Content Warning: Terminally ill child and a brief mention of losing a child.

Part Two

~A Forlorn Song

Chapter Eleven

Sleepless in Villedor

Kyle hadn't always been the type to remember his dreams.

As a child, he'd considered it an injustice. Really fucking unfair, ya know? Why'd Bob sitting in the second row window seat get to dream he's a Ninja Turtle while Kyle got nothing? Nada? Zilch? Not even a gross smoochy-smooch dream? Predictably, little Kyle had overcompensated, falling back on his imagination and making shit up on the spot as he'd pretended to have the Best Damn Dreams Ever.

It'd taken growing up to change his mind. Give him perspective. Suddenly, going out like a light when he put his head down and not remembering shit was a blessing. Because who wants to be eighteen, close his blinkers, and see that boy he'd found on his first tour; so tiny, so dead, torn up by shrapnel, with a gaping mouth and empty eyes where there should've been life?

No, Kyle hadn't always been the type to remember his dreams. In fact, he'd been so damn good at compartmentalizing that nothing he'd put aside had ever come at him unprompted. Didn't matter if he'd been awake or asleep. If he didn't go looking for it, it left him alone.

Then Harran happened and his woefully underprepared ass got bitten.

Ouch.

The dreams had come soon after. Dreams which chased him from his sleep. Vivid. Detailed. Unforgiving. Dreams he could remember clearly and which were damn near impossible to put back into whatever box they'd crawled out of.

All the science-types said it was a side effect of the virus messing with his brain, much as it did with anyone else's when given the opportunity. You could go as far as to call it a warning; a sign of it winning. The stronger the dreams got—the more intense—the closer you were to being driven from your mind and thrown into the shittiest of hallucinogenic trips imaginable. A trip that liked to come with a one way ticket to Zombie Town.

Kyle wished (so fucking much) to be the guy who didn't remember his dreams still. To not have to deal with all the carefully buried boxes to fly open and the contents to haunt him. Boxes he had plenty of. Way too many, really, stacked every-fucking-way and filled beyond their intended capacity.

This morning's box had Theo in it; tiny, three year old Theo, his skin not the right color and his usually lively hands and feet now sluggish and weak. Kyle hadn't known what to make of what he'd been seeing: his son—a life he was supposed to nurture, protect—sitting in a bed of moss and grass, not behaving as a three year old should. It'd made no sense to Kyle, because Theo was fine, right? He had to be. He hadn't gotten hurt or anything; there was no blood, no bruises, nothing Kyle could see.

Nothing Kyle could fix.

Nothing anyone could fix.

Kyle pressed his fingers to his eyes and squeezed at them. His heart jackhammered against his throat. His chest constricted. And Theo wouldn't leave, the memory of the first day of Kyle's personal apocalypse emptied from its box and strewn at his feet, where it was impossible to ignore.

Holding in a groan, Kyle worked his legs off the small cot—which creaked and shifted under his weight—and folded forward, one hand grasping at the back of his head and the other hanging at his front, suspended in its sling.

She waited for him when he opened his eyes. Fi. A mirage of her, squatting on the scratched up, dirty floorboards, her hands fastened around his knee. The grey of her eyes was the only thing in focus, painted so clearly he could see the dark specks in them, strewn about like freckles. Especially that one dot, perfectly round at the edge of her left pupil.

He blinked once.

And Fi was gone.

"Oh, boy," Kyle whispered, his voice hoarse and his eyes cutting first to the UV rod needling him from the wall and then to the biomarker snug against his wrist. Half red. Half green.

What'd that mean?

Jack all, really. Even Fraser had been frustrated with how Kyle hadn't ever behaved as the readings said he should. Yeah, more red (despite the UV rod) meant trouble. No argument there; but he'd redlined the stupid thing a number of times since he'd snapped it on, making it ultimately useless at gauging how much of an actual foothold he'd allowed the virus.

A waking hallucination though?

"Oh, boy," Kyle repeated.

