Chapter 40: Talk, damn you.

Carl sat in the dark room, hands raised, wrists biting under the cold iron of the shackles. A tear slipped down his cheek, landing on his bare thigh—stinging like fire. His mouth was dry, cracked, each breath raspy and hollow. Everything ached. Everything hurt.

The metal door creaked open. Carl didn’t look. Didn’t care.

“Fuck, Viv—! What did you do to this guy??”

A male voice pierced the silence. He crouched, eyes wide, trying to gauge Carl’s state. Fear and confusion twisted in his voice.

Vivian stepped forward, piercings glinting in the dim light, arms folded like a predator surveying its prey.

“My signature torture method,” she said, calm, deliberate.

The man blinked, trying to process. Words failed him.

The woman advanced. Step by step, the floor groaned beneath her boots. Then— slam. Her boot hit the wall beside Carl, reverberating through the cramped room. Carl flinched instinctively, a sharp jolt against his restraints.

She smiled, cold.

“You’re lucky you’re cute, you know. If it weren’t for that, you’d be dead already.”

Carl didn’t answer. His eyes, wide and glistening, stayed on the floor.

Vivian crouched, level with him. Her gaze drilled into his.

“Still won’t talk to me? Huh? Did me killing your friends back at that camp hurt your feelings?”

Carl said nothing.

Her expression darkened as the silence followed.

Before he could react, she pressed a piercing gun against his ear.

SNAP.

A searing jolt of pain made him yelp, his body jerking violently in the chains.

She laughed aloud at that.

The man took a hand through his hair, watching as she practically emptied her bowels onto the floor from Carl’s pain.

“Stop—…! that’s enough. Ill talk with him,” a familiar voice cut through the tension.

Carl’s tears blurred his vision. He squinted, confusion and something deeper warring in his chest.

Vivian smirked, tilting her head. “Oh, yeah. I forgot to say you had a visitor. Maybe she’ll get through to you, hm? Get you to talk.”

Through the haze of pain, Carl saw her— a buzzed head, strong feminine features, eyes serious, yet searching.

A bitter sense of betrayal shocked him awake after seeing her face.

His throat burned as the name escaped. “Adira…?”

Vivian stepped back slightly, watching. Carl’s chest heaved. Shackles clanged as he shifted, every movement a struggle, but his eyes were locked on the woman.

Silence filled the room, heavy, electric, as two presences collided.

Carl swallowed, trying to catch a full breath. Pain lanced through him, but for the first time, fear mingled with something else— possibility.

The woman’s hand twitched as if wanting to reach for him, yet she paused, letting the tension stretch, letting him see she was real.

Vivian’s smirk didn’t falter. But the dynamic had shifted. Carl wasn’t just a victim anymore. He had a lifeline.

And for a heartbeat, the room held its breath.

Illinois outskirts, 6:23 pm.

The truck tore down the road, tires kicking up dust and scraps of paper that spun helplessly in our wake. A sun-bleached flyer slapped once against the windshield before disappearing beneath the wheels.

Hale had found a pickup— old, dented, scarred along the sides, but still breathing. Still willing to run. I rode shotgun, elbow braced against the door, the vibration of the engine rattling through my bones. Hale’s hands stayed steady on the wheel.

In the bed behind us, Aubrey sat with her back against the cab along with a few others, Terri tucked in close beside her. Cherie sat with a bored expression, zip ties binding her hands tight together. Lila leaned near the tailgate, hair whipping in the wind, eyes bright with something that looked too much like relief.

Too much like hope.

A second car followed behind us— worse for wear, sagging low under the weight of bodies packed inside. Peter’s strange little family, along with a few others who hadn’t quite fit anywhere else. I caught their faces in the rearview mirror— blurry, watchful, holding on.

Hale glanced at the mirror too.

For a second, our eyes met in the reflection.

Then he reached into the pouch between us and pulled out a crumpled pack of cigarettes. He tipped one toward me.

I lifted a hand and shook my head.

From behind, I felt it— Lila’s gaze narrowing, sharp even without words.

Hale shrugged, slid one between his lips, and sparked it. The smell filled the cab almost immediately. Not just tobacco.

Marijuana.

It burned my nose, settled heavy in my chest.

The truck rolled on, the world buzzing around us— wind, engine, distant cries of metal shifting in the bed. But inside the cab, everything went quiet. The kind of quiet that presses in.

I watched the road stretch ahead. Cracked asphalt. Faded lines. Then I looked at Hale again.

Then back to the road.

Then back at him.

He noticed.

“…What?” he asked without looking over.

“I was curious about what you did before this?” The question slipped out before I could stop it.

He took the cigarette from his mouth. Smoke drifted between us.

“Before what?”

“Before,” I said, gesturing vaguely. “Everything went downhill.”

He exhaled slowly.

“Does it matter?”

I frowned, and he caught it.

“Just making small talk,” I said.

For a few seconds, there was nothing but the hum of the engine.

Then—

“I was a sergeant,” he said. “Chicago PD.”

