What are we eating?"

Fray pointed to the box. "You won't like it. It's got seasoning on it."

Sam rolled his eyes, crouching down to grab a handful of wings. "Can I eat it if I do an American accent?"

"Ooh, let's hear it," Celeste said delightedly, clapping her hands.

They all agreed that the accent was terrible.

▿▿▿

There were stragglers out on the road. Someone floated by paddling a pool tube, as if this were some kind of nasty, trash-filled Lazy River. As Fray had predicted the day before, people were looting, digging into cars or coming out of empty stores with armfuls of valuables.

Celeste insisted on riding on the back of the shopping cart, dramatically tossing her hair back in the wind as Fray pushed it along. The rain sprayed light, going easy on them this morning, but the skies were a depressing overcast gray. "This is just like The Road," said Aziel, and Fray wracked his brain for a book they'd read in English class maybe in freshman or sophomore year. He didn't remember much about it. It was doubtful he'd actually read more than the first chapter and the Sparknotes, just enough to pass the quizzes.

Lasko was pressing his fingers against the arrows along his arm, feverishly going over them again and again. "I—um—I don't think I can do this," he muttered, glancing around at street signs. "I don't know. I don't, I don't know if we're—um—um—going, if we're going the right way."

Aziel looked to him with alarm. "You don't?"

"Yeah, me neither," remarked Sam, swinging his pistol. "Probably a terrible idea to take your directions."

Fray frowned, eyeing Lasko skeptically.

Celeste leaned forward on the shopping cart, clapping in Lasko's face. He jumped back, splaying a protective hand over his glasses. "Get ahold of yourself! Don't listen to them. You wanna get back, don't you?"

He nodded repeatedly, eyes permanently wide in abject terror.

"Well, then, what are you waiting for? You and those little arrows have everything under control. You don't get extra credit for doubting yourself, just do it! Okay?"

Lasko adjusted his glasses, wringing his hands. "Okay."

"Perfect! Where do we go?"

"Um. Right."

"Right, Franklin!" Celeste declared, turning to point dramatically in that direction.

"Do you have to do the Franklin thing?" he sighed.

"It's your name, you goober."

"HOLY SHIT, WHAT IS THAT?" Fray swiveled abruptly at Sam's outburst, following his line of sight to an alley just off to the side of the plaza they'd come from. As with everywhere else, several inches of water had flooded, but that wasn't the problem—the shadowy figures emerging from the alley were.

The scaly spines and reptilian profiles of not one but two gators came rapidly into focus, and temporarily, Fray blanked, forgetting all about what to do when you encountered one. Hissing emitted across the water as they slunk closer by the second, and he quickly came to, shoving the shopping cart as Celeste hopped off and started to run.

"Mierda! I was kidding when I said that thing about rabid alligators yesterday!" she shrieked.

"Run in a straight line, they'll give up chasing you!" Aziel shouted as they hightailed it out as fast as they could.

Deafening shots rang out—one, two, three. Fray turned to see Sam frantically firing the gators' way. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" He grabbed him by the arm and yanked him back, probably not the wisest when the kid was carrying a loaded weapon. "Are you crazy?"

He'd hit at least one, apparently wounding it enough somewhere for it to stay back or at the very least having scared it off with ricocheting bullets. But the other gator wasn't driven away so easily, and it was not happy. Fray had never seen these suckers move so fast. Snapping teeth flashed in his vision as he scrambled to run, splashing and tripping and crashing into Sam.

He didn't know how it happened in all the chaos, his ears ringing and his feet fumbling dizzily beneath him, but then he was facedown in the water. His scream bubbled uselessly from his throat as excruciating pain stabbed into his side. He fought blindly at his attacker, using the nail gun he'd still managed to hold onto to deliver as many blows as he could manage, and then—nothing. The gator released him. Rolling over. Taking hyperventilating breaths.

Someone dragged him up from behind. He sputtered water, coughing, each painful breath scraping his throat.

"You still alive, short stack?"

"I'm gonna freakin' kill you," he panted, struggling to his feet. He looked back. The alligator had retreated, seemingly having decided Fray wasn't worth the hassle. Good. Now he could be pissed. He shoved Sam out of the way. "You dumbass! You shouldn't've done that!"

