It’s kind of like riding a bike.

  Though I wasn’t particularly truthful to Nancy, I meant it when I said that we had lost a whole day of chasing the surges. Despite that day off, we get right back to our usual routine, making stops at places that could have things worthy of looting. We focus on raw materials, wanting to get the right things to build a fence and Beaker’s contraptions. Savannah also has us stop at a couple specialty grocery stores—an Asian supermarket, a Persian market, and a health foods minimart. Though I tell her they’ll still likely be cleaned out already, she insists. And since I’m trying the whole not-rude thing, we stop there. We don’t get a lot, and my I told you so comment is met by a glare from Nancy.

  We see a few monsters, milling about. I consider stopping and killing one, just to grab the magical ash (ugh, I really have to come up with a better name for it). But I resist. I know that we’ll be inundated with bodies once we’re done with our first surge, and that has to be enough. Killing monsters as a way to protect ourselves while we try to level up feels like an acceptable outcome.

  Killing for the sake of killing makes us the monsters.

  Ryder, tucked in the back between Beaker and Savannah, is telling them about our previous adventures. We drive past the Tim Horton’s where we had that surge battle—and I wonder if we should check on the church folks. I didn’t see any of them at the Town Hall.

  When we get to the next street, I turn the opposite direction from where the church would be. I noticed Ryder didn’t mention the little girl that died that day.

  This is a stretch of street I haven’t been on since everything ended, and I look a little more carefully at the places we pass. There’s whole strip plazas here, and low industrial buildings beyond it that probably have a bunch of different stores in each one. Sometimes it blows my mind, when I think about all the different businesses that exist.

  The plaza we’re passing has a sign for a candle store. I pull into the parking lot.

  “What are you doing?” Savannah asks from the backseat, her voice weary and worn out.

  “Stopping for supplies,” I answer, going for cryptic. I’m really not making it easy, to get them on our side. I know I need to smarten up, warm up, but being a bitch is just too much fun. I put the car in park but leave it on, throwing a grin over my shoulder before climbing out of the car.

  I’m parked across three different spots.

  I hear the car shut off behind me as I break the glass in the door, and stick my hand in to turn the lock.

  “Seriously, Jane, what’s your problem?” Nancy hisses at me, following me into the store. The chatter coming from behind us tells me that the other three stepped out of the car, too. “Why, exactly, are you intentionally antagonizing them? You totally are being rude. Yesterday you thought the sun shined out of their asses!”

  “Yeah, before I overheard them tell you how they think I’m reckless and dangerous!” I spit out, whirling on her. I didn’t mean to say it, to admit it, but cat’s out of the bag now. Nancy’s eyes are wide. “I was there, in the house, when you guys got back from packing their things. I heard everything.”

  Nancy’s gone pale. “Oh.”

  “And thank you, for having my back. But I’m sorry if being nice to the people who think I’m a bad influence on Ryder isn’t my top priority.”

  “Shit,” Nancy breathes out. “I’m sorry. You weren’t supposed to hear about that. Know about it.”

  I turn back around, look into the store for about three seconds, and then start pulling everything I can see into my inventory. “They’re here because they need us as much as we need them. But it might take me a second to decide to be nice.” I scoff. “It’ll take them a second to decide if they want to stay.”

  Nancy rushes after me. “No, they said—”

  “To your face. They said they were in to your face. But they’re just as likely to bail once they get what they want from us.” Pull the candles. Pull the shelves the candles are sitting on. Wonder if they make these on premises and if I should go into the back and find the candle-making supplies.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “And you being a raging bitch to them is going to make them more likely to stay?” Nancy says.

  I flinch.

  “You should never have gone to that Town Hall,” she goes on, the fight rushing out of her. “I knew it would change too much.”

  I pause, a candle in my hand. They’re nice, with black glass jars and fancy labels, and I bring it to my nose and take a sniff. That’s nice, too. “Things change, Nancy,” I say, the fight gone out of me, too. “They have to. We don’t survive if we don’t change. And sometimes that means changes for the worse before things can change for the better.”

  Nancy leans over, resting her forehead on my shoulder. “We’re good, though, right?” she whispers.

  I press my cheek into the top of her head. “You called me a raging bitch, so no, we’re enemies now, too.”

  Her head clunks me as she jolts up, her eyes wild.

  I stifle a laugh. “We’re always going to be good,” I say, the laughter slipping out. Her face relaxes. “And I’m sorry that I’ve been taking my frustration out, on all of you. I’ll try to stop.”

