Siblings: Rahim.


"Crane," the radio snapped at the air and made itself sound like Rahim. "Crane, can you hear me?" Kyle exhaled, rolled over, and tucked his head between his forearms. He squeezed, tried to shut out the buzz of static filling his ears. Get back out there, Crane the GRE told him. We need that Antizin, Brecken begged.

"We fucked up," Rahim said.

"Good for you kid…" he murmured into the pillow squashed up against his face and burrowed himself a little deeper into it.

Couldn't they ever let him sleep?


Zofia caught Rahim's weight against her shoulder. A wet warmth pressed into her side. Soaked her shirt and clung to her skin. Zofia smelled the blood, a thick and copper scent. Fading life, trickling into the gravel by their feet as she dragged the boy along the derelict train tracks.

His weight hurt, made her spine ache and her knees shake, and Zofia knew she couldn't do this much longer. His leg would fail him soon. Or he'd trip. Or she'd trip. Or there'd be a line of Biters up ahead, hidden by dusk's failing light and her stinging eyes.

It was no use. His pleading into the radio fell on deaf ears. The Can you hear me? Come on, please answer! only served to hurry along the Biters keeping up, and soon they'd be right at their backs and she'd feel their fingers snatching at her shirt.

Zofia's mind ran ahead of her. It dropped Rahim. Left him sprawled on the train tracks. It rushed her back into the slums. Rushed her behind the set of ugly, yellow-brown curtains in her den, where she'd be safe.

He'd buy her time down there on the ground, just enough for her to get away. She'd done it before. She could do it again.


"Can you hear me? Come on, please answer! "

Kyle grunted and flung his arm out towards the noise. He'd squish it. Like some fat, buzzing fly. It'd pop and it'd shut the fuck up, and then he'd roll over and it'd all be okay.

Grow up, you sissy.

"Yeah— yeah—" he muttered. "What is it?"

His hand groped blindly along the bedside table, where he rapped the back of it painfully against an edge and then found a book, rather than the radio. But he refused to open his eyes, because the moment he did that he'd actually have to get up. And getting up, that meant getting himself ready for more work. And getting himself ready for more work, that meant making decisions, and his stomach wanted to climb up his throat just thinking about it.

He found the radio and with a clumsy grab knocked it to the floor.

"Fuck," Kyle breathed. He rolled towards the edge of the bed, his movement followed by the straining squeals of springs and hinges, and tried to follow the stupid thing.


Almost there.

Her eyes turned up to the lance of red clinging to the skies above the train yard, the wide hanger a shadow looming against the skies. So close. Just another minute. Maybe two.

Rahim staggered. His dragging foot caught on a rail and he took them both down with him. Metal cracked into her hip, jarred the bone. A bolt of pain arched through her, asked for her to scream, but Zofia refused. She clicked her teeth together and exhaled sharply through her burning nostrils and allowed herself no more than a drawn out whimper.

Rahim, on the other hand, cried out. It was a miserably little yelp, but still one noise too many in the evening's deceptive silence.

They'd hear him. They'd hear him, and they'd be on top of them.

Zofia pulled herself across the ground, fingers groping at the wooden ties between the rails. Shaking fingers. Bloody fingers. Her knees came up and she planted her feet under her. Biters turned towards them. Towards her. Her bladder pinched.

This was it. She couldn't stay. Zofia bolted on, persuaded her legs to run. She'd make it. Just a little farther…

Behind her, Rahim's radio crackled.

"Crane here, what's up?"

Her heels dug into the ground, kicked up gravel as she flung around. A few steps back and she fell to her knees, hands reaching for the radio.


Almost awake.

Kyle hung halfway off the bed as he fished for the radio hissing away on the floor. He swiped it up, pressed it to his ear, and threw a bleary eyed stare across the dark room lit only sparsely by the poor remains of light filtering through his window.

He was thirsty. He was hungry. He needed a piss. And he needed to find out how long he'd slept.

"Crane here, what's up?"

He yawned. His ears popped and his jaw cracked and— " …train yard, we're at the train yard, please come get us—" Zofia. Panicked. On his radio.

