"Agreed," I said, before Lasko could say otherwise. "Best of luck, Dori."

She nodded and managed a grin. "Things are going to be fine here. We don't need luck."

With that, we left, taking the lead with the two trucks following behind us. I was happy to see double the guards at the last outpost. They opened the gates and let us back out into the hostile world. I looked at it differently now, thinking I'd see whatever evils lurked in it.

Back at Valtown, guards were spaced every ten feet on top of the wall. The outpost towers had snipers on the ready. Their guns locked on us as we drove up. An eerie silence shrouded the city, more intense than when we left. It almost felt like one of the hundreds of ghost towns I'd been in before. Lifeless structures.

Lasko and I got off the bike slowly. I pulled off my helmet and looked up at the nearest guard.

"Cyrus V. Sinclair." Normally I'd throw in a command to open the door, but I didn't want to test them.

The guy conferred with his buddies, then the gate slid open, revealing the empty main road beyond. Lasko and I walked the bike in. On either side, near the walls, more men and women stood idle with their guns. Nearby, the car and convoy truck Blaze and Ghost drove checked in. A wave of relief flooded over me. They made it back.

I checked the motorcycle in with the same guy who loaned it out. Then I wondered what Blaze told Arbuckle to get so many people on watch. "What's the situation here?"

He shrugged. "Not sure exactly. Before you left, we put extra people on the walls, but last night, after Wright came back, word got out to triple the watch. Been rotating out since then, but haven't seen anything."

"The entire wall is this secure?"

He nodded. "Yep. I'm about to rotate out in a bit here. You need anything else?"

"No." I handed the keys over. "We're good."

Lasko and I went back to my apartment and trekked up the stairs. When I opened the door, the stench of rotten flesh hit me like a brick. I staggered back, drawing my gun and scanning the room for undead. My brain raced. That smell shouldn't be in this place.

Only a huge wooden crate sat in the middle of the room, with the lid slightly askew. The symbol and name of a shipping company faded into the wood. A dark liquid seeped from its corners, ruining the carpet.

Fuck. Ruining the carpet? I made a mental note to never be concerned with the state of our carpet again.

Blaze sat at the kitchen table alone, and Ghost was nowhere to be found.

"What the fuck is that?" I asked.

She stood and crossed the space between us. Then Blaze handed me a folded piece of paper. I wasn't sure what to think. I felt like I entered the Twilight Zone.

After holstering my gun, I unfolded the note.

'You should have killed me. You thought I was weak. You thought I would die.

You were wrong.'

My stomach twisted into a knot. I looked up, studying Blaze's face. She pointed to the box.

"Take a look."

Lasko shifted beside me, staying back as I walked to the box. I tugged the lid aside. Inside was the body of a young girl, almost a teenager, curled up in a ball. Her hands and feet were bound with rope. She'd been blonde once, but her head was shaved. She'd have blue eyes, if I pushed open her eyelids. I didn't have to look to know. A gaping hole in the top of her skull showed brain and bits of bone. The mark of the Brotherhood was carved with devoted precision all over her body.

They didn't use the weakness in the wall to attack. They used it to deliver another message, like in Brickston and at the house.

"Was she dead when she arrived?" I wasn't sure what else to say, how else to approach this clusterfuck of a situation.

Blaze went back to the kitchen table and sat down. "No. Ghost and I split up when we got back. He went to process the people from the quarry. The box was already here when I came in. I opened it and found the undead girl. She wasn't meant to kill me. She's a message."

It was undeniable that she was.

"Should I be here for this?" Lasko still stood in the doorway. "I'm outta here. Just say the word."

"This is between me and Cyrus," Blaze said. "Go get Ghost. He's working out defensive strategies with Arbuckle. When you get back, we'll fill you in."

Lasko left without asking a single question.

Blaze's mood made me ill at ease. She was handling this better than I expected. The part of me that wanted to tell her all these years mocked me. I told you so, you idiot. Yet every time I ran over this scenario in my head, it ended badly for one or both of us.

"Gabe is alive," I said. "I saw her the night I was with Kevin and the crazies. But I haven't seen her since then."

"I knew she was."

"I-what?"

Blaze laughed, genuinely amused. "Fuck, Cyrus. You think you're discreet? I can put the pieces together. You've brought her up so many times, asked me so many what-ifs. I knew something was going on, though I couldn't put it into words. Let me rephrase: I suspected she was alive, but this confirms it."

I hadn't gotten used to the smell of the body yet, but I didn't suggest we go elsewhere. I wanted to prove my strength. If she could bear it, so could I.

Rolling my shoulders after I set my gear by the door, I savored the pops and crunches. Then I sat down at the table with her.

