I finished off the last mouthful of coffee and set my cup down. “It’s been getting harder to start. The engine’s clunky, too.”
Liv frowned and gazed over my shoulder. “Should we try yours and see how we go or look for another one before we leave the city?”
That was the big question. Six hours on the road in an unreliable car would be pushing it even with breaks in between. If we went for it, we risked being stranded somewhere isolated when night came. If we spent longer in the city searching for an alternative car, we chanced being seen by the gang. Either way, we were putting ourselves in danger.
Given the car’s performance before I parked it in the underground garage days ago, we’d make it to the outer suburbs without too much trouble. Houses were spread farther apart there, cars more likely to be parked in driveways with keys inside the homes. “I’d say we could drive for an hour or more before we need to start looking at other options.”
“So, we’ll do that. Are you interested?”
I kept my eyes on hers as I mulled the idea over. The prospect of being anywhere with her doing anything appealed to me, but I needed to keep her safety in mind when we were making decisions. Men saw me as a threat, meaning they were more likely to challenge me or stay out of my way. They were a danger to Liv for different reasons, and it wouldn’t be safe to stay on the road with her for hours at a time. She’d be too visible, too vulnerable. We’d have to make overnight stops—two or three at least—to avoid being out in the open for long stretches.
A trip like that would mean dealing with road blockages, gangs, and hordes of corpses potentially bigger than anything either of us had seen so far... but staying here would lead to nothing good, especially when her food stores ran out. We couldn’t grow crops or spend time outside without risking being seen. Her apartment would become our prison.
And if you reached a dead end these days, you generally ended up dead.
She’d just given me—us—the perfect out. A target, an end destination. The property might turn out to be a non-event for various reasons, but it gave us something positive to focus on, a reason to keep going each day. “Yes.” It only took one look at her eyes widening with excitement to have me smiling. “Yes, I’ll go with you. Did you think I'd say no?”
"I honestly wasn't sure. It's a long way, and there are probably much closer properties that would still work."
"We don't know where they are, though," I pointed out, "and it could take weeks to check out places before we find the right one. At least we know this house exists. All we can do is hope it hasn't gone to shit in the time since those photos were taken."
Her features brightened for a few seconds, then reality set in and her face fell. “I can’t leave today, though. Can you still give me another night or two to make sure I’m ready?"
I'd originally told her I'd wait as long as she needed, and I didn't want to push her, but her apartment had an expiry date. We couldn't get too comfortable here. "We'll need to make a move tomorrow. With those corpses in the hall gone now, we won’t know if anyone’s up on this level until it’s too late.” That made her balcony our only escape option, and the process of getting down to the next level took too long for one person let alone both of us.
Liv pulled in a quick breath as if the thought hadn’t occurred to her. “Of course. You're right. I'll work on being ready.”
So, we’d use the afternoon to plan our next move, Liv would spend one more night in the apartment she’d lived in for years—and tomorrow before the sun rose, we’d hit the road and leave it all behind us for good.
Six
Cruz
Liv encouraged me to go through her cupboards and check her stash to pass the time, so I rifled through her food and camping supplies, finding basic items like lighters, batteries, and torches. She had a first aid kit, flares, and other items I might not have thought about stocking up on myself; the kind of supplies she must have been saving for when it came time to leave here. It looked like she’d done a shit ton of research back when we still had the Internet, and if I’d known her before Covid and Ultimus when there was nothing tangible to worry about, her behaviour might have concerned me.
Now? I shook my head and smiled from time to time, impressed with her attention to detail. I didn't know how well her planning and prep skills would translate to living in unfamiliar situations and doing it tough, but I had a feeling it wouldn't take long for her to adapt even if she started out shaky.
When I’d had my fill of cataloguing her supplies, I found her standing over by the sliding door, keeping off to one side just like she'd done in the office building. I stayed quiet for a minute and took in her profile, from the slender line of her neck to the appealing curve of her breasts. She surveyed the street with an intensity that mesmerized me, her body still, her eyes alert. If I’d looked like an evil overlord up on the rooftop, she was... she was something different, something soft and sweet in a life that had become too hard.
“Do you know how to relax?” I asked.
She snapped out of it and sent a glance my way. “No, unfortunately. I even sleep standing up.”
There wasn't even a trace of humour in her tone. “I'm going to assume you’re joking because that's about the saddest thing I've ever heard.”
Liv gave me a faint smile as she wandered closer. “I sleep pretty well, and when I'm not cleaning or running around outside, I spend most of my time reading."
Probably non-fiction books on poisonous berries, DIY surgery, and trapping small game, if I had to guess. “Does the gang ever give you any trouble when you're out there?” With no laws to keep us in line anymore, people were harder to predict, and I'd seen the darker side of too many during my time on the road.
She got settled on the recliner before she answered me. “Other than being aware of their movements so I can stay out of their way, they don’t have a huge impact on my life. I watched them for months to work out their routine. Found out where they were living. How they spent their time. I recognise a few of their faces now, and I'm pretty sure the leader's name is Jackson—he's a big guy with long hair, a beard, tattoos—but I don’t think they’ve ever seen me.”
I went over to the couch and took a seat, relaxing against the backrest. Our weapons lay between us on the coffee table. “What else can you tell me about them?”
Liv tucked her legs underneath her and considered my question. “They’re not usually early risers. Most of the time it’s mid-morning before I see or hear them, but there are enough exceptions that I’d never rely on that to keep me safe.”
“How far away is their base?”
“It’s in the tennis centre about two kilometres from here. I'm guessing they're using the corporate boxes and meeting rooms on the upper levels as sleeping quarters. They could grow vegetables on the arena floor if they brought in dirt, but I bet they won't. It would make a great set-up with the right work.”