His mouth snapped shut, his heart ramped up the beats, and he'd fallen out of the bed even while his eyes were already looking for clothes.


"Slow down." He sounded calm and steady. Like she'd told him she'd forgotten to buy milk.

His voice was stronger than it had any right to be, too. Especially since it squeezed itself through the beat up radio tightly clutched to her cheek. Much like Rahim clutched to her as she continued guiding him across the track. Biters pooled in towards them, a swarm of shuffling, groaning death heralding worse things to follow.

"Where are you right now." Not a question. An assertion of a truth she'd be given him any moment. There's still enough milk. No. No there wasn't.

"Third warehouse," she squeezed between hurried breaths. "The one in the North."

"Okay, listen. Get somewhere safe. Get into a cart. Close the door. And do not move. Got it?"

Zofia heard him exhale sharply, followed by a bang of metal against metal. While Crane coughed up a curse, her eyes flew up towards the building drawing closer with each step.


New crowbar, check. Cocked and locked 911 tucked under his shoulder, check. His sanity? Unaccounted for. Kyle fumbled with the latches to the slim pack squeezed up against his side, the one doubling as a bandolier carrying a short array of two signal flares and two compact UV flashlights. The weight of the handgun was familiar, the tight straps reassuring. Almost like he had things under control and knew what he was doing.

Stand back, I got this. I'm a professional, you see.

None of that helped with the stubborn fatigue though. His vision blurred and he wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand. Still not enough sleep. That he'd forgotten dinner, along with lunch and breakfast certainly wasn't helping.

Focus. You can eat later.

He let his hand ghost along the pack, giving it a slight, reassuring pat. He'd crammed two questionable protein bars in there. Along with med supplies. And Antizin. "He's been bitten," she'd squeezed through the radio, so there went his spare dose.

Kyle gritted his teeth. It'd be a long night.

Out the elevator doors. Past Mesut. Down the drop. Through the doors, right into whatever was left of dusk. Not much, by the looks of it. A slim gleam of light still clung to the horizon, a remnant of the day he'd wasted to sleep.

Kyle flicked on his flashlight and followed the cone of light into the slums. A few steps out he let his hand fall to the radio on his hip and tuned it to a different frequency.

"Brecken?"

How was he going to break that news to him? And what the fuck was he going to tell Jade… His stomach turned.

One thing at a time.


"I need to get this open. Get this open. Come on. Open." The train cart did not listen. It stayed stubbornly shut as her bloodied fingers slipped from the handle with each hard pull.

Zofia's knees shook, wanted to fold under her and suggest she should crawl under the cart, rather than into it. Her lungs burnt. Her everything burnt, sweat stinging her eyes and drenching her hair.

She'd die. They'd die.

Rahim slumped against the cart in front of her. He looked pale, ghastly so. Feverish eyes found her and a trembling pair of lips moved wordlessly. Then he nodded at her, a stubborn little bob of his head, before he grabbed the cart door and helped her pull. His weight was all she'd needed, and together they broke it open. First only a hand's width. Then enough for her shoulders to fit through. She squeezed herself through the gap. Turned around to grab the door again and yank on it some more.

Her eyes caught the Biters drawing closer. Stretching for Rahim. Lunging. She pulled him forward, grabbed his shirt and pulled and pulled and pulled while a Biter grabbed for his leg. Its fingers curled around his boot, but he kicked at it while she kept pulling, and then he was inside, and their legs were inside, and their arms, and all their bits and pieces, and Zofia slammed the door shut and wrapped them in darkness.

What now? She curled herself against cold metal at her back, sucked in air that burnt down her throat. She tasted blood, smelled blood, felt blood.

Now Rahim will turn and you will die.

She held her breath. Listened for Rahim's own ragged pulls for air, his quiet and barely suppressed whimpers.

You just wait and see.


"He's bleeding," she whimpered. Her voice sounded hollow, metallic, and carried itself on a faint echo. "What do I do?"

"How bad is it?"

Bad as this ? Kyle's eyes turned down.

