I went early the next morning, taking with me a few books that the Mallrats might find useful, in case Lex insisted on trade rather than charity. There were few people up this early, and I passed through the city without issue.

As before the alarm went off as I was passing through the sewer. I passed the tripwire and waited at the bottom of the steps from the Mall. Lex and Ryan turned up, both in their boxers – not a sight I particularly wanted to see – and both looking as if they'd just woken up.

"Faye. You given up on the Loco then?" Lex said sarcastically.

"Morning, Lex. Sorry, did I wake you? I've just come for a visit. Need a word with Jack about something, and we're running out of food."

"Food?" Lex protested, just as Amber arrived on the scene. "I don't think so."

"Don't worry," I reassured him. "I have items for trade."

"Come on in," Amber said.

We all went up to the cafe, where everyone was assembling for breakfast as Salene was cooking it. Ignoring Lex' protests I accepted Amber's offer of breakast; I'd not eaten hot food for days and it would mean the food we had in the library would last longer.

"So," said Amber as I feasted on baked beans and tinned sausage. "To what do we owe the pleasure?"

I finished the last forkful before answering. "I need to ask Jack for a little help setting up a water supply, and I hope to take some of the seeds back with me so we can grow food for ourselves. But until then we need tins to keep us going. I brought some books back from the library I thought you might find useful for trade. And we need some more clothes for Dev and Zoot."

"Who's Dev?" Cloe asked.

"A friend of mine from school," I told her. "He was in the Demon Dogs, and he helped us out the day we left the Mall."

"A Demon Dog?" Patsy said.

"You've got a Demon Dog and a Loco living peacefully under the same roof?" Amber asked, amazed. "You can't make this stuff up."

"I never claimed it was peaceful," I pointed out. "Far from it. They argue constantly. But it's not so bad."

"Morning Faye," Bray said as he arrived in the cafe. "How's Martin?"

"Better," I told him. "I brought the paracetamol back, he didn't want them."

"Trudy's still asleep, Sunshine was awake early this morning and so she takes advantage of whatever sleep she can get."

I nodded.

"What you got, then?" Lex asked, interrupting, motioning towards the bag I'd put on the ground beside my chair.

"Just coming to it, Lex," I replied, and undid the clips to reveal a bag full of books. I took them out one at a time: a gardening book; one about electricity I'd thought might be useful; a couple of young teen fictions for Cloe, Patsy and Paul; a couple of medical journals containing articles about spotting symptoms, and one containing a discourse on water purity; a sceintific study of diet that might help them to work out balanced meals; a few scouting journals that contained a lot of interesting and useful information; a few more fictions, and, finally, a handful of CDs from the music library.

"We've got loads more if you need them. CDs too, loads and loads of them. I don't know what these are, I just grabbed them at random, but if you want any specific bands I can have a look for you."

Ryan picked up a CD case. "Hey, awesome, I used to love this band."

Lex grabbed it from his hand and replaced it on the pile on the table. "This is nothing," he said. "We're gonna need more than this for what you want."

"You've not heard what I want yet," I said, "And like I said, there's more CDs if you want them. Books too. I live in a library, for goodness sakes. We have lots of books. What we want, however, is food and water. Forty tins and twenty five bottles will enable us to last another week, maybe a bit longer. I don't think it'd be a good idea to carry more than that through the city. Clothes too. I'll take some of my own with me, but the guys need a change of clothes each too. And I need Jack's help to set up a rain collection and purification system on the roof."

"Forty tins?" Lex seemed indignant. "Are you joking? We're not giving you all that much for what you've brought here."

I sighed. "And I can't carry it all back on my own. I'll need someone to help out, so whoever comes back with me can bring back more books and CDs for you with them. You've got stereos here, you can listen to them easily enough."

Ignoring Lex's continued protests, Amber agreed to my offer and on another table the tins and bottles of water I'd asked for were soon lined up. Clothes were a little harder to find. Lex had taken a lot of them that fit, and anyway there were fewer clothes shops for guys in the Mall than there were for girls. Eventually I had a neat little pile of t-shirts, jackets and trousers. Leaving the kids looking for more, I went up to the roof with Jack to discuss water collection and filtering. We gathered a few containers from the storage rooms, as well as some tools and other items we'd need. While we were up there I looked though the box of seed packets and took one of each kind of vegetable.

Once everything I was taking back with me was compiled in the cafe, I realised exactly how much of it there was. Jack and I alone would not be able to carry it all. Bray volunteered to help, and straight after, so did Salene, then Ryan too.

"In case you need someone to fight," he said. "Like if the Locos come or something."

In the end, with five of us to carry all the stuff, each bag was pretty light. As we exited the sewer it started to rain, a drizzle at first, but it soon turned heavier. I hoped Dev and Zoot had enough sense to get some sort of container – the wasing up bowl, perhaps – up on the roof to collect the rain water; we couldn't afford to waste what chances we got.