He'd stayed out too long, wrapped in comforting darkness, counting the stars and his sins, unable to figure out which there were more of.

Or—hear him out for one second—he'd been out there just long enough. Kyle moved his bad arm, his elbow bouncing against his side. Then, after one deep breath, he clenched his hand into a fist.

Pain leapt through his bones, sharp and vivid, but nowhere near as debilitating as it'd been yesterday. Hell, he might be able to muster up enough of a squeeze to drag Waltz by the balls.

Fighting the urge to smile—mostly since it'd turn out loony—Kyle got to his feet. He moved quietly through the UV-lit shack, first to wind back time with a puff of Antizin (ew. ew. ew.) and then to shuck the sweatiest of sweaty shirts and trade it for a spare he'd haggled for yesterday evening. The latter was tricky. He had to get out of the sling and negotiate a range of motion out of his arm that it wasn't yet happy about.

Okay, he thought after he'd finally pulled the shirt over his head.

Today's priorities?

Find Fi. Marked with a gold star at the top.

Set the plan he'd begun to fry up yesterday into motion.

Eat something.

He used the balled up shirt (inside out) to wipe at his skin, scraping at the grime he'd caked himself in.

Eat another something.

And, finally, Do laundry, stinky, which Kyle tacked on right after as he chucked the ruined shirt aside. What followed was painful and Kyle griped all the way through. Quietly, he'd thought, until Hakon raised his head from the cot.

"You need help with that, boss?"

Kyle leaned his head into Hakon's direction and tossed him a flat stare.

"No? Alright." Hakon hopped off his cot with the energy of a man who'd gotten a full night's sleep and wasn't being hammered into the dirt by a puff of suppressants. "I'll go on ahead then and see what Frank thinks of our plan. Get him all warmed up for you."

Kyle shoved his head through the shirt. "Yeah? I thought he hates your guts, how's that gonna help us sell it?"

"Ah, you noticed," Hakon mocked. "And I suppose we'll have to wait and see, no?"

Kyle didn't rush to follow Hakon. First, he took his time torturing his arm (figuring out how far he could push it) and then geared up for the day to come, which involved him strapping a 'new' satchel around his chest. The thing had gone through many an owner prior, he figured, with everyone involved leaving their handiwork on it as they'd patched it up with needle, thread, and literal patches.

Apocalypse vintage.

Worth two tablets of painkillers at the local trading post.

It wasn't all too large, but it gave him enough room to stash the essentials he'd need for his Crane-flavoured adventure of urban exploring and wife rescue action. And it fit two very important long boys: one (1) inhibitor and one (1) GRE key.

After he'd zipped them up and abused his arm to get it back into his sling, Kyle finally turned his attention to Aiden. Which, in this case, meant he gave his cot a nudge with the tip of his shoe.

The kid was lying face down, unmoving, and very much not asleep anymore. He did not react.

"Up, up," Kyle said, bumping the cot again, this time with an extra helping of conviction.

Grunt, Aiden offered in response and pulled himself together tight. No up was had.

Fair. Kyle couldn't blame him for not wanting to face the day. Or face life, as things so were. Not after what'd gone down the last few days — and specifically not after what he'd had to hear about his sister.

Hey, she's prolly dead. And if she's not, she's working for the man who tortured you both.

"Come on, get up. There's work to do."

Aiden emitted a noise not unlike that of an annoyed dog's whine. "What's the point?" he asked and finally untucked his arms so he could get his scarred fingers to scratch at the back of his head.

"The point, Junior, is that you don't make me haul your ass out the door."

Yeah, just because Kyle understood Aiden's desire to wallow and play dead didn't mean he was about to put up with it.

"You don't need me," Aiden finally muttered, the words muffled by how he had his mouth full of dusty pillow.

No, I fucking don't, Kyle nearly snapped back at him, a flush of anger driving the words up his throat. He managed to bite them back at the last second, an effort that involved his tongue getting squeezed between his teeth.