They'd come the same way, crossed the overpass right here. He hunkered on his haunches, eyes flicking up to scan the derelict cars barring the road. One stood in flames. Heat pushed in against him as the fire licked for the skies and acrid smoke filled his lungs.

He tried to put the pieces together in his head. Something had gone wrong. Debris littered the ground. Scorch marks traveled outwards from the burning vehicle. An explosion? Not a big one, but enough to cause harm and to make a whole lot of noise.

Death had come quick after that, at least for Omar lying in front of him. He'd had his neck torn out. A relatively quick way to go.

Kyle stood. What had Rahim been thinking? Why'd that stupid kid with his stupid ideas have to drag Zofia into this? And why hadn't she told him?

He grimaced and started pacing, left the blazing car behind and worked his way slowly towards the edge of the overpass. From here he could probably jump right atop the first of the three warehouses lined up in front of him. It'd be safer than going back down. Quicker, too.

"I don't know," Zofia's voice cut through his planning, still all hollow and trembling, with a panicked pitch to her words. "It's dark, I—"

"Get some light, Paper Tiger," he told her and looked out across the bowels of the slums. Time to get to work.


Zofia sucked in a quick breath. What?

"Light," she repeated. Of course. A shaking hand went up to the pocket on her shirt, tried to find the penlight she'd stuffed there. Empty. The pocket was empty. She'd dropped it. Of course she'd dropped it, because she needed it, and Zofia dropped things she needed. She bit down on the inside of her cheek.

"Rahim?" She shook his shoulder. "You've got a torch."

He groaned "What?" and she scrambled for words, because who didn't know what a torch was?

"Flashlight. You got a flashlight. A light."

Another groan, this one more Yes, and a beam of light hit her eyes. She squinted. He'd taped it to his shoulder, and it took her longer than she'd have liked to tear it free.

"Found one?" Crane's voice insisted from where she'd squeezed the radio between her knees.

"Oh shit. One second."

His breathing had turned laboured, hectic. She heard his quick footfalls, hurrying him along hard ground. Then a rush of air and something tore. A pained grunt. Then silence.

"Crane?"

Nothing.

"Cra—"

A series of stuttering clicks came from the radio and Zofia's lungs lined themselves with ice. Volatiles.

"Shit," he whispered and paused. "Fuck. " Another pause. "God. Fucking. Damnit."

Even within the relative safety of the stuffy train cart, with a bleeding Rahim by her knees while something shuffled and scraped against the outside walls, Zofia's bladder pinched at the sound of the strangled yowl that followed Crane.


He'd slipped. He'd fucking slipped. One moment he'd made the climb, the next his foot hadn't found purchase and he'd fallen right off the side of the building. Tore his shirt up on his way down, too. And then he'd been surrounded, caught right in the middle of a picture perfect pincer manoeuvre as three Volatiles had prowled the train tracks around him.

Clever. Fucking. Assholes.

They'd not seen him. Yet. He stayed out of sight inside a concrete tube left over from a construction project that'd never see completion, and let the things thump by. Their rattling breaths had the hairs at the back of his neck stand at rapt attention. They made him want to run. Just fly right out of there and high tail it down the tracks.

But that'd be stupid, even if sitting here meant he was wasting time. While he sat here, waiting, Rahim could be bleeding out. Or worse. He might turn.

Kyle's right foot moved. Then his left. He could smell the stagnant death on the air as he slipped past the Volatiles and picked his way through the dark.


So much blood. Warm and wet and looking terribly black where the light didn't touch it as the torch trembled between her teeth. She told Rahim to sit still and he leaned himself against the side of the cart. The movies said put pressure on it, so that's what she'd do. All she had to do was find the wound underneath the torn up clothing.

"Let go of that," Zofia tried to make him release the pack with the two charges of explosives. He shook his head. Held on to it a little tighter, like it was the only thing left in his life that mattered.

Omar might have thought the same thing. Right before he'd dropped them, since dead men were prone to do that. She hadn't noticed, been too busy trying to run. But Rahim had, and no amount of pulling on the boy's arm to get him to leave them had convinced him. He'd gone back for them, and the Biter got him. He'd died right there, but he'd kept walking anyway, limping. Then the railing had given out under them, and they'd both almost stopped walking altogether.