If any of the tribes were out in the worsening weather, they weren't where we were, and neither was anyone else; presumably they were all sheltering from the rain. We hurried back, shoulders hunched, and finally made it back into the library, dripping on the carpet and shivering.

Dev must have been watching for my return, because he came down almost as soon as I'd finished securing the door.

"Hiya Bray," he said, coming into view around the edge of a bookcase. "Faye, you gonna introduce me? What's in the bags?"

"The stuff I traded for. Dev, this is Jack, Ryan and Salene. Ryan, Jack, Salene, this is Dev." I turned to him. "We've got another forty tins, and they're taking some books and CDs back with them. And Jack came to help sort out a water filter system. Where's Zoot?"

"He says to call him Marty now," Dev replied. "I think he's on the roof, sorting out some containers to collect water in. You need help unpacking?"

The bags were soon empty, the tins and bottles of water arranged neatly in cupboards in the staffroom. Dev rifled through the clothes and chose a few items, then disappeared for a while as the rest of us sorted through the tools and other things we'd brought for the water filter, under Jack's direction. With five of us working on it, it was soon constructed and only needed the addition of sand and gravel in layers before it could be used. Dev came back in as we were finishing, wearing a royal blue t-shirt and black jeans, with a red hoodie tied around his waist.

He looked a lot more like he had before the virus.

"So you guys are taking stuff back with you, huh?" he said. "Want me to show you where everything is?"

"Uh, sure," Salene said. She and Ryan followed Dev downstairs; Jack was tinkering with the water filter system, adjusting a screw here, something else there. Bray stayed with me.

"So Martin's on the roof, is he?" he asked.

"Apparently. Want me to show you how to get there?"

"No, I'll find it. Top floor skylights, right?"

"Yup."

So he went.

"I think it'll work now," Jack muttered, not looking up. "Just add the layers of sand and gravel."

Some time later, their bags full of books and CDs, the Mallrats left the library to return through the damp streets to that Mall. Bray seemed satisfied by whatever discussion he'd had with his brother. Marty, as he now wished to be known, was still on the roof, presumably occupied with collecting water. Just before they left, Bray took me aside.

"You could come back, you know," he said. "Marty and Dev can look after themselves until we've persuaded the others to let them into the Mall, and if you're there to help talk them round, it might happen sooner."

I hesitated, considering. I missed the Mall, but with so many people there now it felt crowded and no longer my own. "Not yet," I said at last. "I wanna make sure everything's running smoothly here first."

After the others had gone, Dev told me he wanted to show me something. He took me to a distant corner of the first floor, a cozy space surrounded by shelves, containing most of the library's soft chairs and the three beanbags which I'd previously seen in the children's section. I browsed the books on the shelves. A few gardening books, but the rest were fiction, some detective thrillers, some fantasy, some sci-fi. I recognised the names of a few authors – J R R Tolkein and Arthur Conan Doyle and Jane Austen – but there were many I hadn't heard of.

"We thought you might like it."

I raised an eyebrow. "We?"

"Yeah. Me and Marty."

"Go on," I said. "Tell me what happened when I was gone."

"Well, uh..." It was the first time I'd heard Dev be really awkward. "Last night, after dinner, he came and apologised to me, about, you know, the food. And, well, after what you said, you know, about how he could change, well, I also, um apologised."

"And this?" I asked, indicating the bean bags, chairs and shelves with a sweep of my hand.

"Well, we got talking. It's a thank-you for putting up with us, and helping us out, and stuff. We brought books we thought you might like."

I grinned. "It's wonderful. Is Z- Marty still on the roof?"

"Uh, I think so. You stay here, I'll go get him."

He hurried off before I could protest. I shrugged, and got comfortable in a bean bag. Here was something I hadn't expected. Zoot – no, Marty, I reminded myself – and Dev getting along, and after they'd been at each other's throats just a day before. I felt guiltily proud of myself – I'd been ready to give up on them ever being civil to each other, much less friends. Not that it was really my victory. I'd not even been in the library at the time. Still, it was something.

"Faye."

I turned. Marty stood there. Not Zoot, but Marty.

His dreadlocks were gone, leaving short blond stubble sticking out unevenly from his head. He wore a dark blue brand-name t-shirt and baggy jeans. There was new tribe paint on his face, three bars across one cheek in royal blue and a line down his chin. The change was so great I barely recognised him.

"Wow," I managed at least, hauling myself to my feet.

"This is the new me," he said. "No more Zoot. The old me was long gone months ago, and I'm never going back to who I was before the virus. So I made a decision. New me. Stronger me. Better me."

I just nodded. I couldn't think of anything to say in reply. "Um," I said at last. "Thanks for all this."

"Don't mention it." He hestitated. "Thanks," he said.