Kyle liked to think he'd been pretty decent at staying away from arrogance. An arrogant man tended to drown in his own hubris. And an arrogant man might not admit that, yeah. He needed help. Simple as that.

Kyle Crane was no one man army (a one man riot, maybe), no matter how confident he might have been in his abilities. He was one guy. Singular. And whatever the next few days were about to bring, a fresh baked freak (labelled with the utmost affection) in Kyle's corner raised his chances at seeing this through.

Plus, how else was he supposed to keep an eye on Aiden?

Attach a baby monitor to him and a GPS tracker?

. . .

No.

Kyle needed the kid. But did Kyle tell him that? Lay it out all clear so he got the message across?

Nah.

Kyle reached down, grabbed a fistful of Aiden's shirt between his shoulder blades, and hauled him up.

A flustered and red-faced Aiden in tow (hey, he'd been warned), Kyle wandered over to the (actual) Fish Eye's porch. He'd stayed clear of it until now, being a) too damn busy and b) not yet ready to obey its No Weapons signs. Three of the yellow squares were mounted nearby, one above his head as he crossed under the covered landing leading up to the porch, another over the main entrance door to the left, and the last one by the stairs to the right as they climbed to the next floor. Each had a snapped in half and crossed through baseball bat painted on them, with No Weapons brushed on underneath.

An arrow pointed away from all three signs, directing the eye to the counter of an honest to God coat check room set into the canteen's front. You know, those things typically found in nightclubs and operas, except less suit and tie and glitter. It was secured by an iron gate (locked, Kyle presumed), and a mix of plexiglass and mesh preventing anyone from climbing inside. Unless they were small enough to fit into the window at its center, anyway.

Kyle moseyed up to the window, unhooked his machete, and slid it halfway through. "Hello?" he called, his eyes busy scanning the place.

Fixed to the plexiglass by means of string plus suction cup was a sign reading:

Shaphan's Lock 'n Key:
FREE STORAGE (24/7)
Carrier's Pickup (Last Out: 11am; In: 3pm)

Carrier's pickup, huh? Kyle studied the counter. Next to the ordinary clutter you'd find on a desk (pens, paper clips, stress balls), it also hosted a row of paper baskets that looked suspiciously much like they were used for mail sorting. Mail. As in letters. One even had a stack of envelopes in them, with the top facing one having an address scrawled on.

Huh. Villedor really did have it all, didn't it? (Not that he was surprised. Communication was about the most human thing ever, as his tired Pilgrim legs could attest to.)

Kyle's eyes continued their gander. Wire shelves lined most of the interior's surface, fully set up with sorting boxes ranging from large to tiny and bulky to slim; and no doubt there'd be more of them the deeper the coat, slash, weapons check room went.

Curiously enough though, none of the shelves or boxes or literal coat hangers were mounted very high. In fact, the counter was pretty damn low too; a mystery which began to make sense the second the attendant came zipping from the back of the room.

He looked young-ish (thirty, maybe), had black skin, meticulously braided hair, and wore a red jersey with the number six printed at the front. The name Shaphan was stitched underneath the number.

Shaphan, as it turned out, was an amputee who missed both his legs.

His wheelchair was one of those lightweight and compact models—the type you used to see in paraplegic sports—and matched the jersey's color with a coat of red paint.

Kyle's head cocked slightly sideways. A dude in a wheelchair? In this here post-zombie-apocalypse economy?

In an instant, Kyle's opinion of Frank strapped on a jetpack, lit its engines, and took off with a roar. Which was to say it rose. Real fucking high. It climbed and climbed and climbed, for no other reason than Kyle realizing he'd tripped into a bubble of human compassion that went above and beyond what many thought (air quotes up) reasonable (air quotes down) these days.

"Oh hey," said Shaphan of the Lock n' Key. "You're the new guys, the Pilgrims, right?" He had a thick accent, though not one Kyle recognized. Pretty rare, that.

"Guilty."

"You taking on work?"