Kyle stayed low, his shoulders hunched forward as he ran across the top of the train cart. Each hollow thump of his footfalls made him fear he'd attract attention, but he couldn't afford weaving his way through the Biters on the ground. Not in the dark, where his flashlight cast too long shadows that made a stick look like a limb or a limb like a stick, whichever was the most inconvenient.

He almost had it though— three or four more carts and he'd be right up there with the last warehouse towards the North, the one closest to the skyscraper Rahim had wanted to level.

He didn't like the silence in his ear though, only broken once when Zofia's choked voice told Rahim to leave it alone, he's coming to get us. She'd sounded close to tears there. Or in tears.

How the fuck should I know.

Kyle tried not to think of them cornered in there, trapped and left to die if he didn't make it, since Brecken had refused to tell Jade. A good choice, of course. She'd just have gone out half cocked and gotten herself killed in the process. If anyone deserved to pay for their joint idiocy of leaving the explosives at the Tower, within easy reach of her kid brother, then it was him. Not her. He should have known the kid wasn't going to just leave it be.

"You bring that boy back alive," Brecken had told him. Sure. Easy. No pressure.

Kyle ran a little harder.


"You can get them inside," Rahim pleaded and Zofia shook her head at him.

"I'm not leaving you here."

"I can show you how to set the timers, and—" He went for the bag again and she hissed at him.

"No. Rahim. No. Stop talking. Try to focus on not dying, okay?"


He leapt across another gap.

End of the line.

His light angled outwards, across the wide yard, and caught the side of the building. Unlike the other warehouses, this one stood a little stunted, not quite as wide and imposing. The side facing him remained faintly lit by dirty light fixtures still drawing power from the grid. They made it easy for him to scope out his approach, and Kyle clicked off his flashlight.

He needed a moment. Just enough to catch a breather. Get his bearings a little better. Almost there didn't mean time to get cocky. A lesson learned young, or a lesson learned too late.

A group of Biters lingered somewhere to the right. Too far off to be of any concern, so he disregarded them for the time being. Filed them away in the back of his head to take into consideration once he got there.

Two train carts stood between him and the building. Some crates, too. This might have been a busy loading area at some point, but the only thing that was now left to attend the carts were three Volatiles huffing at the air as they prowled between them.

That was trouble. He sorted their paths in his head. Looked for a pattern. Found none.

Okay.. still doable.

And then there was that thing straight ahead of him. Right across. Right by the slightly ajar door. A fourth Volatile. Not the usual sort, no. Naturally this one had to be different, lacking the raw, red muscle and tendons stretching over bare, red flesh. This thing was armoured, with spikes on its fucking head and long, crooked fangs protruding from its jaws.

You've got to be kidding me.

Kyle scanned left, scanned right. He'd have to circle around. Maybe there was another way in.


"Talk to me," Crane urged from the floor.

Zofia's eyes snapped to the radio, then up to Rahim who had started staring at the explosives he still held clutched to him. She picked it up with a bloodied hand, hesitant at first since she didn't want to ease the pressure on the gash on the boy's side. Whatever he'd caught himself on it had sheared right through cloth and skin when they'd fallen.

Her thumb pressed down on the talk button, but then her lips parted uselessly. What was she supposed to say?


His earpiece clicked. He paused mid motion, let a Biter shuffle past. Slipped around it. Still no other way in.

"So," he whispered. "You did go to band camp."

"What?" Zofia's voice pitched with surprise.

"The guitar. You were pretty good with it." He backtracked. Found himself where he'd started, with the armoured fucker still in front of the door. He glowered at it, scooped up a rock, and imagined himself chucking it at the thing's head.

Or over his head, rather. Maybe it'd go investigate. And he could slip right past. Or maybe it'd just be enough of a noise to get them worked up a little and draw more of them to the door.

Options. Where were they when he needed them?

Kyle watched the thing tilt its scale tipped head towards the night skies and have a good go at an earsplitting, stuttering howl. A chorus of answers echoed through the train yard, and Kyle didn't even bother counting them. He also let the rock roll from his fingers again, abandoning that idiocy. For now.

