Chapter 159: Western Intake Sector Three

“Naomi!?” I shouted, hands cupped around my mouth to throw the sound farther through the trees.

My voice bounced off trunks and died somewhere ahead.

Leaves cracked under my boots as Lila and I pushed through the brush. Every step tugged at the soreness in my leg. My ribs still ached from the fight. My throat felt scraped raw from shouting, but I did it again anyway.

“Naomi!”

There was a reason for it.

A real one.

Naomi knew routes. Naomi knew how to keep her head when things went bad. Naomi knew how to talk like the world hadn’t fully ended yet. Around her, for brief stretches, I could almost pretend I was still just some guy dealing with bad luck instead of a body count and a trail of mistakes.

Lila had to know that.

Maybe that was why she kept clicking her tongue every few seconds. Sharp little sounds. Then whistling low and tuneless through her teeth.

She had never whistled before.

It was deliberate.

“Naomi!” I called again.

“God, you’re annoying,” Lila muttered.

I almost stopped walking.

Annoying?

Me?

I turned my head enough to catch her expression. Her mouth was set in a small line. Her eyes were forward, red around the irises like always now, but there was irritation there too. Honest irritation.

That was new.

Usually she sanded herself down around me. Told me what she thought I wanted to hear. Smiled at the right moments. Softened the ugly edges.

Not now.

I looked away and kept moving.

“Naomi!”

“And company!” Lila shouted brightly.

I snapped toward her.

She widened her eyes in fake innocence.

“We’re two survivors in the woods with barely any ammo and no idea where we’re going!” she yelled. “Come kill us!”

“What the hell are you doing?” I hissed.

She shrugged. “Thought that’s what you wanted.”

“Quit it.”

For a moment, only the wind moved.

I drew breath.

“Naom—”

“Will you shut up already?” Lila barked over me.

The force of it stopped me cold.

I stared at her.

Her nostrils flared once. A vein moved faintly in her neck. Her jaw was tight enough to twitch.

“…What the hell’s gotten into you?”

“No,” she said, stepping closer. “What’s gotten into you?”

She jabbed a finger toward the trees around us.

“We are in the middle of nowhere. Infected everywhere. Some hillbilly psychos with guns probably tracking us right now because you just had to play hero.” Her lip curled. “And you’re screaming another woman’s name like she’s gonna descend from heaven and save you.”

I opened my mouth.

Closed it.

She laughed once under her breath, but there was no humor in it.

“You just don’t get it,” I said quietly.

“No. I do get it, Adrian.”

She moved in front of me and blocked the path.

Her eyes searched my face with frightening precision. Not angry anymore. Focused.

“You think Naomi gives you something I don’t.”

I frowned. “Lila—”

“You think she makes you feel normal.”

The word landed heavier than it should have.

“You think talking to her, walking with her, making little plans with her reminds you of before.” Her mouth twitched. “Before the blood. Before the running. Before me.”

“I never said that.”

“You don’t have to.”

She tapped two fingers under my eye.

“You say plenty with these.”

Then her hand dropped to my chest.

“With how fast your heart changes around people.”

I stepped back instinctively.

She followed.

“You think she balances out being stuck with a freak like me.”

“I never said you were a freak.”

“Yes, you do.”

Her voice went low and certain.

“Every single time. With your eyes. With the way you hesitate touching me after I do something ugly for you. With how relieved you look whenever someone else talks to you.”

My throat tightened.

Because parts of it were true.

That was the problem with Lila. She was insane, yes. But she was observant in the places that mattered.

“You may not say it out loud,” she continued, “but I know.”

She smiled then.

Softly.

That was somehow worse.

“But you want to know something?”

I said nothing.

She stepped closer until I smelled sweat, smoke, and the metallic trace of old blood on her clothes.

“Everyone leaves you.”

The words were almost tender.

“Aubrey left you. Those camp people left you. Naomi ran the first chance she got.”

“She didn’t run—”

“She’s gone.”