Kyle's thoughts got roughed up a bit, thrown by a question so ordinary he figured he'd heard wrong. "What?"

"Sorry, I just wondered if you're collecting messages, is all. We've had folks wanting to get in touch with their kin in the territories for years now but no Pilgrims coming by to take the jobs."

"Ah. No. We won't be leaving for a while yet." And maybe you should open your damn borders if you're so thirsty for Pilgrims, Jesus.

"Shame. Let me know whenever you've changed your mind." Shaphan pulled Kyle's machete through the window, followed by the hatchet Aiden pushed in from the side. "And keep your knives," he added when Kyle made to tug his knife free. "You might need them if we've run out of cutlery again. Here. You get these—" After producing a set of four cards from under the counter, Shaphan nudged two of them towards Kyle. "—then pass them back to me when you want your gear back. Same goes for anything else you might want secured. Doesn't matter if you're just staying for a drink or are headed out." He nodded past them into the direction of Villedor's streets. "Storage is free, long as you're okay with me keeping it in case you don't come back within seven days. I generally assume you're dead after a week."

Kyle swiped up both cards. They were fancy Magic the Gathering ones with bent corners and worn out faces. Their matching pair went with Kyle's and Aiden's weapons.

"Okay, got it. Thanks."

"No problem at all. Enjoy the Fish Eye."

The canteen's entrance hall had made away with the need for wallpaper by means of caking its sides with layers upon layers of old posters. Movie covers. Concert announcements. Album art. Museum announcements. Plain old advertisements. It was all there; year after year of history, overlapping.

There were topical ones too (hand painted, mostly), announcing poetry reading sessions taking place at the Fish Eye, jam sessions, you name it. Hell, he even spotted a poster mentioning some kinda rugby thing involving the The Villedor Goats (two goats squeezing a rugby ball between their horns) and Stingers (a hornet clutching yet another ball).

Yeah. Villedor really did have it all.

Mail service.

Ball sports.

And a canteen with an impeccable pub vibe, which threatened Kyle's brain with ancient memories of late nights and hangovers, helped along by the air smelling of alcohol stained wood and stale cigarette smoke.

It also had cults though. And Fi stealers. And propaganda in blue, with the PK's recruitment spiels plastered right alongside Villedor's casual entertainment.

Kyle's innards twinged uncomfortably when his eyes slid over one of their posters.

FAMILY, it read, The FUTURE of the FACTION, with a broad shouldered dude at the back, jaw all square and his eyes set to the horizon, while his woman stood in front of him looking similarly stoic and their daughter—right up front—held on to a bushel of tulips, smiling bright.

Was it, maybe, potentially, not spelling out what Kyle's knee jerk reaction came away with? The whole something, something, multiply, repopulate, know-your-place, quiverfull crap?

Yeah… no.

The chances of that were tragically slim.

"Okay, that's not what I expected," Aiden said as soon as they'd stepped onto the Fish Eye's main floor.

Kyle, his filter getting to work as it gobbled up what amounted to sensory overload at too-early-AM, replied with a distracted "Hm?" while he mapped every door he could find.

"I thought more along the lines of— I don't know. Depressed watering hole?"

That, the Fish Eye was not. Gloomy? Yeah. Maybe. A bit. Though most of that gloom came from a lack of proper light, with the few secured windows and tinted bulbs strung up everywhere not producing near enough illumination to fill the place up. It was too damn big for that.

The ground floor was arranged around two main attractions: the bar at the back, (with a tap, a mandatory blackboard with the menu written in colorful chalk), and a stage built against the rightmost wall (a wall which was painted over with the Fish Eye's titular yellow fish).

The stage was easily large enough for a band of maybe four people, but currently only occupied by empty seats, a lone microphone stand, and a bunch of bulky speakers. The speakers murmured a quiet song (something folky and French that Kyle did not recognize). A full-sized piano with its top covered in wax puddles hung out next to the stage, completing the picture.