On the other end of the radio, Zofia inhaled sharply.

"They're outside. Don't worry." He crept up to the front of the same train cart as before, grabbed on to the ladder hanging off its side and climbed back up. "So. Can you do any Foo Fighters?"

An even worse idea than the rock formed in his head. He unlatched his sidearm, drew it from its holster.

You're batshit insane, Crane.

Startled silence filled his ear, and he stopped judging his plan for premature failure before it even had a chance to prove itself. Instead he thought of thin, quivering lips moving in disbelief.

"Ye— yeah."


Her core shook, made the rest of her tremble along with it. She could barely keep her weight on the wound any more, and feared she'd just slip right off and then not find the strength to set her hands back down on it. Rahim, in the meantime, had started emptying the two charges onto the floor, rather than helping her with his own bloody life seeping into the sawdust that covered the inside of the cart.

"Which ones?"

Zofia blinked.

Is he for real?

"Everlong, I can do Everlong."

Could she? Yeah. She could. Probably. She couldn't remember the last time she'd tried to play it, if it had been any good at all or if it'd ever be any good again.

"Any others?"

She wheezed.

"What? No. I- I don't think so. I don't know."

"Okay, okay. What about Sweet Home Alabama? Can you play that?"

Her tongue clicked against the back of her mouth.

"Why?"

"Well, thought maybe you could play it for me when we get back?"

"You're from…" She blinked.

"No, I'm not from Alabama," he said. His voice sounded different, all southern drawl and lazy slur. "Ma'am," he added and something unknotted in her throat. The hand pushing against Rahim's side steadied.

Zofia squeezed her eyes shut. She heard a clack on the other side. A sliding sort of snap of metal against metal. Then gravel crunched and he grunted. He inhaled a shaky puff of air.

"Please?"

"Sure…"

"Sweet. Now hang tight. I'll be right with you."

Silence. Not the hush of him holding his breath, but the one that turned the other end of the radio to static.

And then a gunshot.


Kyle flattened himself against the tracks. He couldn't see shit from under the cart. Just a lot of death headed right for him.

Four Volatiles came bounding across the yard. He could make out their clawed feet tearing up the gravel as they ate up the ground, and then the cart above him shuddered when they hauled themselves onto it. He started crawling, dragging himself along on his elbows until he reached the edge.

I'm getting too old for this.

He flipped on his back, grabbed the side of the cart. Pulled himself out. His arms shook, muscles teasing him with the idea of cramping. An icy tension coiled in his stomach. Or maybe he just really needed to piss. Not like he'd have time for that luxury yet. He clenched his jaw as he peeled himself out from under the cart. Got up. Tucked his head between his shoulders and started in a hunched over jog towards the door.

He made it halfway when the Volatiles' clicking and huffing turned to excited, strangled cries. They threw themselves after him a moment later, their heavy forms landing with dull thuds as they started their pursuit.

"Fuuuu—" he started, abandoned his jog, and broke into a desperate sprint. A hand flew to his makeshift bandolier, tore one of the UV lights free. He hit the wall running, threw himself at the door and flung it open, while snapping the light up with the other hand. He flicked the button, and met the charging wall of terror with a sweep of bright blue light.

They didn't slow.

They should have fucking slowed.

Kyle gritted his teeth, yanked the door shut. Found a locking bolt on the inside. Grabbed it. Threw it down.

The door, along with the whole wall around it, shuddered. It bent. Rocked. Heavy bodies wanting to tear him to pieces threw themselves at it with enough force to knock him aside and sprawl him out on his back.

His head snapped against the ground. He groaned, squeezed his eyes shut. Stars. He was seeing fucking stars. Kyle pulled his knees up, rolled to the side, and with his head pounding and his heart racing, tried to get his bearings.

Legs were shuffling towards him, with their jerky fucking Zombie walk. Biters. Drawn by the gunshot, no doubt, and now him as he crawled back to his feet, a stupid, useless UV light dancing around him like a beacon to the dinner table.

