AVERY’S POV
We found the camp on the second evening.
I almost didn’t notice it.
We’d taken a route through a residential back road, parallel to the main artery, cutting behind a row of houses with long gardens that backed onto each other, and I’d been focused on the end of the road where the route opened up again.
It was Nadia who stopped.
“Avery.”
Something in her voice made me stop and turn before she’d even pointed.
One of the gardens was wrong.
I held up a fist and the group stopped without sound, and I moved toward it, pushing through a gap in a wooden fence that had already been broken, and into the garden.
It had been a camp recently.
The signs were obvious once you knew what to look for — a fire ring, stones arranged, ash that hadn’t scattered yet, which meant wind hadn’t touched it long enough to do that, which meant days at most.
The grass was flattened in multiple places where people had slept.
A clothes line strung between two fence posts, two items still hanging on it.
Someone had left in a hurry.
Or had been made to leave.
I moved further in and the others followed and then I stopped walking.
Three bodies.
Not Fractured.
I knew the difference now — I’d learned it in the first week without wanting to.
These were people.
They were lying in positions that said their death had been fast and they hadn’t been ready for it, and the cause of death wasn’t Fractured.
I crouched down beside the nearest one and made myself look at it properly.
Male.
Probably mid-twenties.
No bite marks, no iridescent fluid, no signs of mutation.
The injury was blunt force and it had been purposeful and it had been quick.
Whoever had done this was not doing it out of panic.
They knew exactly what they were doing and they were not squeamish about it.
I stood up.
“You can see where they were stacked. Someone took them.”
“Yeah.” I looked at the layout of the camp.
Entrance from the road-facing side, exit through the back fence.
The fence was pushed through, not just opened.
Whatever had happened here had ended with people running.
Or being taken.
I didn’t say that second part out loud.
“How long ago?” Joel asked, standing beside me.
“Two days. Maybe three.” I looked at the ash.
“We’ve been moving parallel to this. Whatever happened here, we were in the city when it did.”
The group was quiet.
Derek had gone very still at the edge of the camp.
He was looking at the bodies and his colour wasn’t great but he was holding it together and I was grateful for that because I needed everyone holding together right now.
“Was it them?” Hannah said, and she didn’t need to clarify who she meant.
“Probably.”
“Then they’re working this area.”
“Yes.” I turned away from the camp and looked at the light.
An hour, maybe a little more.
“Double watch tonight.” I looked at all of them.
“Nobody sleeps alone. We pair up, we keep the radio low but on, and we do not open a door without checking first. Yes?”
Nods.
“Good. Let’s move.”
We found shelter two streets further in— a first floor flat above a closed pharmacy, accessible through a side stairwell that still had a lockable door at the bottom.
Good sightlines from the front windows, two exits if we needed them.
I did a full sweep before I let anyone bring their bags up.
Clean.
We settled in and nobody talked much.
The camp had done something to the mood that food and rest weren’t going to fully fix.
I took first watch.
Nadia fell asleep with her head against her hello kitty bag within twenty minutes.
Hannah and Joel stayed up a while longer, talking quietly in the far corner, and then they were quiet too.
I sat at the window with the gun in my lap and looked at the street below.
It was empty and eerie.
The radio crackled once softly, and I turned it down further before it could wake anyone.
I thought about the camp.
About the three people in that garden and the way the camp had been stripped.
About the HAVEN broadcast.
The secondary group.
Whoever they were, they were moving in this sector and they were doing it purposefully because they had resources and they did not appear to be interested in finding survivors.
My watch went two hours before I was going to hand it to Joel.
Just as I was preparing to wake him up, I heard a voice.
Almost immediately, my head snapped up and my hand closed around the gun.
Footsteps above me.
Someone was on the roof.
Quiet and purposeful.
I was on my feet without deciding to stand.
One.
Two.
I counted the steps, tracking the direction.
Moving from the back of the building toward the front and toward the fire escape on the north side.
I moved to the side wall, away from the window, back flat to it with my gun up as my heart crawled into my throat.
The fire escape rattled barely, one note, the sound of someone managing their descent and then silence.
What the—
Suddenly, a shape dropped from the bottom landing and landed where we were below and I had the gun at the ready before they’d straightened up.
“Don’t.” My voice came out harsh and low and the figure went still immediately, hands coming up.
A boy.
He had dark eyes, and his jaw was tight.
And he looked way too calm for someone who had a gun pointed to his face.
He looked at me for a moment.
Then he said, “I’ve been following your group for two days. I’m not the threat HAVEN warned you about.” He gave a brief pause, just long enough for the next part to land properly.
“But the people I’m running from are, and they’re twenty minutes behind me.”