Kyle's eyes hiked up. The canteen's second floor curved overhead, providing more space for seats that'd get a good view of whatever entertainment might've been happening down here.

And nearly every free real estate on the walls and ceiling was full of stuff. Yeah. Stuff. License plates. LPs. Instruments. Paintings. Art made from beer caps. And so on and so forth, all of which made Kyle's heart want to clap happily.

On any other day he might've loved this kinda vibe; all the color, the memories, the repurposing of an old life into what amounted to a laurel wreath draped over something new.

Today he ignored it.

If he couldn't point at it and go Hey, Fi, look, then it did him no fucking good.

Anyway.

The canteen wasn't empty. A handful of patrons were scattered around the seating arrangements, and they all looked up from their breakfast, slash, morning beers so they could eyeball the pair of Pilgrims. Since they were all unarmed and looked generally harmless, Kyle paid them no heed. He was far more interested in Lawan over by the bar, who looked about ready to start a brawl at any given moment. She was ranting at the dude running the morning shift, who let the whole rant wash over him with grace and only stopped polishing the glass he'd been working on when he caught sight of Kyle and Aiden. A quick nod later and Lawan swiveled on her chair, with all that energy wanting to spill out into a fight directed straight at them.

Ruh-roh.

Kyle received the brunt of her animosity, which translated into a glare sharp enough to give anyone in possession of a reasonable sense of self-preservation pause. Even if you didn't know what Aiden had shared with Kyle yesterday: she was one of Waltz's experiments. One of the GRE's many stolen children; the Theos of this inexcusable clusterfuck of Evil Science.

And how did Kyle feel about that?

Shitty, mostly. But wary, too.

Lawan's glare shifted to Aiden — and it immediately mellowed out. Not drastically, no, but the difference was there and very much understandable. She was like him. He was like her. Kinship, right? Though just how similar they were (How close was she to turning this place upside down?) Kyle had yet to figure out. Hence: wary.

Her eyes cut back to Kyle. "You looking for Hakon?"

"Mostly for Frank."

She scoffed and hopped off the chair. "Follow me."

Lawan took them to the second floor and up to a door with a plain OFFICE sign tacked to it. Knock! stood written underneath it. An instruction Lawan ignored. She just threw a quick look back at Kyle and Aiden and then bumped the door open without warning before gesturing them through.

They walked into an argument carried out over a large desk, with Hakon pacing in front of it and Frank standing on the other side, glaring.

"—no, that's not what I meant, Frank. I didn't ask you to trust me. Jesus Christ, I wouldn't trust me."

Somewhere behind Kyle, Lawan gave another scoff.

"And I get it." Hakon stopped, turned on the spot, and looked right at Kyle. "But I am telling you, this one is different. This one is going to work out and if you won't listen to me, then please, I'm fucking begging you, listen to him."

Yep. Listen to the new guy. Uh huh. That'll work...

Kyle—every damn eye shifting to him—allowed himself a moment to say nothing so he could look around the room. It held years worth of post-apocalyptic pub management clutter, along with a small slice of home shoved into a corner at the back. A couch. A sleeping bag. And not much else. Bit tragic.

"Not going so well, is it?" he finally asked.

Hakon flashed him a near-manic smile. "Yeah, it's a hard sell."

"No kidding." A scowling Frank took a long, limping step around the desk. He swung up his cane and jabbed it at Hakon. "You've known this man for, what, three days?"

Hakon pursed his lips, leaned forward, and tapped a finger against the cane's tip to point it at Kyle instead.

"And now you're asking me to believe that he can pull this off?" Frank's scowl drifted towards Kyle. "No offense meant."

"Only some taken."

"You're asking me to help you do the church's dirty work, throw our men's lives away for what's a worthless stunt. I won't do it."

Kyle opened his mouth—

Hakon puffed out a frustrated sigh and got in the way before Kyle had a chance to say his piece. Whatever piece that might've been, he was winging this shit.

"Frank, please. This is what you've been waiting for. This is it, this is your chance. Don't—"

Again Kyle opened his mouth, only for Frank's scowl to twist into genuine anger.

