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We stop in the woods, covered in soot and debris, shaking from head to toe. Megan and Sam both sleep (or pass out, whichever) slumped against one another. Megan still has the bear tight to her chest. That stupid bear has lived longer than most of humanity.
Zombie sits watching the sun rise with his rifle across his lap, completely silent. I don't try and talk to him. I don't know what to say. Poundcake is dead and Zombie is grieving. He needs some time alone.
I stand about ten feet from Cassie, holding Zombie's pistol with a loose grip. Cassie stands leaning against a tree, nose still crooked. Dumbo, the only one with enough sense to look for something to eat, asks to take a look at her nose. She asks him how he could miss it and he laughs.
"Take care of Ben," Cassie tells him.
"He won't let me," he replies.
"Well," she says, "the real wound your medical mojo can't touch, Dumbo."
I sigh heavily and turn away from the conversation. It's hard to figure out if she's really talking about Zombie, now. It's not hard, however, to figure out who she's thinking about.
Evan stayed behind, drew a breath and let it out into the baggie that Sam dropped on the way out, and blew himself and Grace to the great green oblivion in the sky.
A twig snaps behind Cassie. I hear it first, ears trained from my months in the forest, face turning to stone because I can't even think of a possible thing it could be. Couldn't be game, not with the cold and hotel probably scaring them right off. Not Ringer or Teacup. The hotel wouldn't have just scared off the animals.
Silencer, is the thought on the second second. But then it's shoved away. If it was a Silencer, we'd already be dead because we wouldn't even hear them coming. The only thing that leaves is One of the Last. Somehow, that seems even more impossible.
The shadow raises its arms in the air, and that's when Cassie realizes who it is. Evan found his way back to her again, like he promised to do before and would promise to do again.
"Cassie," Evan whispered. Cassie was already moving. Passing her rifle to Dumbo, who took it and said nothing at all, and walking towards her Silencer. They stopped a few feet in front of each other.
I looked away, feeling it was a moment best spent as privately as possible, and caught Zombie's eye. He was staring at me with that broken and twisted face of his, still as beautiful as ever. And I was surprised. I hadn't expected him to acknowledge to me for a while, not after what I convinced him to do.
He kept staring. I stared right back. He stood. He limped to me. I waited. Then he did the weirdest thing I could think of: he wrapped his arms around my shoulders and pulled me into a comforting embrace. Then I did the weirdest thing I could think of: I cried.
Zombie says nothing as I squirm for a moment, wanting to be let go and to grieve on my own. Because of what he said earlier when he kissed me, which was enough said then, I stilled.