It was out in the open. There was no point in dancing around it any longer, especially since it confirmed my own suspicions about a few things.

"The house with the bodies and the girl? That was a re-creation of the origins of the Brotherhood. Kevin was part of a cult and he killed all the members. I wondered about the girl, but now that I see this I think she represented Gabe."

"Do you think Gabe is the leader Alex talked about?"

Unfortunately, I did. The thought scared me. With a vendetta against Blaze and I, and a mass of crazies under her control, she was capable of anything. I thought of the man's story at the bar, of Alex's recollection of the leader. That was Gabe. I felt sick.

The memory came back to me with staggering force. I was tied up to the chair while Kevin explained his doctrine. It was nonsense to me. Just another crazy explaining why he was crazy. But now it made sense.

I was drawn to a house, and trapped there was the future bearer of the Chosen One...We cleansed the house with fire. Within it were wicked souls... She spoke of a redheaded man.

It made crystal fucking clear sense.

"When we were in Monroe with Frank, after you locked Gabe in the shed, we were attacked. I think that was them. It was the Brotherhood, and they found Gabe and took her."

"That's insane." Blaze leaned back and laughed. "That's insane!"

"You think that's implausible? It explains everything. They took her, and for whatever reason she managed to..." I struggled for words, especially since my theory gave so much credit to Gabe. "...manipulate them. She would've been with them for over a year by the time I saw her, and now she would've been with them for almost seven. Kevin thought she was divine or something, so the crazies would've thought she was important. She found out about us somehow and is trying to kill us for what you did."

"What we both did. What makes you think she doesn't want you dead, too?"

"Yeah. She probably wants to kill me, too."

"What about their leader, Kevin? If Gabe is calling the shots, where does that put him?"

This was it. If there was any time to tell her the truth, it was now. I braced myself emotionally. More importantly, I braced myself physically for a fistfight.

"Kevin is dead." I tried taking a breath, but my chest felt like lead, and not a bit of oxygen got through. If this was what the truth felt like, I wanted no part of it.

She remained still, waiting for me to continue.

"Here it is, Blaze. I lied to you because I didn't want to lose you. I was desperate, and said whatever would get you to stay with me. When Beau and I were separated, they traded him and a truck full of people for guns. They intended to eat them. I was captured, and when I escaped I killed Kevin. That's when I saw Gabe."

She stood, crossing the kitchen in swift, long strides, then she braced herself against the sink near the window. I couldn't see her face, but her shoulders heaved. I wondered if she was staving off tears. After minutes, she spoke. "You have no idea if he is dead or alive?"

"No."

Blaze rubbed her palm against her neck then sighed. When she turned, her eyes were red with unshed tears. "I'm fucking enraged you didn't tell me this up front. Whatever you think you feel about me, it pales in comparison to how much I care about my brother. These past years, the only thing that kept me going was the thought he could be alive."

"Blaze-"

"Shut the fuck up and let me finish. Right now, we don't matter. At this very moment, there are people out there who want to murder us all. As much as I hate these towns and how they're ran, there are good people here. I might not like them, and I might not want to stay myself, but they shouldn't have to die because of us. I might've become a marine because I wanted to prove something to my father, but I stayed because I wanted to serve my country. There's a part of me that still cares about doing right by the people who need protection."

Beneath the callous and bitter exterior, she wasn't truly selfish. I always knew that about Blaze, but she made it easy to forget. I also liked to ignore those parts of her. Sometimes I thought she forgot it herself, and that's what launched her into periods of utter darkness.

I used to think I was the kind of person who would choose myself over a thousand other people. But now I was in that position, and it seemed ridiculous to abandon the colonies over something that was entirely our fault. If I didn't know them, if I were a bystander, I could walk away. I'd done it before, and would do it again if ever faced with the decision. But I couldn't turn my back on Valtown. Not after being part of its creation and predicament.

"Just promise me one thing, Cyrus."

"Name it."

"When we find her, I get to kill that crazy bitch. No defending, no talking. I kill her."

I nodded. "Whatever you want."

Tight dread gave way to a kind of pleasant blankness. That was it. There were no more lies between us. Blaze hadn't killed me and hadn't walked out the door. I didn't know what would happen once it was all over, but I didn't think we'd be together much longer if we made it out.

She reached into her jacket to get a cigarette and her lighter. A blissful expression washed over her face as she inhaled. Then she stalked over to the living room and collapsed into her chair.

"I took care of the nest egg," she said. "Sent Ghost to update Arbuckle while I did it. The guys at the gate gave me a hard time about leaving. Shit, I was surprised the thing ran."

