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Now.

I swing, messy and desperate, and the hatchet buries itself in the back of its head.

The infected drops.

I stumble away from Leon the second it hits the ground.

His hands lift, palms open, showing me he won’t grab, won’t crowd, won’t take one step closer than I can handle.

We keep moving, but not smoothly. Not like a training montage with music and dramatic improvement and me becoming a crowbar goddess by lunchtime.

I trip over a loose brick and almost face-plant into a frozen puddle. I swing too wide and nearly take out a mailbox. I forget to bend my knees until Leon taps his own twice with pointed judgment.

One infected gets close enough to grab my jacket, and I freeze for half a second before Leon drops it with an arrow through the temple.

Half a second.

That’s all.

But half a second is enough to die. Enough for Poppy to die. Enough for someone I love to pay for my fear.

The thought stays with me, cold and heavy.

We take down one more near the diner. Leon does most of the work, and I finish it when he holds it pinned with one boot and points to the skull.

“Wow,” I mutter, lifting the hatchet. “Nothing says empowerment like assisted murder.”

He shrugs.

I bring the blade down. It takes two hits.

Fine.

Three.

But the third one works.

The town still groans around us. Wind rattles broken signs. Somewhere, glass shifts and falls. The path to the woods is close now, the tree line waiting beyond the last row of dead storefronts.

Almost there.

A heavy thud sounds behind me.

I turn in time to see Leon slam a larger infected into the side of a truck. Its teeth snap near his cheek, too close, much too close.

“Leon!”

He drives his forearm under its chin, holding it back, but the infected shoves forward with dead strength, boots scraping through icy slush.

I move.

Or I try to.

My foot slides. My bad leg buckles, and for one horrifying second, I am back on the pavement with a bullet in my thigh, watching Russ walk away.

Leon.

Poppy.