AVERY’S POV
“Corner.” I jerked the gun toward the far wall.
“Now. Hands where I can see them.”
He moved without argument, crossing to the far wall and turning around with his hands up at shoulder height.
I kept the gun on him as I crossed to the others and shook Joel’s shoulder first.
Joel was up before I finished tapping him.
Hannah took her name and two shakes to wake up.
Derek jolted awake with his hand already going for the crowbar and his eyes finding the corner before I said a word.
Nadia was already sitting up with her bag on her lap, looking at the boy against the wall like she’d been half awake for a while.
“Who is that?” Derek’s voice came out sharp.
“That’s what I’m about to find out.” I turned back to him.
“Jacket off. Slowly. Everything in your pockets on the floor.”
He pulled his jacket off one arm at a time and set it down.
Then he went through his pockets— a folded map, a lighter, a length of paracord, and then he got to the utility knife and paused just long enough that I tracked it before he crouched, set it on the floor and slid it toward me with his foot without being asked.
He straightened up and held his arms out to his sides.
I crossed to him with the gun still in my right hand and ran my left along his waistband, checked his ankles, checked the inside of the jacket.
Nothing else.
I stepped back.
“Name.”
“Declan.”
“Age.”
“Twenty.”
“Where did you come from?”
“City centre.” He lowered his hands slightly, watching me.
“Been moving alone for about two weeks. Three days ago I took supplies from a cache that turned out to be watched and picked up a tail.”
“The group HAVEN warned about?” I turned to the others.
His eyes went to the radio on the floor for just a second.
“You have a broadcast signal out here.”
“Answer the question.”
“Yes.” He nodded.
“Six of them. Military surplus gear, organised, they don’t stop once they’ve started following someone. I found your group’s trail by accident two days ago and followed it because moving with numbers made more tactical sense than moving alone.”
He said it like he was reading off a page about the weather.
He’d followed us without our knowledge because he knew there was more strength in numbers.
But that didn’t count when you had a fidgeting man and a child in your group.
I looked at him for a moment.
Wrong cache.
Followed strangers through a dead city and climbed onto their roof at three in the morning because numbers made tactical sense.
He wasn’t fracturedㅡ I’d have clocked that by now.
The knife was on the floor.
He hadn’t tried anything in the four minutes since I’d pulled the gun and he’d had openings because I’d been splitting my attention and he could see that.
I lowered the gun.
I stared at him.
He looked back at me without any smugness in itㅡ just the same flat delivery he’d used for everything else.
The irritation that came up the back of my throat was one that only happens when someone is right about something you were hoping nobody would notice.
My left wrist had been aching for two days and I’d been compensating quietly because saying it out loud made it a problem and I already had enough of those.
I said nothing and he waited.
Hannah stepped forward, arms folded.
“How do we know you’re not with them? How do we know this isn’t exactly how you get inside a group?”
“You don’t,” he said, looking at her.
“But if I was, this would’ve already gone differently.”
Derek made a short sound.
“That’s exactly what someone with them would say.”
“Derek.” I stared at him and he went tight lipped but pulled back, still white knuckling the crowbar, and I couldn’t blame himㅡ I just needed him to hold it for a few more minutes.
I looked back at Declan.
He was watching all of us with that steady, unhurried attention and Joel was watching him the same way.
Then Nadia came around Hannah’s side.
She’d already packed her bag at some point without telling anyone, which was so entirely her that I almost said something.
She looked at Declan for a long moment with large eyes.
“Are you good at fighting?” she asked.
Declan looked at her and something shifted in his expression.
“Yes.”
She thought about it for a second.
Then she nodded once.
“Okay.”
Hannah made a quiet sound behind me that wasn’t quite a laugh.
I turned back to Declan.
“Twenty minutes, you said. When you were on the roof.”
“Yes.”
“How long ago was that?”
He glanced toward the window.
“Seven minutes. Maybe eight.”
My stomach dropped.
The math was bad.
Running wasn’t cleanㅡ not with Derek’s legs, not with Nadia, not through streets we’d half mapped in the dark with a group behind us that didn’t stop once they’d started.
But staying exposed wasn’t sensible either and the stairwell door wouldn’t hold people who knew what they were doing for long enough to matter.
I thought about the camp.
About the three bodies in that garden and how we could be walking into our deaths.
“How do they move?” I asked him.
“Two units. One forward, one flanking. They don’t rush really and they don’t make unnecessary noise. They found me in a building I was certain I’d covered.” He paused for a second.
“They’re not guessing, they are sure of what they’re doing.”
“Six,” Declan said.
“You said six when you came in.” Joel said it quietly, which was the first thing he’d said since waking up.
Declan’s eyes moved to him.
“Yes.”
“Were,” I raised a brow.
Declan looked at me.
“Past tense. You said there were six.” I kept my voice even.
“When you were talking about the cache.”
Something moved across his face that wasn’t quite a reaction.
“They may have picked someone up along the way.”
Oh, that’s fantastic.
Really excellent news.
I pressed the back of my hand against my mouth for a second, breathed through my nose, then looked at all of them ㅡ at Hannah with her bag already on her shoulder and her crowbar in her hand, at Joel standing quietly and just waiting, at Derek who was pale but steady, at Nadia with her bag on her back, at Declan who was watching me the same way he’d been watching me since I lowered the gunㅡ like he was waiting to see what I was going to do.
I didn’t have time to think about how strange that was.
“Joel and Derek ㅡ stairwell door, top of the stairs. You hear anything below it, you tell me before you do anything else.” I looked at both of them until they nodded.
“Hannah, take Nadia to the back room. Door shut. You don’t come out until I come for you.”
Hannah looked at Nadia, then back at me.
“Yeah. Okay.”
“Move. Now.”
They moved.
Hannah took Nadia’s hand and they went.
Joel and Derek crossed to the stairwell, Derek already at the door.
I turned to the window.
My heart was going too fast and my left wrist ached and somewhere out there, in streets I still didn’t fully know, a group of people who were powerful enough to warrant a military outpost report had just gotten eight minutes closer to this building.
To everyone I’d just sent into the next room.
I pressed my back flat to the wall beside the window and looked at Declan.
He was already watching the street below, his expression blank.
Like he had been with us long enough to build trust.
I hated that.
I genuinely hated how unbothered he looked.
“You said twenty minutes when you dropped off that fire escape,” I said, keeping my voice low.
“That means we have about twelve left.”
He looked at the street.
“Eleven.”
I looked at the street too.
Completely silent.
“We’re not moving far tonight,” I whispered.
He didn’t answer.
The street stayed empty.
For now.
For fuck knows how long.