"You made it to the warehouse without any problems?"

"As far as I know. Place was falling apart. No one will ever find it there."

About fifteen miles out, closer to the big cities we'd forsaken, was a warehouse full of shipping containers. The roof was caving in and the containers had all been looted years ago. Blaze and I pegged it as a good place to store the nest egg if something like this ever happened. It had natural camouflage and no one ever wandered those areas any more. Not even the crazies. The buildings were becoming unsound and thousands of undead still congregated there.

There were rumors that zombies in the tri-cities were preserved from radioactive waste spills, and that they migrated over the mountains into our area. It was possible that's why some Zs hadn't crumbled into dust yet, but who could truly know?

"Good. Did the Brotherhood's prisoners get settled yet?" We'd treated them terribly, not telling them what was happening. I hoped Valerie made up for it.

"We took them to the hospital. Some of them came around by the time we got there and asked questions." She paused to take a drag on her cigarette. "Wanted to know where we were, if the government had built the town, shit like that. Some of them were spouting off about a place called Generator Town. They were delirious. I let Valerie take care of it."

"If they're coherent enough, we might want to ask them some questions. It might help us figure out where the Brotherhood's main base is." I eyed the wooden crate, then my focus returned to Blaze. "I'm rested up and ready to go. Plus I don't think I can take another second of that stench."

She looked at the box like it didn't even matter. "Sure. Let me get my stuff. Lasko and Ghost should be back soon."

I retrieved some more ammo from my room to replenish what I'd lost, and I cleaned up a bit. Good hygiene made for good morale. By the time I was done, Blaze waited by the door. Lasko and Ghost were just arriving at the apartment when we exited.

"You guys good?" Lasko said it carefully, her voice neutral.

"Yeah." I explained what the box meant and that we wanted to question some of the prisoners.

"So we know who is doing this and why, but that doesn't help us much," Lasko said as we walked to the hospital.

"Alex said they were in some kind of old factory," Blaze said. "We can start there. If any of the prisoners remember what kind of factory it was, that could help."

Sometimes I became so wrapped up in the new world, I forgot people remembered the old. Someone might know about an abandoned factory. It would save us a hell of a lot of time if they did.

The walk through the market street was grim, despite the clear winter morning. A few stragglers stayed at their tables, mostly ones offering handmade weapons or food. Smoke snaked upward from tiny cooking fires. Conversations quieted as we walked by, and the vendors watched us.

Eventually we got to Arbuckle's. Four guards stood outside the door, all of whom I recognized. They stepped aside when we approached.

Inside was buzzing with activity. We entered the hospital section of Arbuckle's town hall. All the beds were filled and makeshift ones were on the floor. The smell of dirt and body odor was strong, and the room was humid even though windows had been opened. There were too many of them to fit in the room. All of the prisoners were cuffed or tied to bed frames, or anything else they could be tethered to.

Ghost read my mind. "I recommended they be restrained. We don't know if we can trust them yet."

I spotted Alex nearby, his pant leg up and his bullet wound wrapped. Unlike the rest, he was free. He nodded and gave me a weak smile and a thumb up. The cheesy grin on his face made me wince. I shot the poor kid and he still looked up to me.

The only doctors in Valtown were going from prisoner to prisoner, patching wounds and giving them food and water. Most of them still looked scared, but others acted up and demanded they be released. One of them noticed us and elbowed the girl next to him. A hush eventually fell over the entire room. Even the doctors paused to look at us.

For someone who hated being in front of crowds, I seemed to do it a lot lately. I cleared my throat, stood a little taller. I figured a guilt trip would be a good angle to start with. "You might remember we're the ones who rescued you from that camp."

Nods and whispers all around.

"We need to ask you some questions that might help us find the main base of your capturers." I let it sink in. "Do you all understand?"

Each nodded, and one man raised his hand. He was middle aged. Indian from what I guessed. His face was bruised and he had a split lip.

I nodded. "What is it?"

"Why are we tied up?"

"The Brotherhood-the people who were holding you hostage-would do anything to deceive us." They didn't like the answer one bit.

"That's outrageous!" This from a sallow brunette who clutched a bandage on her arm. "First we're captured by those cannibals, and then we're held hostage by these people, and we're all acting like it's okay."

Another woman stepped forward. She had a fierceness about her that commanded the attention of the entire room. "It isn't. You know what happened to me and my family. After those women found me and my daughters, they spent four days gaining our trust. I know they did the same thing to many of you. We gave them food and water. Christ, we let them sleep in our house! Then they let those men in during the night and took all of us."

"I'm sorry that happened, of course." the sallow brunette said.