Snapped his cane down with a hard rap, Frank rounded on Hakon. "You shut your goddamn mouth, Hakon. You don't get to lecture me about chances. The tower was our chance. And you— you blew that. And now I'm supposed to trust you and some banged up Pilgrim? No. No— see, I don't even fucking know why I let you up here. I shouldn't have. I should have thrown you out and you know what? That's what's going to happen now. You're going to turn around and you're going to get. the. fuck. out of the Fish Eye."

"Excu—" Kyle started. Pointlessly.

"It's not him," Hakon snapped and gestured at Kyle and his failed attempts at getting a word in. "It's what he brought with him. Go on. Show him."

Frank sneered. "I said get out."

"You heard him," Lawan added from the back, right before she stalked into the room and headed for Hakon.

"Frank—" Hakon dodged her first grab.

Their voices began to overlap; the shouting; the frustration; the anger. It all came to a boil and soon enough there'd be violence.

And Kyle, his head throbbing, gave up trying to talk. He yanked the zipper on his new apocalypse vintage bag open, plucked out the GRE key, and stuck it in the air.

Frank recognized it.

Lawan? Not so much, meaning it took Frank's cane swinging up between her and Hakon before she backed away. Confused (and angry), she looked between the piece of bulky teck and Frank. "What's that?"

"A GRE key," Frank said, sounding blindsided. "That's how you managed to get the markers and meds in Old Villedor, isn't it?"

Kyle nodded.

"I haven't..." Exhaling slowly, Frank limped back behind his desk and sat down heavily. The chair under him creaked. "I haven't seen one of those since before we've gone dark."

Lawan's confusion hadn't let up, though Kyle thought most of it might have been caused by how all of a sudden Frank no longer wanted Hakon violently removed. "Frank…?"

"That's why Waltz is sending him." Frank dropped his cane onto the desk. "He knows you have the key you'll need to get into the control room."

"Yep." Oh, look. Kyle had finally gotten a word in. Hooray.

"See!" Hakon braved a step forward. "I told you."

"You know what might've helped?" Kyle tossed him a glare. "Leading with the key."

"Psht. He wouldn't have believed me without seeing it first."

"I wouldn't have, no." Settling his elbows onto the table and squeezed at the sides of his head, Frank looked every bit like a man who'd had a serious conviction of his overturned. "But it doesn't matter. This?" He pointed at the key. "It's not going to help you get rid of the nest."

"It might." Packing up the key, Kyle went through the plan he'd cobbled together, using a great deal of wishful thinking to make its parts stick. "Hakon mentioned the factory was declared a safe zone by the GRE, back when it was still running."

Frank gave a single nod.

"Only way they'd sign off on that is if it's rigged with enough UV lights to keep their people from turning overnight and hold off the fresh virals at the door."

His brow rising (a bit like his hope, Kyle—uh—hoped), Frank sat up straight.

"Theoretically," Kyle said, putting emphasis on the word since even his own faith in the plan was about as thin as film wrap, "a good chunk of those will come on once we power the place back up."

"Provided none of the infrastructure was destroyed since then." Frank's statement echoed Kyle's doubts; doubts which'd been trying to poke a hole into his plan ever since it'd come together. "And you'll have to go in during the day to make this work."

"Yeah. But that's not going to be anyone's problem but ours." Kyle gestured from Aiden to him, which got the kid to lengthen his spine. "We don't need anyone's help getting through the plant and to the control centre. That'll be on us. And if we turn the key and nothing happens? Well, though shit. We'll walk right out and I'm back to square one. If it does work though, and enough UV lights come on to kick out the squatters? That is where you come in." Kyle poised a finger. "One, I'll need someone who knows their way around transformers and power grids and whatever other tech might need patching up. Two—" Finger number two came into action. "—we'll need enough people to secure the site once it's up and running, unless you want the Church to roll in and take it. My deal with Waltz was to flip the switch, not hand him the facility and I don't intend to give the fucker any more than I need to. Neither should you."

