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Clair makes a small sound beside me.

Trish pushes past us and drops to her knees, but Joanie flinches back.

“Don’t,” Joanie snaps, voice shaking. “Don’t touch me.”

“Joanie,” Trish says.

“I said don’t!” Tears gather at the corners of Joanie’s eyes.

The alley goes still except for her breathing. Fast. Ragged. Terrified. Blood drips from her sleeve onto the snow. One drop. Another.

The bite is on her forearm, just below the elbow. Ugly. Deep. A crescent of teeth punched through her jacket and into skin, the fabric torn open and soaked dark.

The shape of a sentence we all know how to finish.

My hand finds Clair’s.

She grips me hard enough to hurt.

My mind refuses to understand what my eyes are showing me. Not Joanie. Not the kid who makes death sound ridiculous because if she stops laughing, she might fall apart. Not the kid who leans out of car windows and names stolen SUVs and calls cannibals meat clowns. Not the kid who shoved my mother out of the way without thinking.

Barbara would be bleeding if Joanie had hesitated. Barbara would be dying. Joanie saved her. And now Joanie is sitting in dirty snow with the end of her life carved into her arm.

My lungs lock around a sound I can’t make.

The walkie crackles at Jacob’s shoulder.

Lyla’s voice snaps through. “Thirty seconds out.”

Joanie laughs once, high and awful.

Barbara’s eyes fill. “Joanie.”

“No.” Joanie points at her with the bloody hand, then immediately winces. “No crying. No mom voice. No coming closer.”

Barbara’s face crumples, but she stays where she is. Her fingers curl into her coat instead of reaching. Her chin trembles. She plants her boots in the snow like the only thing holding her upright is Joanie telling her not to move.

Carlos, Lyla, and Earl appear at the mouth of the alley seconds later, weapons up. Carlos stops so hard he almost slips. His eyes drop to Joanie’s arm, and every bit of color leaves his face.

Joanie looks at him, and her bravado fractures. “Hey, Peaches.”

Carlos’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. His fingers flex around his gun. Once. Twice.

Lyla takes in the scene in one sweep. Dead infected. Bite. Blood. Joanie on the ground. Barbara shaking. Jacob barely holding himself upright.

“What the fuck happened?” Lyla demands.

No one answers fast enough.

She doesn’t need them to.

Her gaze lands on Joanie’s arm, and the hard line of her mouth disappears. Her face goes bare in a way I have never seen, stripped of command, anger, and every weapon she uses to keep the world at arm’s length.

Then she becomes Lyla again.

“Everyone back,” she says.

Barbara’s head snaps toward her. “No.”