Elsa heard the footsteps before she saw him. She straightened, pry bar in hand, ready for trouble.
Zarek came down the stairwell first. Behind him, a young woman followed. Dark hair. Thin shoulders. Blood on her sleeve. Her empty bolt-action rifle hung at her side.
Elsa’s eyes went from the stranger to Zarek, then back.
"Who is she?"
"Ayesha. She’s coming with us."
Elsa waited for Zarek to explain further. When he didn’t, she looked at the newcomer again.
"Coming with us how?"
"By walking," Zarek replied. "Unless you’ve discovered a better way to travel."
Elsa ignored him. "I’m asking her."
Ayesha seemed surprised that Elsa had addressed her directly. She glanced at Zarek before answering.
"He killed the men who were trying to take the store. Then he decided I was coming with him."
"Decided?" Elsa repeated.
"That’s the word I’d use."
Their eyes met. Neither woman looked particularly pleased with the situation.
Elsa understood that feeling better than she wanted to admit.
Vance pushed off the wall. He’d been leaning there, his face pale and exhaustion showing in every line of it. He stared at Zarek like he’d grown a second head.
"You went up to check gunfire. You came back with a person."
"Would you have preferred a corpse?" Zarek asked.
"I would’ve preferred you coming back without another problem."
"Then you should’ve stayed here and hoped I found one."
Vance rubbed his forehead. Arguing with Zarek was exhausting even when nobody was bleeding. The man had a habit of turning every conversation into something Vance regretted starting.
He looked at Ayesha again. She was young, exhausted, and apparently had nothing except an empty rifle and a bloodied sleeve.
Whatever had happened upstairs, bringing her along meant accepting responsibility for someone whose abilities they knew almost nothing about.
He glanced at Ayesha, then at Elsa, then back at Zarek.
"We barely have enough supplies for ourselves. We don’t know her. We don’t know what she can do. We don’t know if she’ll turn on us the second things get bad."
Ayesha’s jaw tightened. She opened her mouth to respond, but Vance kept going.
"We should be cutting down our risks, not collecting strangers." He took a breath. "Look. Fewer people means fewer problems. We can’t afford to keep dragging liabilities around."
His eyes flicked to Elsa when he said it.
It was fast. Almost nothing. But Elsa caught it. The injured arm. The pry bar instead of a real weapon. The way she’d needed Zarek to save her more than once.
She wasn’t stupid. She knew what he meant.
Her grip tightened on the pry bar. She said nothing.
Zarek saw it too. He looked at Elsa for a moment. Then back at Vance.
"You think we shouldn’t keep liabilities."
Vance hesitated. Something in Zarek’s tone made him uneasy, but he pushed forward anyway.
"I’m saying we need to be practical. Every person we bring along needs food, protection, and..."
Zarek cut him off. "Yeah."
He took a step closer.
"You’re right."
Vance blinked. He’d been ready for an argument. Maybe a threat. He hadn’t expected agreement.
For a second, his shoulders dropped. Relief. He thought he’d won.
Then Zarek kept talking.
"We shouldn’t keep liabilities."
His hand moved to the sword.
Vance saw it. His mouth opened. He started to say something, maybe a question, maybe a protest. It didn’t matter.
The blade was already moving.
One clean cut across the throat. Vance’s eyes went wide. His hands came up, grabbing at his neck, but there was nothing to grab. Blood poured through his fingers. He stumbled back against the wall and slid down, leaving a red streak on the concrete.
He made a wet sound. Then nothing.
The stairwell went quiet.
A drop of blood slid from the tip of Zarek’s sword and struck the floor.
Elsa stared at it.
She had seen people die since the apocalypse began. She’d seen monsters tear into bodies and watched desperate people abandon one another to escape. Death had become something she expected to encounter whenever she opened a door.
But this was different.
Vance hadn’t attacked Zarek. He hadn’t threatened him or tried to steal from him. He’d complained about a decision, and Zarek had killed him as casually as he might have killed a mutant blocking their path.
There hadn’t even been an argument worth remembering.
Ayesha slowly lowered her gaze. Her fingers had curled tightly around the strap of her empty rifle.
She stepped back, her face pale. He had killed Harun, and now he’d killed a man who had been traveling with him. Whatever protection he offered, she couldn’t mistake it for safety.
She wanted to get away from him, but the world outside was hardly safer. For now, she had nowhere else to go.
Zarek pulled a rag from his pocket and wiped the blade clean. He didn’t look at Vance’s body. He didn’t look at the blood spreading across the floor.
He looked at the two women.
"Problem solved."
Elsa’s hands were shaking. She wanted to demand why he’d killed Vance, who had helped them escape the hotel, but the words died in her throat.
Vance had called her a liability. Zarek had agreed.
Now she couldn’t stop wondering how easily he might reach the same conclusion about her. She kept her mouth shut.
Ayesha didn’t speak either. She just stared at the body, then at Zarek, then at Elsa. She was waiting to see what happened next. Whether Elsa would fight him. Whether anyone would.
Nobody did.
He sheathed the sword and walked past them toward the bottom of the stairwell.
"Move. We’re not staying here."
Elsa followed. Her legs felt heavy. She didn’t look back at Vance.
Ayesha followed too, keeping her distance, her eyes on his back like she was watching a wild animal that had just shown its teeth.
The stairwell door closed behind them, leaving Vance alone on the concrete.
To Zarek, Vance had become a liability. That was all the reason he needed.