My eyebrows lifted just slightly.

He kept going, eyes forward.

“I worked with Adira, the last camp’s commander. The one that betrayed you.”

The words landed heavy.

Behind me, I felt Lila stiffen. Her presence pressed into my spine like a warning.

“Did you know?” My voice came out rougher than I meant.

“No.” Hale shook his head once. “If I had, I wouldn’t be here right now.”

He flicked ash out the window.

“After what she did, I don’t even know if I really knew her at all. She used to be all level-headed. Smart. The kind of person you trusted to make the hard calls.”

I saw his eyes light up for just a moment, before decreasing into something cold and stale.

He glanced at me briefly.

Then sighed.

“Couple days before the surge, she pulled me aside. Said everything was gonna go to hell one day. That we needed to start reaching out. Build something. A refuge, before it was too late.”

A beat.

“I thought she was going crazy.”

His shoulders slumped, just a fraction.

“Guess she wasn’t wrong,” he muttered. “Just… not right either.”

The road stretched on ahead of us—empty, cracked, waiting.

I leaned back in the seat, eyes on the horizon, the weight of his words settling in.

The truck rattled beneath them outside as it tore down the road, tires chewing through dust and loose paper that burst into the air behind us like fleeing birds. Wind rushed over the open bed, tugging at hair and loose straps, the whole world vibrating with motion.

Aubrey sat against the side panel, one knee bent, boot braced for balance as the truck hit another pothole. Her eyes drifted—then locked.

Lila.

Lila was perched near the cab, one hand gripping the metal rail, the other braced against her bent leg as the truck swayed. Her posture was tense, coiled. She wasn’t looking at the road.

She was watching Adrian and Hale through the rear window.

Every tilt of the truck made her fingers tighten, knuckles whitening as if she were holding herself in place by sheer will alone.

The radio crackled again.

Static spat through the small speaker Terri clutched between her knees—tick, hiss, tick—fighting against the roar of the engine and the wind. The sound wormed its way straight into Aubrey’s skull, sharp and relentless.

“Would you knock it off with that?” Aubrey snapped, raising her voice to be heard over the noise.

Terri flinched, thumb hesitating on the dial. “I was just checking the channels,” she said, defensive but uncertain. “In case there’s something useful—some kind of broadcast or—”

“There isn’t.”

Aubrey cut her off without turning.

She glanced back then, eyes hard, hair whipping across her face. “There isn’t anything useful for us out here,” she said.

“Not on that dusty old radio. Not anywhere.”

The static popped once more before Terri shut it off. The silence that followed wasn’t quiet—it was just the engine and the wind again, raw and exposed.

Terri’s shoulders sank. She stared down at the dead radio, fingers curled around it like she’d been holding onto hope instead of plastic and wires.

Aubrey scoffed and leaned forward, resting her forearms on her knees as the truck lurched again. She dropped her head briefly, jaw tight, letting the motion of the road rattle through her bones.

Across from her, Lila shifted.

Their eyes met.

Just for a second.

Lila’s gaze was cold. Assessing. There was no guilt there. No softness. Just possession—quiet and unmistakable—as her eyes flicked back to Adrian through the glass, then returned to Aubrey.

Aubrey looked away first.

The truck slowed, shuddering against the cracked asphalt before lurching to a stop. Its tires squealed softly, protesting the sudden halt.

We were in a gas station parking lot, long abandoned. The faded lines of the lot were cracked and overgrown, pumps rusted and silent. The fluorescent lights overhead flickered intermittently, throwing the lot in a strobe of yellow and shadow.

Everyone fell quiet, the sudden stillness almost deafening. Eyes scanned the horizon, taking in the emptiness around us. Tension hung like fog in the air.

Aubrey was the first to move. She knocked on the cab window with a sharp tap, breaking the silence. Her eyes flicked to me, then to Hale.

Hale and I stepped down from the truck. Gravel crunched beneath our boots. Behind us, the others in the second vehicle followed, their footsteps tentative, like predators stepping into unknown territory.

“What’s the hold up?” someone called, voice strained against the silence.

Hale’s gaze swept the empty lot. He exhaled, shoulders easing slightly.

“We rest here for the night,” I said, voice steady. “Stock up on food, gas, whatever we need to survive. Then we move before sunrise.”

The lot didn’t feel safe— nothing ever did— but for the first time in a while, there was a small, fragile sense of order.

The wind shifted, rustling old signs and loose debris. Somewhere, a distant metallic clang echoed. Everyone flinched, instinctive, muscles tight. We were alive, for now. That was all that mattered.

I glanced at Hale. He met my gaze, calm but watchful. Then at Aubrey, who was already scanning the pumps. Lila was near the tailgate, eyes alert, posture taut as if ready for anything.

For one heartbeat, we were all together, standing in the ruins of what once had been mundane—gas station lights, asphalt, old pumps— but in a world that had long since forgotten safety.

And for one heartbeat, it felt like survival might just be enough.

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