Her hand pressed flat against my chest now, guiding me backward.

“People always go when it gets hard.”

I stumbled over a root and hit a tree trunk with my shoulder. Pain shot through my leg.

She was on me before I fully steadied, one hand braced beside my head against the bark, caging me there.

“But I don’t.”

Her pupils were wide.

“I stay.”

There was a brightness in her face I’d seen before when violence was close. A pleasure in certainty. In possession.

“So whether you think I’m a freak or not,” she whispered, “you’re stuck with me.”

My pulse thudded painfully.

“I’m all you have.”

She said it like a promise.

“And you just have to live with that, sweet pea.”

For a second I couldn’t think.

My brain felt delayed, like every thought had to wade through mud before reaching my mouth.

The dream from earlier still clung to me. Damien’s face. The bodies. The voices asking what I’d become. Now Lila stood inches away telling me I belonged to the only person left who wanted me.

Maybe that was the worst part.

Some ugly part of me found comfort in it.

“What we need to do now,” she said, suddenly practical, stepping back as if she hadn’t just split my head open emotionally, “is find the main road. Get to Detroit. Then make our way to Canada.”

“…We don’t even have a map.”

“We’ll find one, honey.”

She held out her hand.

I stared at it.

Small cuts across the knuckles. Dried blood under one nail. Fingers that had hurt people for me. Fingers that had touched my face gently an hour later.

I took it anyway.

Her smile came instantly, bright and rewarding, like she’d won something.

She tugged me forward and wrapped both arms around me.

Warm.

Firm.

Possessive.

I barely returned it.

She didn’t seem to mind.

Her chin rested on my shoulder. I felt her inhale slowly, like she was savoring me.

“I’m so sorry for yelling, dearest,” she murmured near my ear.

Her thumb rubbed circles into my back.

“It was the only way I could reach you.”

Then she kissed the side of my neck, light and affectionate.

Somewhere deeper in the woods, something screamed.

Lila only held me tighter.

—

Slowly, Saul swung down from the saddle first.

His boots hit the pavement with a hollow thud. He kept both hands where they could be seen, then crouched and placed his pistol on the road exactly where the soldiers told him.

Jackson took longer.

“This is some bullshit,” he muttered while climbing down, nearly catching his foot in the stirrup. “Whole country turns to hell and suddenly everybody’s a cop.”

“Jackson,” Cherie warned.

“I’m cooperating.”

“You’re complaining.”

“I can do both.”

He hit the ground, lifted his hands, then glared at the nearest rifle barrel like it had insulted him personally.

Cherie dismounted last. Her shoulder still hurt from the fall, and it showed in the way her face tightened when her boots touched down.

The soldiers moved immediately.

No wasted motion.

No shouting.

Two advanced with rifles trained center mass. One circled behind them. Another carried a hard plastic case marked with a faded red maple leaf. The lead soldier, broad-shouldered with gray at his temples, kept his weapon low but ready.

“Listen carefully,” he said. “You follow instructions, this goes smooth. You don’t, it doesn’t.”

Jackson exhaled through his nose. “Comforting.”

The nearest soldier stepped in front of Saul first.

“Eyes on me.”

He clicked on a flashlight and shined it into Saul’s pupils one at a time.

Saul squinted but held still.

The soldier watched for dilation, response time, tremors.

“No redness. No lag.”

Another soldier gloved up and began checking Saul’s forearms, neck, jawline.

“Any bites in the last thirty days?”

“No.”

“Any fever? Blackouts? Aggression spikes?”

Saul almost laughed at that one.

“No.”

The soldier glanced at the scars already on Saul’s arms.

“Those old?”

“Yeah.”

He moved on.

Behind him, another soldier had Jackson by the wrist, swabbing dried blood from his sleeve.

“Whose blood?”

Jackson looked down.

“Could be mine. Could be theirs. Could be the horse’s. Been a long week.”

The swab soldier didn’t react.

“Need a real answer.”

Jackson rolled his eyes. “Not mine.”