"Okay. Okay, you can do this—" he told himself, and slunk out of their line of sight behind the closest cart.


Zofia flinched. A cacophony of noise filled the hangar. First a loud rattle. Then a series of unnatural yowls, the sound of cats being eviscerated right outside their cart. They'd never stopped howling. Even now she could hear them as they threw themselves into the wall trying to find a way in.

Then came a few metallic thumps. Closer this time, drawing nearer with each THUNK and THUMP. Something scraped noisy across the roof. The cart shook. More scraping, and the stomp of feet right above her head. She ducked her head between her shoulders and next to her Rahim rested his back against the wall and stared upwards with bleary, bloodshot eyes.

Then whatever had been dancing on their heads fell off. It landed wetly. Warbled. But not for long. A sickening crunch silenced it, bone breaking inside a fleshy sheath.

"Rahim? Kid, you in there?" Crane. Right outside. Calling the boy's name, banging a fist against the door. "Zofia?"

The door squealed open, let in the hangar's stubborn light and a stubborn man along with it. Zofia squinted, tucked her chin against her shoulder. He hoisted himself up.

An alarmed set of light brown eyes landed on Rahim. His brows furrowed. His lips pinched into a thin line. Then the eyes switched over to her, and Zofia wished she'd got herself eaten by a Biter.

This is your fault. You did this, they accused her.

Crane twisted around, cast a look over his shoulder. A thinking sort of crease bunched itself up into his forehead, and then he'd made up his mind with whatever it was that a man with a plan so thought about, and pulled himself across the floor.

He knelt right in front of her, filled out the whole cart far as she was concerned, wall to wall and floor to bloody ceiling. All shoulders and chest, both rising and falling quickly, and a whole lot of dirt clinging to him.

She dropped her chin to her chest, refused to look at him any longer than she absolutely had to, and kept her eyes lowered even as he pulled her hands away from the wound.

"You'll be okay, kid."

Zofia slid away from them, gave him room to work.

"Crane, you need to get those explosives to the nest. They—"

"Rahim. Do me a favour and shut up, okay?"

She started wiping her hands across her trousers. Tried to get the blood off. It didn't work. So she pulled her knees up to her chest and squeezed her lips together. They'd started trembling, the corners twitching downwards. Her eyes stung. Zofia chewed on the inside of her cheek and fought the tears with all she had left.

She watched Crane pull a knife and cut away on Rahim's layers of clothing. He was talking. A lot. Being a little bipolar about it as well. One moment he'd be pissed, the next concerned. And then he'd be right back to furious, only to drop his voice to sound so damn caring Zofia felt her heart split right down the middle with what she'd done.

He'd come prepared, she noticed as she watched him from between her knees. Armed, even. A handgun was holstered below his left shoulder, and a sidepack hugged itself close to his right. Along that she saw a tear in his grey cotton shirt, starting at his navel and moving halfway up his chest. Blood soaked the fringes, red tendrils fanning out like veins on a butterfly wing.

He didn't care about that though, or the cut she caught sight of as he moved and whenever the gap in the shirt let her peek at the skin beneath.

Crane focused solely on the boy, on getting him dosed with Antizin, on getting the wound cleaned and packed and then wrapping medical tape around his chest to keep it all in place.

By the time he was done the cart looked a lot like a butcher shop, and he'd wiped sweat from his brow so many times his forehead was smeared with red.

And then he turned to her and Zofia shrunk in on herself.


What? What did I do?

Kyle blinked, lifted his arm, and wiped at his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Maybe he just looked terrifying. Being ready to pass out after running a marathon against night terrors, and then following it all up by playing field medic might turn anyone into a monster, he figured.

Zofia huddled a little farther away from him, and her chin dipped down between her knees. She stared at him as if he was getting ready to give her a thrashing. Wide eyed fear tracked his movement, flicked nervously between his shoulders and sometimes even dared to meet his eyes.

No, he didn't want to thrash anything. What he'd have preferred to do was to pull her towards him and start scouring every inch of her for nicks and bruises. Make sure she'd be okay.

Aaaand that'd not be appreciated.

So he settled for a: "You hurt?" and accepted the shake of her head at face value.

