“I’m sorry, Zach. I just—I can’t.”
He shuts his eyes again and takes slow breaths. When he opens them, they’re downcast. Fear is replaced by deep sadness.
“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. “I need to sleep.”
He gets up from his chair, with shoulders slumped down, and heads to his tent looking shell-shocked. I’m so stunned by the sudden change I can only watch him walk away.
I sit by the fire and contemplate what happened. In a matter of moments, Aiden went from joyous to almost panicked. There’s something more there that he’s not telling me. More than losing Marcus. That was terror in his eyes. The Great Collapse has spared no one from the beast called trauma. And some are in an active battle with it.
I’m lost in thought until the last embers die down to nothing. Then I head off to my tent and go to sleep.
*
I wake in the middle of the night. A noise woke me. I’m sure of it. But now, I only hear the sounds of the forest. Then it happens again, and I recognize it. The crunching of boots on gravel. But it’s muted and far away. Through the window of my tent, flashlights shine around. My heart races, and I reach for my gun. But like the footsteps, the flashlights are several hundred feet away.In the campground.
There are two, or maybe three, people. They speak in hushed tones. The beam from a flashlight shoots off into the woods once or twice. Another heads in our direction. I flick off the safety on my rifle, ready for anything. More hushed voices. And then, the flashlight moves again, and the crunching of gravel fades away as the figures continue on.
The tension in my body releases, but I stay frozen in place until long after they are gone. Then I head to Aiden’s tent. Dawn is not far off, with the blackness of the sky turning into a deep purple.
“Aiden, wake up,” I whisper.
“I’m awake,” he says through the tent flap.
“Did you see them?”
“Yes. We should go. Now.”
We pack as fast as we can. Dawn is arriving quickly. If people are still in the area, we want to be mobile. Instead of returning to the campground, we take a wide berth around it. We meet back up with the northern Forest Service road but stay a hundred feet to the west of it.
The forest hampers our progress. After an hour of slow going, we risk heading back to the road. The junkyard is at least an eight-hour hike, and I want to be sure we have plenty of sunlight left to find the car, get it running, and hit the road. I’m also looking forward to seeing Ezra again.
We’ve barely spoken a word since we left camp. I’m almost afraid to say anything, unsure of what Aiden’s reaction will be. If he wants to talk about what happened at the campfire, I’ll let him make the first move. It needs to be on his terms.
After close to an hour of silence, he finally speaks.
“Zach. About last night. Sorry for how I reacted. I’m dealing with some stuff.”
“You can talk to me about it if you want.”
He gives a sad laugh. “Thanks. Maybe eventually.”
“Okay,” I say quietly.
He said he doesn’t want attachments, but I’m getting mixed signals. And I’m as light as a feather each time he’s nice to me. I try to convince myself that we shouldn’t get close, and I should fight the attraction. But if I’m honest with myself, that’s not what I want at all. I’m so confused.
We’re both eager to reach our destination, so we only stop once for a quick break at lunch. As we head out of the mountains, the trees get sparser, replaced by rolling golden hills of grassland. That means we’re nearing the junkyard, but it also means we’re more exposed.
I survey the surroundings. “I figure we’re less than an hour away.”
“Okay. So tell me a little of what to expect when we get there.”
“Well, it’s just Ezra and his junkyard. In the middle of nowhere. He’s on the outskirts of some town, but I’m not even sure what it’s called.”
“And you’re sure he’ll give us his car?”
“Yeah, that’s what he said.” In reality, he said he’d trade it for all my supplies. And I’d be glad to do that. But that assumes Connor and his gang haven’t trashed the vault. I keep this little detail to myself. We can deal with it when the time comes.
“What kind—” Aiden cuts himself off, craning his neck to listen. “Car! Quick, hide!”
