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“Medical supplies, we have gauze and ointment,” Griffin offers next.
“We’re bursting at the seams with those, but I’m not uninterested. Do you have something, anything, that isn’t the typical survival items?” Claire tilts her head and looks at my neck. “What kind of necklace do you have?”
Max snorts. “Figures, you’d be more interested in jewelry than in knives.”
My compass grows hot against my skin. I reach through the top of the hoodie and pull it out, revealing it to her. My heart sinks when her eyes light up.
“Is that a compass? That could be very useful. I don’t believe anyone here has one of these.”
She reaches out to touch it, but William shoves his hand in between us. His fingers open to reveal the small object in his palm. “This. I know it doesn’t look like much, but this can save your asses. When you play it, it can draw rotters away from one spot, to a new spot. Once they move, you stop playing and get out of the way before they get to you.”
“When you mention drawing them away from one spot to another…”
“If you’re ever on a scavenging mission and there are too many of them huddled around a building you want to get into, go to another area, play this, and it’ll draw them there.”
“Why can’t I simply make noise doing literally anything else?”
William gets a serious look in his eyes, his beautiful blues turning hard. “Because you said you need something of value, and this is the most valuable thing I have. I used it just recently to redirect a group of rotters that were going after Griffin while he was sleeping.”
Griffin’s head snaps over to look at him, his brows raised. Oh, that’s right, we never told him about that.
Claire’s lips turn up in a smile, and she takes the harmonica. I see the moment that William’s eyes dim. When she turns around to walk, I grab William’s arm. “How could you? That’s far too important to you.”
He smiles sadly down at me. “Not nearly as important as you.”
My heart chooses that moment to master gymnastics, and I reach up onto my toes and kiss him, hard. His arms wrap around my waist while mine loop around the back of his neck and his mouth opens for me. There’s simply not enough time right now for me to convey my appreciation.
Time is such a funny thing. I wish we had more of it.
I pull away so we can get moving, but he holds onto me for a moment longer. “When we get in there, I’ll distract them while you sneak more than that,” William whispers in my ear. I nod to show I heard him, and we follow Claire to the nurse’s station.
Max hangs back to whisper to us next. “Or we could kill everyone and take the lot.”
“We’re not doing that,” I say, poking him in the side. He grins, but keeps walking.
“Well, here you go.” Claire turns around to face us before opening both of the refrigerator doors.
My hands press against my cheeks as I take in the shelves full of vials. There is enough here to last way over two weeks. This amount can be life-changing for her.
William keeps his word and gets busy asking questions about the people there. I somewhat listen while I began stuffing vials into my pockets, and Griffin and Max each take some as well. There are so many vials that I don’t know how they can tell how many we take unless they heavily count them. I make sure there are enough left in the front of give the illusion that there aren’t so many missing from the back.
“How many people are staying here? This is a pretty decent sized building.”
“About twenty-five to forty. Smaller groups travel out for days at a time looking for supplies, and we take in survivors who want to be here,” Claire explains.
Griffin grows intrigued at this and stuffs two more vials into his pockets before turning around to question her himself, taking William’s spot while William starts grabbing vials next. “You have a colony here?”
“Well, sort of. It’s not as organized as we’d like it to be yet, but we’re trying.”
“How do you choose who you can accept?”
“We don’t have much of a process in place yet to be honest, but as long as we can tell that you can be a helpful member of society, you’re in. Everyone has some sort of responsibility here.”
After filling my pockets, I walk over and see the most hope in Griffin’s eyes that I’ve seen since I first jumped out of the trunk. It hurts because I want him to join my colony even though I know he can’t, but I’m happy for him because of how badly he needs this. He’s been wanting this for so long, and when he looks over at me, I have to look away.
“Do you think your group could accept us?”
“What do you have to offer?”