"Walk out?" Lawan looked at them with one part disbelief and one part mockery. "He's gonna pluck you like chickens the second you step into that plant."

"He?" Kyle's first instinct was to look at Hakon. Who, by the way, stood no chance whatsoever at plucking Kyle, thank you very much.

Hakon cleared his throat and put on a sheepish smile.

Kyle narrowed his eyes. "Hakon?"

"Yeeaah— so— I— Okay. I might have failed to mention a small detail. One."

"You didn't tell him about the hunter," Lawan said, her voice flat. "Did you?"

"The—" Kyle's stomach took a sideways step. "—the hunter. A Night Hunter? You have a fucking Night Hunter? Here? In Villedor? And you didn't fucking tell us when we got here? When I let Fi out at night?!"

"…and me," Aiden added, every bit as crestfallen as an ignored puppy. "I went out too."

"We're about to have words over what's written on the tombstone I'll be shoving up your ass." Too aggressive? Maybe. But fucking hell… a Night Hunter.

"Easy," Hakon said. "There was nothing to tell." He looked to Lawan (as if to get her support, which was all kinds of hilarious) "Back me up here? No one has seen the Old Man in Villedor for eight years now. And for all we know he ditched the plant since then. The last time we heard of him was when the PK made their move."

"And look how that turned out," Frank muttered.

"I don't buy it." Kyle glanced between them. His headache was having one hell of a comeback, steadily thumping against his eyes and not being helped at all by what he was hearing. It didn't make any sense. "You're saying you had a Night Hunter in here and it just… left?"

Three heads bobbed in unison.

"That's bullshit. Those freaks don't surrender their turf." This time around, freak was a label he used with only the deepest disdain. Yeah. Context. It mattered. "You either kill it or another one shows up and drives the first one out."

"Okay." Hakon shrugged. "Then maybe he's dead. Problem solved. Or!" He fixed Kyle with a steady stare. "We call this whole thing off and all this excitement—" A wild gesture indicated the room at large. "—gets to be regretted after a proper, puke your guts out hangover. What do you say?"

Kyle shook his head. "No. We're doing this. I'm doing this." His eyes cut to Frank. "I don't get a choice. But what happens after I flip that switch? That's up to you."

"Oh, to think I could have kept on sleeping," Aiden said the second they'd stepped out into Villedor's excuse for fresh air. He sounded plenty cocky, too, and looked it just as much when Kyle glanced at him. "You didn't need me for this."

"But I did." Their trading cards pinched between two fingers, Kyle stepped up to Shaphan's Lock 'n Key, where their weapons were already waiting on the counter. Customer service, 10/10. "Rule Number eighteen of the Zombie Apocalypse: always bring a fella with you who's slower than you in case you need to bolt."

"Yeah?"

Oh-ho, there was a challenge in his voice now, which went as far as to reflect in his eyes when Kyle handed him the hatchet. "Mhm."

"That's why Zofia keeps you around, isn't it?"

. . .

First, Kyle felt the bite of pain; the shitty reminder of what he was without. Then, almost as quickly, came a flash of warmth as he latched on to how Aiden had chosen to stick with present tense. Had he done it on purpose? Probably not. Did it still have an effect on how Kyle took the jab? Absolutely.

"And here I was planning to be gentle. But with that sass?" Kyle flashed Aiden his best mischievous smile. Or at least the best he could muster at present, considering the effort smiling took.

It was met with a confused squint. "Huh?"

"We're a few days out from heading back across town, through a bunch of dark tunnels, and straight into a nest," Kyle explained. "Chances are, shit'll hit the fan, especially if we'll be on Hunter turf."

"Wait, you're worried I can't hold my own?" Indignation drew Aiden's brows together. "I can. And I will."

"So you say, hotshot, so you say." Kyle waved him along. "Come on. Let's find a spot for some pretend murder and see what you're made of."