Chapter 123: The Probability of Us.
We all stood outside the cars in the plain dark.
The night had settled fully now, deep and absolute, the kind of darkness that makes the stars feel close enough to touch. Moonlight washed over the sand in cold silver, turning every grain into a tiny mirror. The Fallen City loomed a short distance away, a jagged black silhouette against the starry sky, its broken towers like the ribs of some ancient beast left to rot under the moon. The air was cool, almost cold, carrying the faint, dry scent of dust and distant decay.
The keys were somewhere in there. Somewhere along the route we had already walked twice, in a building crawling with hundreds of infected and three floors of debris and collapsed ceilings.
"Options," Sinn said, his voice low and gravelly. "One car or go back for the keys."
"One car could work," May said, arms crossed, her blonde hair catching the moonlight like pale fire. "But ten people and two infected in that space is a calculation I don’t love."
"We could squeeze," Mercury offered, leaning against the hood. "But someone rides in the boot with one of the infected. And we leave the other behind."
"I’m not sitting with a zombie," Richard said quickly.
"We were actually thinking of leaving you here," Mercury replied without missing a beat.
Richard went quiet.
"One car won’t work," Sherry said, with the calm finality of someone who had already run the numbers and was done discussing it. Her brunette hair moved slightly in the night breeze.
Code said nothing. Owen said nothing. Sinn had thrown the question out and stepped back, the way he often did, floating options and waiting for consensus to form.
"We drive to the Guardian truck," Mercury suggested. "It can carry all of us."
"And if that car breaks down before we reach it?" Sinn countered. "Then we’re on foot with two sedated high-level infected and no vehicles."
"So you’ve already decided we go back for the keys," Mercury said, reading him perfectly. "Why did you even open the discussion?"
Sinn looked at her without answering.
"Abram," he said, turning to me. "How do you see it?"
"We go back," I said. "And I’d suggest boys only again."
"More people means we find it faster," Mercury said immediately. "We cover more ground."
"She’s right," Owen said. First words since the keys.
"All of us go," Sinn decided. "Pairs. Communication watches on."
Most of us confirmed. I said nothing, my watch was on Jenn’s wrist back in the car.
"The two without watches stay with the vehicles," Sinn said, looking at Richard and Jenn. "Everyone else pairs up."
Sinn took Harmione, the specific pairing of a man who had decided who he was responsible for. Mercury took Sherry before Owen could suggest himself. Owen ended up with Code, which left me with May. I was fairly certain that hadn’t happened by accident.
We walked back into the Fallen City.
***
The infected stood exactly where we had left them.
Hundreds of pale, motionless figures bathed in moonlight, indifferent to our return. Their skin glowed with an eerie, almost luminous pallor, dark veins tracing patterns beneath the surface like frozen lightning. Some leaned against rusted cars, others stood in doorways with heads tilted, mouths slightly open. Long, jagged shadows stretched across the cracked pavement, shifting subtly in the corner of my eye.
We moved through them the same way we had before, carefully, reading the gaps, placing each step with deliberate care. The silence was absolute except for the soft crunch of sand and debris under our boots.
May walked beside me toward the building without appearing to pay any attention to the infected around her. One was leaning against the wall directly in her path. She adjusted her route by half a step without even looking at it, as if the world simply bent around her will.
"The keys aren’t in this building," she said, not whispering.
"You don’t know that," I replied, keeping my voice low.
"I do though," she said, as we started up the stairs. "Someone else will find them."
We reached the second floor. Empty, same as before. The moonlight poured in through missing walls, painting the open space in clean silver. She turned to face me and took my hand.
[LEWD LEVELING SYSTEM]
[Compatible user in proximity.]
[May: Probability manipulation, Level 8.]
[Previous connection.]
I know, I thought, looking at her. I know.
"Since someone else is going to find the keys," she said, stepping closer, "and since it’s dark everywhere and this balcony has the most interesting view in the Fallen City..." She looked out at the infected spread below us, hundreds of pale shapes frozen in the moonlight like a macabre audience. "You promised me something a long time ago. In a detention room at Hogsby."
Sex in zombie land, I thought. She engineered that detention specifically. And then she waited.
"I remember," I said.
"Fine," she whispered, wrapping her arms around my neck, her body pressing against mine. "Let’s fuck. I’ve been waiting for the right moment."
***
The second floor balcony was open to the night, one entire wall missing, giving a sweeping view of the moonlit square below. Hundreds of infected stood motionless in the silver light, like an audience of the dead waiting in perfect silence. The wind moved gently through the ruined building, carrying the faint scent of dust and distant decay.
May’s hands were warm on the back of my neck. Her eyes held mine with that calm, dangerous certainty she always carried, the look of someone who had already run every probability and liked the outcome.
I pulled her closer.
The plain watched. The city watched. And for a moment, the weight of everything else, the keys, the mission, the betrayals, fell away under the moonlight.
****
A/N: I still like this book a lot, but writing without feedback sometimes makes it feel like I’m writing to nobody. Still, we’re moving forward. There’s a lot left to tell. Every comment genuinely helps more than you probably realize.
