The question landed, and something flashed across Cindy's face—surprise, maybe alarm—gone in a heartbeat. But Bryan had been watching for exactly that, and he caught it.
She glanced up at him, trying to read whether the question was routine or targeted. After several attempts, she found nothing in his expression to suggest he knew more than he should. They just got here, she told herself. How could they possibly know anything?
The tension in her shoulders eased a fraction. "No. I've been here several days now and haven't seen anyone else. It seems like... everyone who lived here has already left."
Throughout her answer, Cindy kept stealing glances at Bryan—reassured by her own logic, but unwilling to let her guard down completely.
"Good. That's a relief."
Bryan's previously unreadable expression broke into something that looked like genuine relief—as if a weight had been lifted.
He asked Mike to escort Cindy and the two rookies inside the shopping center to find somewhere to rest, then stayed behind to handle arrangements.
Standing alone, Bryan watched them disappear through the entrance. Everything about Cindy's answers—the microexpressions, the hesitations, the too-convenient story—had already slotted her firmly into the local survivor group column in his mind.
And if the locals had already made contact...
He turned and looked toward the cemetery across the street. The figure he'd spotted in the binoculars. Norman's report. The pieces were falling into place.
"Interesting."
The murmur was barely audible. Bryan's expression had turned grave. This was a first—two separate survivor groups operating in the same town during one of his missions.
But they had one advantage: neither group knew they'd been exposed. Both still believed they were hidden.
Bryan pulled his thoughts back to the mission. He turned to Elton. "How's the shopping center looking? Anything useful?"
"Not great..." Elton sighed and pulled out a ledger from inside his jacket.
"First floor's mostly clothing and electronics stores. Electronics are obviously useless, but a few shops had cases of clothes still boxed up in their stockrooms. Worth taking back."
"Second floor's all restaurants. Food's rotted or expired—freezers died years ago. Nothing salvageable."
"Third floor has sporting goods, a stationery store, and a supermarket. The supermarket's mostly expired too, but I found a hidden storeroom in the back with a decent stock of canned goods, plus backpacks, rope, and assorted gear. That's the biggest find."
"Fourth floor is all women's services—beauty salons, nail places. Cosmetics aren't exactly mission-critical, but... we could bring some back. The wives and daughters of government officials would pay a fortune for that stuff."
Bryan nodded and headed toward the assembled civilians with Elton in tow.
Wade had them lined up neatly at the entrance—sixteen people total, ten men and six women. Most of them were gazing at the surrounding streets with wistful, faraway expressions. It had clearly been a long time since any of them had been this far from the QZ.
The moment Bryan stepped in front of them, every trace of nostalgia vanished, replaced by nervous apprehension.
He couldn't blame them. Word traveled fast inside the QZ, and the stories about retrieval missions were grim. Some squad leaders treated civilian conscripts as expendable—beatings for working too slowly, bullets for anyone who pushed back, and worse for women who caught their eye.
Complaints to the Administration Center went nowhere. The soldiers received slaps on the wrist. The complainants received broken ribs. After that, most people stopped reporting.
Things had improved somewhat since the Fireflies had started targeting retrieval squads—the casualty scrutiny forced better behavior. But old fears died hard, and these civilians clearly intended to be as compliant as possible.
Bryan surveyed their faces. He knew exactly what they were afraid of. And frankly, a healthy dose of fear meant fewer problems.
"Elton, take them inside. Assign tasks. Everything gets staged on the ground floor for now—we'll load the trucks tomorrow morning. Keep an eye on them."
"Yes, sir!"
"Follow me!" Elton called to the group, then led them into the shopping center.
Bryan turned to Wade. "Push abandoned vehicles from the surrounding streets to block every entrance around the shopping center. Deal with any Infected you encounter. Be careful."
Wade nodded, gripped his shotgun, and headed across the street.
As the last of them disappeared, Bryan stood alone outside the shopping center. He remained motionless for a long time, staring up at the darkening sky, his expression impossible to read.
...
Southern Peachtree City.
The streets were crawling with Infected—an almost solid mass of shambling figures, so densely packed that any human foolish enough to wander in would be torn apart in seconds.
Thwip. Thwip.
Two arrows streaked from a shadowed alley at the street's edge, each one punching cleanly through a Runner's skull. A small figure darted out, yanking the arrows free without breaking stride, and scrambled up the side of a nearby building to the rooftop.
Sunlight caught her as she crested the edge—a girl, maybe fourteen or fifteen, holding a longbow. A quiver hung across her back. She was already running, leaping from one rooftop to the next with the confidence of someone who'd made this run a hundred times.
Where gaps between buildings were too wide, pre-rigged ropes waited. A quick leap, a grab, and she was across—barely glancing at the hordes below.
After crossing several blocks, she arrived at the entrance of an elementary school. The grounds were deliberately cluttered to look abandoned—a careful deception. The iron gate was sealed and barricaded with heavy debris. Impaled Infected corpses lined the perimeter walls. A long rope angled downward from a nearby rooftop into the school grounds.
The girl pulled a slightly curved hand-axe from her belt, hooked it over the rope, kicked off, and ziplined inside.
The moment she touched down, a bearded man appeared on the third floor of the school building, hunting rifle in hand. His face broke into a smile when he saw her.
"Hannah! There you are. Your sister's been looking for you. Go find her."
"Thanks, Mr. Hall!"
Hannah nodded and hurried inside the building. She'd barely crossed the threshold when a tall figure appeared in the right-side corridor. Her calm expression melted into a bright smile.
"Andrea!"
The dying light of sunset poured through the hallway windows, catching the newcomer's long, wavy red hair and setting it ablaze.
...
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