Sam followed him towards the others, who'd been lucky enough to escape with the cart. "Done what, shot it in the eye for you? Why do you think it backed off? You should be thanking me."

Fray hissed through his teeth, lifting up his shirt to inspect the damage as Az, Celeste, and Lasko reached them. Celeste rushed toward him, much to his surprise.

"Oh my God."

"I'm fine," he muttered, dropping the shirt. Az shot him a worried look, and he shot one back to silently say don't push it.

Celeste spun and promptly slapped Sam across the face, to which he let out a half-scoff-half-laugh. "You could've gotten us all killed," she snapped.

He rubbed his jaw. "Whatever."

"How many bullets you got left?" Fray asked quietly.

"In this mag? Six. There's more in my bag but I didn't bring it."

Fray tossed the nail gun into the grocery cart, digging for a bandage for his side. "You waste resources doing something stupid like that again," he said, "and I'll shoot you myself."

Sam tried to smirk, but wavered slightly—he almost sounded like he meant it.

▿▿▿

"We're going. Come on." Yadiel took one arm and Max took the other, preparing to lift Jay. "On three. One... two... three."

Jay grunted and sucked in sharply through his teeth as they stood with him in tow. He was bleeding through the bandages. He gripped around Yadiel and Max's shoulders for dear life as they took a few tentative steps forward.

"Okay. Think we can make this work," Max said finally, pressing his free hand to his stomach. The hunger pains had set in yesterday. Now he was positively dizzy.

Mr. Kalani's voice was hesitant as he finished distributing bags among the students. "It's early," he hedged. "Maybe they..."

Yadiel shook his head. "We can't keep waiting up for them. We'll lose Jay."

"We should go after them. They can't have gotten far."

He turned, irritated. Just near him, Madeline hugged her radio, hiding behind Yadiel—and her mop of filthy hair—like a human shield. "You said yesterday that if they didn't show, we'd go back to the school."

"I know," Kalani sighed, looking out the open windows. There was a pause, and then: "But they're my students. I can't leave them behind."

Rosalynn sat on her knees, flanked by Aida and Jim, rocking softly back and forth. She pulled the gun from her waistband to stare at it, tracing her finger along the side. Steel glinted in the faint morning light. How long would it be before she saw home again? Her sisters, her little brother. Not her mom. Fuck her mom.

"Can't remember the last time I was this hungry," Aida moaned, leaning over and dropping her head onto Rosalynn's shoulder.

Her siblings were depending on her to get back. Like they were always depending on her. Aida, too. She barely knew this chick, but she wasn't going to let her go this alone.

Yadiel and Kal were still arguing. "We can't afford to waste any more time than we already have. For all we know, Fray got lost and we'd never find him! We have to worry about our own survival, not his band of runaways."

Kalani shut his eyes. "I let them go, and it's my fault if they die!"

"That's not my problem!" Yadiel snapped, and the others shifted awkwardly, some shooting each other curious looks and others averting their eyes. He usually seemed so... polite, so it was strange, foreign, even, to see him like this, buzzing with passion and on edge. A model student, shouting at a teacher. Nothing short of bizarre. But Rosalynn felt so nauseous she could hardly think, nevermind register this with any sort of weight.

Their teacher only stared, looking torn.

"Look, I'm sorry," Yadiel amended quickly. "I have a lot of respect for you. But I can't do this anymore. Look around you." His voice softened. "It's time to go."

"I..." Kalani looked around at everyone, swallowing. Aida. Jim. Rosalynn. Rich. Henry. Jay and Max and Yadiel and Madeline. Run through by the storm and drenched, starving, cold. No one to look to except for him. Some of them, though, Fray and Az's closest friends, waiting here, knowing they might never see him again.

And that was on his shoulders alone.

"We should just... give them a little longer," he said finally. "And—and then we'll go."

Yadiel sighed. "You've got to be kidding me."

It was then that Rosalynn very suddenly stood, shaking, the stolen gun trembling in her hand. "Enough with this indecisiveness shit!"

Everyone spun, and Yadiel's eyes went wide, backing away. Mr. Kalani held out a careful hand—Rosalynn's target. "Hey, hey, now. Where'd you get that? Put it down, Rosalynn."

