“He likes whoever’s holding the food,” I said.
“He sat with you for ten minutes yesterday,” she countered.
“And then he left.”
“Because you’re grumpy.”
“Because he’s smart.”
That drew a small, quick laugh from her, almost gone before it fully arrived, but real. And in the particular economy of those two weeks, real mattered more than size.
Libby kept moving.
That’s the only way to describe it—she simply didn’t stop. Setting things up, reorganizing supplies, checking doors and windows with a regularity that began to look less like caution and more like a compulsion she had to work out with her hands. There was always something new demanding her attention before she’d fully finished the last task, always a reason to be up and doing rather than sitting still with whatever she’d brought back from that store besides food.
I noticed it.
I noticed a lot of things about her, more than I’d intended, and that in itself had started to become its own particular problem I didn’t have the energy to examine properly yet.
We were alone in the back room the afternoon she told me.
She came in to check my dressing—Fiona’s instructions, a task she’d taken on without being asked. Between the silence and the close quarters, she spoke carefully, as if she’d been weighing the decision for a while.
“I went to the store. The day after we got here.”
My head snapped toward her. “Alone?”
A pause.
“…Yes.”
“What the hell, Libby.” It came out sharper than I’d intended, but not sharp enough to retract.
“I was careful—”
“You went alone,” I cut in, pushing myself upright despite the immediate protest from my shoulder. “With a gun you’d barely used before any of this started.”
“I handled it.”
“You got lucky.”
The moment the words left my mouth, I saw them land on her face and knew instantly I’d gone too far.
“I didn’t get lucky,” she said, anger entering her eyes with a directness she didn’t try to soften. “I did what needed doing because it had to be done and there wasn’t anyone else to do it.”
I leaned forward slightly, ignoring the pull and burn in my shoulder. “And what happened out there? Because you’re leaving something out.”
She held my gaze steadily.
“I ran into one.”
My stomach dropped straight through the floor.
“And?”
“I shot it.”
Silence settled between us for a long moment.