"It's safe out there. Mind helping me get Rahim into one of the other carts?"

She hesitated, but nodded.

"I can walk," Rahim complained.

Kyle's lips twitched. Complaining was good. The kid 'd live after all and he could stop worrying himself sick about what to tell Brecken and Jade. Alive, but bitten. His lips twitched down.

Fucking A.


Rahim didn't appreciate being helped down the cart and Zofia gladly stood back while Crane dragged the stubborn boy along with him. He made it look so bloody easy, too. While she'd struggled not to crumple under his weight, Crane just marched him right across the warehouse and towards whatever cart he'd picked for them.

She looked around as she followed them, spotted the bodies littering the floor. Their saviour had been busy out here. By her first count she noticed at least six Biters, along with one of these things the Runners called Toads. She shivered. If that thing had seen them on their way in…

"Please, Crane…" Rahim whined while he was being helped into a cart. "There's still time, and you promised you'd do it."

"And I will. Zofia?"

Her head snapped up. She'd frozen halfway to the cart with her hands in her pockets and Crane came walking up to her. He stopped in front of her, raised a hand like he was about to plant it on her shoulder, and then jerked it up to rub at his neck instead.

"Rahim lost some blood, but he'll live. We can't move him back to the Tower in that condition though, not at night, anyway." He looked over his shoulder at the pair of boots sticking out from the cart where he'd left the boy.

"Tomorrow Brecken will send some runners to help us."

Zofia nodded.

"Now." She didn't like the tone his voice took; A promise of grim business ahead, which clenched her chest together painfully.

"I want you to get in there, close the doors behind you, and not come out until either me or Brecken knock on that door. Got it?"

When she didn't nod, because she didn't get it, couldn't comprehend he'd go through with this on his own, he placed a hand against her nape. Her shoulders twitched and her feet tried to carry her backwards, but the hand wouldn't let her. It didn't squeeze. Didn't grip tightly either. Just sat there, his fingers curling against her spine, his thumb riding up to her ear.

She forgot about breathing. Forgot about a lot of things.

He guided her chin up. Made her look at him.

"Can you do that?"

His eyes held a feverish quality. But they were stubborn and they held hers, even if they looked so bloody tired she thought he might just collapse any moment.

She nodded. And he smiled. It was a flash of a smile, accompanied by a reassuring squeeze against her neck, before the hand fell away and he headed past her to fetch the explosives.

Zofia didn't want to turn around. Didn't want to watch him go. She lifted her hands to her neck, draped them around the warmth he'd left there, and headed for Rahim's boots sticking from the cart.

Back inside, Zofia listened to Rahim pass instructions through the radio, while she sat as far away as she could from him, perched on a upturned wooden crate. Her fingers curled against her trousers, nails digging into the fabric. Her heart shuddered meekly, no longer up to the strain of having to thump wildly.

Then came the hollow crack of the explosion.

It shook the cart around her, clicked her teeth together. A moment later the whole world started trembling. Every bit of dirt inside the cart bounced wildly, and even the air danced inside her ears. For a moment Zofia thought the building Rahim wanted to level would come down right on top of them. Bury them alive. Bury Crane alive, too.

"Crane?" Rahim stared at the radio. That stupid, quiet thing lying in his hands. "Come on man."

Nothing.

Zofia stared at the radio. Willed it to speak. Any moment now. It had to. Just had to. She'd not been hating on the man and wishing he'd be out of her life just so she could get her wish. Just because she couldn't keep her head on straight any more. Because he'd tickled her the wrong way and she'd not minded. Just because he'd be back at the Tower after and go play heroes with Jade. No. That wasn't how it worked. He'd be fine. Had to be fine. So she could hate on him some more. Try to get away from him some more. The radio clicked. She leaned forward.

And then recoiled when the thing burst with laughter. Victorious whoops filled the cart, followed by an ecstatic and utterly breathless: "Shit! You should have seen this!" that made her wish she'd had.

Just in time too, since Zofia had forgotten how to breathe again.


Taffer Notes: Updated 12nd Mar 2017, Draft version 1.5