"I'm fucking sick of this," she gasped, "just—let us fucking go, let's get the fuck out of here, before we all fucking lose it—"

Jim tried to grab her by the arm from behind, jolting her. Her finger slipped on the trigger. "Rosalynn, don't—"

She hadn't meant to. She really hadn't. But it was too late.

Everyone was shouting and Rosalynn's ears were ringing. She barely felt Jim prying the weapon from her hand, everything seemingly moving in slow motion as Aida pulled her away. She didn't know how long it was before things started to fade back in and somebody jostled her.

"WHAT'D SHE FUCKIN' DO THAT FOR?"

Rosalynn couldn't decipher who'd said it. She felt numb.

"I didn't... didn't mean..." she mumbled, but couldn't get much else out. Jim pressed her hair back from her face, bringing her to reality.

"Easy. Easy. Look at me. It's gonna be okay."

She wrestled him away. "Stop, stop—just—" Her eyes were welling and she couldn't see, everything blurring into water, like the oceans of flooding they'd all come inches away from drowning in. Eventually she couldn't take it anymore, slumping forward and burying her face into his shoulder as the tears fell. Jim patted her awkwardly on the back. He smelled like weed, but that didn't matter now.

"'S okay. Just... calm down for a sec."

It wasn't okay, Rosalynn knew. She stared hollowly over his shoulder to meet Yadiel's eyes just as he rose from the body. The body. No. She hadn't. It wasn't real. Just like the events of yesterday, this had to be some perverted dream.

It's not a dream. You did what you had to. To survive. Just like you always do, you selfish bitch.

No—no, no, it was an accident. She wasn't trying to—

Yadiel's voice, clear but stilted, cut through her thoughts. "We should split up."

Rosalynn pulled away, wiping her eyes. Jay ran a hand through his hair, sitting on the concrete. "Do we just... leave him?" he muttered.

Yadiel looked down. "I guess." He cleared his throat. "Um. We—we should—" Even he struggled to carry on like nothing had happened. "Not from our buddies, but just to make traveling and stuff easier. And Max, you—if you want, you can look for Fray, I just..."

"Yeah, I know." Max nodded. "It's fine. I can go with Jay. Jim can help carry him. We'll find him supplies."

Yadiel nodded, too, slowly. "Good. Good. Alright, then. Mads, you ready to go?" He turned to her, and she chewed her nails nervously, ogling their teacher's corpse, before abruptly turning her head towards him.

"Oh. I guess."

Henry was still frozen in place. "She—she killed him. And we're just gonna up and—"

"Yes," Max said, some impatience seeping into his voice, although he was clearly shaken too, pointedly refusing to look anywhere in Kal's direction. "There's no time for what happened," he forced out, nodding to himself like that would make it more true. "Only what we have to do next."

He took a step back, and then another, shaking his head. "I'm not going anywhere with—with her."

Rosalynn watched him, eyes wide, terrified that she wasn't angry with him for it, that he was right. Rich shot her a passive glance. "Well, I want food. Me n' the Brit'll go with Yadiel. He seems like he kinda knows what he's doing."

Of course Rich didn't give a shit. Rich wouldn't give a shit if any of them died. He'd probably do a backflip.

Yadiel grimaced. "I don't know about that. But that's fine by me."

Henry shut his eyes. "It's like no one even cares."

Max ignored him. "Aida, do you want to..."

She swallowed and nodded, but grabbed Rosalynn by the sleeve. "She has to come too."

He hesitated, tense, but agreed. "Okay."

Aida exhaled. "Okay." She squeezed Rosalynn's hand. She shouldn't do that, Rosalynn thought. There were little spots of blood on the hand she'd used to hold the gun. Or she could've been imagining it. Max shifted his focus to talking Jimmy into helping carry Jay. Yadiel and crew took the supplies they had and said quiet goodbyes, leaving the body behind.

Eventually, Rosalynn was the last to step out of the parking garage. She gave it one last look, eyes roaming up to the floor where somewhere, their woodshop teacher lay, dead and gone.

