That was a good save, and he was thankful for the dog’s assist. Taking that moment, he stepped away, shaking his head. “I was just a little distracted, is all. This is the street where a flameback wolf chased me down on the first day. It’s hard to believe that forty-eight hours ago, everything was normal. It just feels like it was all so new, yet also feels like it happened so long ago. You know, it’s hard to, like, fully grasp.”

  He was pretty sure his rambling came out as just that—rambling. But by the look in her eyes, which became slightly softer, and then her turning away, it meant she had to be buying it. At least somewhat.

  “I get what you mean,” she said, her hand moving to her wrist as she rubbed it. “I’m not sure I’ve really processed all of it,” she said, scoffing a bit and shaking her head.

  Her gaze shifted over her shoulder, eyes tracking down the street toward her house, expression going distant, thoughtful.

  She turned back to him. “I’m still not sure what to make of it. I’m kind of just going with the flow.”

  Lucas nodded. He’d gotten that. Isabelle’s actions weren’t exactly the thought patterns of someone being logical, someone dealing with their emotions in the most sensible way. If anything, it was a miracle that she hadn’t collapsed into a ball in the corner of a room somewhere, just sobbing. But then it occurred to him—Debbie had talked about her class changing her, or at least the word iron in her class changing her. Perhaps they were all going through the same thing. He was taking to this apocalypse rather well himself, after all. Well, at least he hoped he was. Though, how much better could someone really be doing in this kind of situation?

  Surviving wasn’t easy, though. He sniffed, the smell of his armpits becoming oddly apparent for a moment. Yeah, surviving was the priority now, but what about afterwards? Perhaps Vincent’s laying of his own foundation was something Lucas should put more effort into himself, rather than following along with his mum’s prepping. After all, she was hardly fully grasping the situation.

  “Should we get going?” Isabelle pulled him out of his thoughts, and Apollo’s tail shook back and forth as the dog’s gaze moved down the street. The two were eager to leave, and he seconded that, though there was one stop he wanted to make before they continued pushing towards the supermarket.

  “Yeah, let’s go. But before that, mind if I go check out over there?” he said, jerking his chin towards a house across the street.

  The boar and the wolves had left the garage in ruins. With the front panel caved inward, metal crumpled like tinfoil where the fire tusk boar had rammed through. The hole it left was massive—easily wide enough for the creature to have charged straight in. Around the jagged edges, fabric hung in torn strips, snagged on bent metal. Dark stains streaked the concrete—blood, dried to rust-brown in the sun. Drag marks led from inside the garage out onto the driveway, slight gouges where someone’s fingers or heels had scraped desperately against the ground.

  They walked up and stopped before the wreckage. Isabelle let out a heavy sigh that resonated within Lucas as he shook his head.

  Part of him knew he would never have been able to save them. He would have been little more than a rock being thrown against an unstoppable train. But it didn’t make it hurt any less that he’d left people to their deaths. There were probably a few children in there who didn’t even deserve what those creatures did to them. He gripped his fist, his nails biting into his palm.

  “I wish I could have done something.”

  Isabelle turned to him, frowning. “Done what? When this all happened, you were just like the rest of them. Weak. Just trying to survive.”

  That was true. He was. Yet, he still should have done more.

  Taking a step back, he craned his neck up to the window where he’d seen the woman looking out on the first day. Had she survived? Had the wolves gone up and taken her out, too? There didn’t seem to be any signs of struggle, not that he could see from here, not within the house. His gaze dropped to the front door of the building, where it stood firmly locked.

  “I would say we should go check inside,” Isabelle said, her hands moving towards the ruined garage door and brushing faintly against the metal, “but I don’t think I want to see any of what’s in there.”

  Lucas nodded, instead opting to step away from her and move towards the front door of the house, Apollo in tow. He then raised a hand. Three crisp knocks rang against the door’s plastic. Then his hand fell to the side, and he waited.

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  He didn’t really expect anyone to answer. Even if people were inside, the logical thing was probably to wait for whoever was out here to go away. You didn’t know who was at your door or what they wanted. So when he heard shuffling coming from behind the door, his heart leapt within his chest, and he tried to think of everything he could say to...

  He wasn’t exactly sure. What was he even going to say to these people? Was he trying to bring them with him? Was he here to apologise? He didn’t know.

  “There’s someone in there,” Isabelle said, moving over to a window and cupping her hands over her brow, peering in.

  A voice answered a moment later. “What do you want?”

  Lucas paused, turning to Isabelle, who looked back at him with an equal measure of confusion. “We’re just here to help,” Lucas said, eyes shifting from Isabelle to the door.