  “You have good reason to be frustrated,” Nancy says. She reaches up and squeezes my arm lightly. “But thank you. Trying is all I can ask for.”

  My attention shifts back to the candles, and I keep pulling them into my inventory.

  “But candles? Really?”

  “We need ways to light the house when Ryder’s not around!”

  Nancy laughs at me, but after a sigh she helps me clear out the store.

  ***

  We slowly go up the block, building by building, taking note of what companies run out of them, grabbing whatever we think would be handy. A couple buildings over, we find a place that sells blades. Small switchblades, slim throwing knives, sleek daggers, hefty battle axes, and even actual machetes. Supple, leather sheaths. Leather jackets and vests line one of the cinder block walls.

  I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.

  “Take everything,” I instruct. “Anything and everything with a blade. And the leather. Take all the leather, too.”

  While I’m at it, I take trays full of rings labelled with a sign saying Stainless Steel. If we have someone who can fuse materials, having the extra leather and steel is probably handy.

  Forget getting back in the car and looking for surges. I want to sit down with Beaker, apologize for every antagonistic moment from the day, and beg him to make me something. But based on the expression on his face, I don’t think he’s ready for that, yet. He’s staring at a corner of the store, a wall with chains and leather pouches on display. He might not be ready, but I think I might be ready to make nice. I come stand beside him. “Overwhelmed yet?”

  “Seeing you use a baseball bat to whack a rabbit was one thing. But… blades. Legit weapons. That feels… more.”

  “That’s because it is more.” I pause, letting my hip jut until it rests against a glass cabinet that’s been emptied of switchblades. “I’ve been wanting to find a place like this for… nearly a week now. It’s scarier weapons, but we’re facing scarier monsters. And things are just going to get scarier.” Beaker pulls his gaze from the chains and turns to me. “The first mutated monster I fought was a cat. My neighbour’s cat, Elsa. Their granddaughter named it, after the Disney princess, since she was white.” I grin at the memory, pulling into my parents’ driveway one day to see the toddler playing with the white cat on the porch. “She had always been a sweet cat, but this thing… there was none of her in it. She had these monster teeth and claws and all the aggression of a lion. Like, forget Elsa—name the thing Simba.” I chuckle to myself. Beaker is almost fighting a smile.

  Never would have taken him for a Disney fan.

  “Anyways, point is. These aren’t just animals anymore. At first they had some bigger teeth or bigger bodies, but now they have magical attacks, projectiles. This thing?” I lift the dagger, snug in its sheath, that I hadn’t put in my inventory yet—I want to slip it right onto my belt, keep it handy. Beaker flinches. “This protects us from those attacks. This lets me protect them.” I use my other hand to point across the store, where Nancy and Ryder are trying on the leather jackets.

  Seeing them there, an almost normal picture of two people shopping, makes me smile. I feel my face softening, feel my panic abating. I didn’t think anyone else would ever make me feel like that again.

  “You really love them, don’t you?” Beaker asks, his voice low.

  I’m not trying to make nice anymore. I’m just being honest. And as I keep watching them, the stark truth comes out of my mouth: “More than I think I’ve ever loved anyone.”

  “Even though you didn’t know them a week ago?” This question feels different—though I can’t quite place why.

  I’m sure I’ll puzzle over it later, but for now, I turn my attention back to him. “Despite it. Or, maybe, in spite of it. All I know is that the world has changed irrevocably over this last week. The only reason I’m still here—the only reason I want to still be here, fighting—is because of them. For them.”

  Beaker’s eyes drift across the room and find Savannah, standing with her arms crossed over her stomach like she’s protecting herself. A strand of her hair has caught on her mouth, slightly open as she takes in the room, and sticks there. His face melts into a soft smile, one that I’m sure was just like my own a few moments ago.

  “I’m sure you can understand that,” I tell him.

  He nods.

  I clap him on the back with my free hand, and the man flinches again. I huff a laugh. “Come on, I think we’ve gotten all we can from here.” He reaches out toward the leather pouches, pulling a few of them into his inventory. Then the chains.

  I watch this with a smile.

  We really need to find a surge. I need to get this man some Rank Tokens so he can build me some better weapons. I don’t know if he’s fully on team-Jane, but I think we had a legit moment.

  And if it’s all in my head and he and Savannah leave tomorrow, at least I’ll have gotten something good out of it.