The soldier bagged the sample.

Cherie was being checked by a woman in armor with a medic patch sewn to her vest.

The medic gently turned Cherie’s face side to side, inspected behind her ears, under her chin, then lifted the sleeve at her shoulder.

“You’re bruised.”

“Thrown off a horse.”

“You lose consciousness?”

“No.”

“You vomiting?”

Cherie frowned. “What kind of welcome is this?”

“A safe one,” the medic answered.

The lead soldier opened a clipboard wrapped in plastic.

“Identification phase.”

He pointed at Saul.

“Full name.”

Saul hesitated.

The rifles around him shifted just enough to remind him where he stood.

“Saul Miller.”

“Age?”

“Twenty-two.”

“Place of origin?”

“Texas.”

“Last known settlement?”

Saul looked at Jackson once, then back.

“Private residence outside Flint.”

The soldier wrote quickly.

He pointed at Jackson.

“Full name.”

“Jackson Miller.”

“Age?”

“Eighteen.”

“Relationship to Saul?”

“Brother.”

The soldier finally looked at him properly.

“You always this friendly?”

“Only when guns are pointed at me.”

No one laughed.

Then Cherie.

“Full name.”

“Cherie Laurent.”

“Age?”

“Nineteen.”

“Citizenship before outbreak?”

“American.”

The soldier nodded once, making note of it.

He closed the clipboard and looked between the three of them.

“You are attempting entry into Western Intake Sector Three.”

Cherie blinked. “What?”

The man turned and gestured beyond the barricade.

“That city ahead used to be Windsor. This side of it is now the Essex Recovery Corridor. Civilian intake, quarantine processing, labor housing, food distribution.”

He pointed farther inward, where taller fencing and towers rose beyond the haze.

“Past that is Dominion Sector Three. Permanent residency zone. Power grid. Water treatment. Schools. Command.”

Jackson stared.

“Schools?”

The soldier met his eyes.

“Yes. Schools.”

For the first time since arriving, Jackson had nothing smart to say.

Saul looked past the barricade.

Now that he focused, he could see it clearly.

Double fencing topped with razor wire.

Guard towers with mounted spotlights.

Rows of smoke stacks pushing clean columns into the sky.

Vehicles moving in organized lanes.

People carrying crates.

Children running beside a painted wall before being shouted back by an adult.

Life.

Structured life.

It hit him harder than expected.

Cherie stepped slightly forward before a rifle redirected her.

“Easy.”

“Sorry,” she whispered.

Her eyes stayed fixed on the city.

“People really live in there?”

The medic answered this time.

“Thousands.”

Jackson let out a low whistle.

“No shit.”

The lead soldier’s face stayed stern, but something like pride touched his voice.

“We held the bridge lines early. Burned the tunnels. Flooded the low crossings. Lost a lot doing it.”

He pointed to the road behind them.

“Most people who come here are too late.”

Then back to them.

“You three got lucky.”

A gate behind the barricade groaned as it began to slide open.

Metal scraping metal.

Inside was a decon lane lined with floodlights, chain fencing, and painted arrows on the asphalt.

More soldiers waited beyond it.

A truck rolled past carrying sacks of grain.

Somebody shouted inventory numbers.

A dog barked.

It sounded like civilization dragged back from the grave.

The lead soldier motioned forward.

“Next phase is blood screening, temperature, and isolation hold for seventy-two hours.”

Jackson’s face fell. “Man, come on.”

“Complain again,” the soldier said, “and I’ll make it ninety-six.”

Cherie laughed despite herself.

Saul didn’t move yet.

He just stood there, staring through the gate.

After everything they had seen.

After all the death.

There were lights on in the distance.

Real lights.

The soldier noticed.

“Move it, Miller.”

Saul blinked, then nodded.

As they walked toward the open gate, Jackson leaned toward him.

“You think this place is actually good?”

Saul looked ahead at towers, smoke, walls, people.

At the future, however flawed it might be.

“I think,” he said quietly, “it’s something.”

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