  Apollo cocked his head to the side and let out a low whine of disapproval. The dog clearly didn’t think his first sentence should have been such a weak establishment of priorities.

  “We don’t need no help from you bastards. I swear I told you last time, if you come near my house, I’m going to stab you. Don’t make me come out there.”

  The voice sounded like that of an old man who’d spent far too long in his garden, obsessing over the vegetables, and now hated the idea of anyone even coming close to them. “You hear me?” he said. “I’ll come out there, and I’ll gut you!”

  Lucas had half a mind to roll his eyes. The old man most likely wouldn’t come out here, but there was the unmistakable trace of fear in his voice. Something or someone had spooked him.

  Isabelle gave Lucas a look, then stepped past him to angle her head at the small window in the doorway, as if looking for shadows. Though Lucas was pretty sure she shouldn’t get too close, as there was always a slight chance that whoever was inside might try to throw something through to hurt her.

  “I don’t think they need our help,” Isabelle said, her tone heavy, as if she was resigning these people to their own fate.

  Before Lucas could respond, the old man shouted and continued, “Get away from my door! I swear, if you don’t move, I’m gonna come out there, and you won’t like it! You won’t! You won’t!”

  A shuffling then came from inside, and Lucas heard what sounded like another man’s voice, and then a woman, urging the old man to calm down. So there were others in there, and from the sounds of it, they weren’t as crazy as this old fool. Though to call him crazy may have been harsh, considering he and Isabelle, as well as Apollo, weren’t the first to come to this man’s door.

  “Shall we get going, then?”

  Lucas nodded to her. “I’m sorry,” he said as Isabelle stepped away, his gaze moving to the door.

  “Go away!” the old man shouted. “We ain’t got nothing for you, donkeys! I already told you that last time!”

  What had happened here last time to make the man react like this? But Lucas paused, working his jaw. Part of him wanted to say his piece, though not really sure why. “I saw you guys on the first day, and I’m sorry I didn’t help. I wish I could have. Truly, I do, and I’m sorry that some of you died.”

  There was no response, and it was probably best to leave it that way. So turning, he shambled after Isabelle more listlessly than a few minutes ago. He let out a sigh. “I didn’t expect anyone to be in there, and to be honest, I don’t even know what I expected would happen if they responded.”

  “You were probably going to offer to bring them back, weren’t you?” Isabelle said, with slight annoyance threading through her words.

  “I told you before, Lucas, you can’t keep giving handouts to everyone.”

  “I’m not giving handouts, I just...” He wanted to tell her he just had an urge to help people, not out of the goodness of his heart, but the simple fact that he didn’t wish to see others suffer needlessly. Because if he could offer some help to someone, was that something that he should avoid? After all, it would only eat at him. And now, with the power he was slowly gaining, he had even more of a reason to do so. Vincent was doing the same, and he definitely wasn’t doing it out of the goodness of his heart.

  Lucas sighed. “I understand what you mean, but I also think I’m agreeing with Vincent.”

  “You what?” Isabelle came to a stop, her eyes wide as she cocked her hip and rested her hand there. She jabbed a finger at him and let out a heavy sigh. “You can’t seriously be buying into the crap that he’s spouting, are you? The bastard’s just trying to—”

  “Hold up.” Lucas raised a hand. “I’m not buying into anything. But I see what he’s doing. Right now, our primary focus is surviving, prepping... Well, we can’t really prep after things have already happened, but essentially, we’re just scrambling. But he’s planning for the future, because what do we do after we survive? What do we do once we’ve gathered enough canned goods and enough clothes?”

  Lucas’s gaze shifted, looking at the destruction around the street, the blown-out windows, the destroyed fronts of cars, the blood trails. This was their new reality, and they had to prepare for their future in it.

  “Vincent sees where things are going, Isabelle, and I worry he’s already a few steps ahead of us.”

  “Yeah, but I thought we established that. I thought that’s why we’re going to find the siblings, or at least keep an eye out for them.”

  Lucas nodded and continued walking. He looked to Apollo, who watched the conversation with some interest. “I mean, we need to think further. We need to get a start on gathering people.”

  “Are you trying to go against Vincent in some kind of war or something?”

  “No, I just want to become a large enough thorn in his side that if something happens, he at least has to think twice about approaching us. And to be honest, the only way I really see us doing that is by getting more people on our side, or if things go south and get violent, which I pray they don’t, is get high enough levels to go against him.”

  With that thought, he tilted his head to the side and raised a brow. “You’re level one now, right?”