Once, at her old school, she'd watched a pair of her friends chop off an enormous chunk of Skylar Spencer's hair and shove her face in a toilet. Even after reminding herself that she'd deserved it—Sky had slept with Rachel's boyfriend twice and then positively gloated about it—she couldn't shake the disgusting, slimy feeling that they'd done something horrible. All Rosalynn had done was stand watch, and yet, somehow, after seeing the overconfident fury in Skylar's eyes crumble to soaking-wet betrayal and heartbreak, she couldn't bear to show her face in school for days.

Of course, a week later she'd womanned up. Filled Sky's locker with almost a hundred notes that fell around her like humiliating snowflakes in the hall, all bearing the same angry red insult: SLUT.

Because Rosalynn always did what she had to do. And barely a year ago, she'd liked what she had to like, and gone where she was expected to go, and followed along with the rest of the crowd. Even when she'd finally been free, she wasn't really. Not free from her mom or the responsibilities she had to carry for her. It didn't matter. She was a survivor. She could survive vicious teenage girls, she could survive three part-time jobs.

She could survive this, too.

"I'm sorry," Rosalynn whispered under her breath, and she turned away, following the others into the ruins of the city.

▿▿▿

Madeline sniffled.

"How you doing?" Yadiel's voice was low.

She sniffled again, clutching around her torso at the shirt that was several sizes too big for her. "It's cold. It's never cold."

"It's the wind. We'll be okay. But I meant, like... emotionally. That was a lot."

They were trudging through water and trash like sludge under their feet. A few feet ahead, Rich snickered at Henry tripping over something unseen in the foam.

"Yeah. Scary. But..." Her voice trailed off, and after a moment she seemed to catch herself, coming back to reality. "I've seen worse."

"You've seen worse?" Yadiel turned to her curiously. "How—can I ask you how you ended up the way you live now?"

Madeline glared through greasy locks of hair. "No."

"Alright, alright." He squinted ahead of them. "Pandemonium out here. Not sure how we'll even find school again. But at least we found food." He lowered his sandwich. "Do you feel bad raiding?"

"No," Madeline replied with no hesitation at all. "Take what you need and let people cry about it."

"Okay, then," said Yadiel humorously.

"'Ey!"

They turned to see that Rich was waving to an old man on a raft, bouncing on his toes. The man was waving, too, and paddling towards them. Yadiel muttered for everyone to stay close together. "You lost too?" Rich shouted.

The old man cackled. "No, I'm doin' alright! You kids got anything to eat? I can trade. I've got..." He rummaged briefly through his belongings. "Flashlight and a pocketknife!"

Madeline wrinkled her nose, but Henry glanced at Yadiel with sympathy written all over his face. "We should help."

Making a quick decision, Yadiel nodded. "We have extra stuff. And we can get more later." He diverged toward the raft, slinging his backpack from over his shoulder. The old man was in houseclothes or something like pajamas, his smartphone sealed in a plastic bag. He had plenty of supplies for someone stranded on a raft. Yadiel pulled out some of the food they'd found on the way. "Hey. You getting any signal yet?"

He shook his head, jittery fingers raking over a bag of chips before snatching it up. "Nothing. I've run into some people, and they don't have cell service, neither." He gave them a once-over. "Where you kids headed?"

"We're trying to get to the high school. It's up Wymore?"

The old man shook the bag. "There's nothin' there."

Yadiel blinked. "What?"

"Didn't you see the space rocks fallin' last night?"

"The asteroid, yeah," Yadiel said with growing impatience, "that's kinda how we're all here."

"No, the debris." He pointed north. "The meteor crashed there. Someone said it was a school."

Yadiel's blood ran cold. "A school?" he repeated, unnecessarily.

"Yeah. Crushed it top to bottom. More rocks downtown. You're better off findin' the next city over. Just keep moving until you find power and help. FEMA should be here any minute," the old man finished, nodding self-assuredly. He handed Yadiel a flashlight and a knife, true to his word. "Batteries should work in that thing. But if they don't—here—" Yadiel unfurled his other palm, and he dropped a pair of double-As into it. "There you go. Good luck."

"He's talking about some other school," Henry said, slowly, as he left, "right?"

Rich shrugged. "Who knows. Probably has dementia anyway."

The old man paddled off into the distance, and Yadiel was left standing where he'd been, hand curling around the batteries, those words echoing in his head—

There's nothing there.

⸻