“Devin.” Noah opened his eyes. Blinking, he cleared the haze.

Where am I? Where’s Devin?

A stinging sensation spread along the length of his arm like fire when he went to raise it. An irrational panic took over as he saw the needle, a tangled line running from it. He went to pull it out, but as he leaned forward an intense pain stabbed his gut.

“Hey. It’s okay.” The voice was familiar.

It took Noah a moment to realize the man at his side was Brandon.

Brandon patted Noah’s shoulders, encouraging him lie back down. “You’re okay. Just relax.”

“Relax.” Noah shut his eyes as he swallowed back the pain. He caught his breath, then rolled his head, eyeing the line. “What is it?”

“Saline. Nothing to worry about.”

Noah examined his arm, noting separate bruising and a scabbed over mark. “You took blood?”

Brandon shook his head and rolled up the sleeve of his cardigan. “Seems I was of use.”

“A transfusion.” His head hurt and he struggled to order the pieces of what had happened.

“Yeah.”

“Lucky me,” Noah said and stared at the ceiling. He breathed in deeply, wincing as he filled his lungs. “I threw up,” he remembered.

“It was from the shock.”

Shock? “Where’s Devin?”

“He’s fine. He’ll be back soon. There was something he had to go and do.”

Noah flicked out his tongue. His mouth was dry and it hurt to talk.

“Here.” Brandon slid a hand beneath Noah’s head and indicated a plastic bottle. “It’s water.” He supported Noah’s head and tipped the bottle.

Noah welcomed the tepid liquid across his tongue.

“Okay?” Brandon lowered the drink.

“Yeah. Thanks.” Noah closed his eyes for a moment and breathed in. Things felt strange. As if he was out of place somehow. Oh yeah. That one-armed freak. My stomach. “Where’s Devin?” He opened his eyes and looked up at Brandon who hesitated. “Sorry.” Noah blinked. “I already asked that, didn’t I?”

There was understanding in Brandon’s eyes. “Don’t worry. He’ll be back. They all will. Then maybe we can get out of here.” He held his hands in his lap. “How do you feel?”

Noah moved his hand down toward his stomach. “Like I’ve been run through with a pitchfork.” He chewed on his lip. “But I’m alive.”

“You had us all a little scared there for a while. But there was no serious damage.” Brandon gave a small smile. “And besides, you were in very good hands.” He glanced over his shoulder. A man and a woman sat on the floor behind him. The man had his arm around the woman, and was stroking her hair as she leaned against him.

Though his memory was hazy, Noah remembered the woman over him, talking to him, her hands on him, but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t remember her name. “Who is she?”

“She was a surgeon before all this.” Brandon met Noah’s eyes, seeming to realize Noah’s question was about something simpler. “March. Her name’s March.”

Noah pressed his hand to the dressing that covered his stomach. It hurt like hell, but at least he was alive. “What’s going to happen?”

“When?”

Swallowing hard, Noah glanced around the room. “When the others get back?” He wished Devin had stayed with him, safe and at his side. Or rather so that he himself felt safe. He didn’t know these people. It didn’t matter if they had helped him, maybe saved his life. He didn’t trust them or their good intentions, not when he knew why Brandon and the others were there.

“I guess we’ll figure out how we’re all getting out of here.” Brandon settled his gaze on the floor.

“So that’s it?” Noah narrowed his eyes, scrutinized Brandon’s face. “The others get back and we go our separate ways?”

Brandon pursed his lips. He didn’t reply straight away, seeming to consider his answer. “You know why we’re here, right?”

Apprehension tightened Noah’s stomach. Maybe he shouldn’t have pressed. Maybe he should have left things until Devin had returned. “I remember.”

“All the miles we’ve traveled, places we’ve been and people we’ve come across since this began. In all that time, you’re the only one. I was starting to think we’d never find someone like you, but here you are. The first shred of hope we’ve had in a long time. I might even dare to believe we can beat this thing.”

Noah swallowed the lump in his throat. “The last people who thought that are dead.” He looked into Brandon’s eyes. There was no instant reaction to his warning.

“Is that some kind of threat?” Brandon eventually asked and raised one of his eyebrows as he held Noah’s gaze.

“No, just a fact.” Noah closed his eyes for a moment. He ached with exhaustion.

Brandon shifted beside him. “What happened?”

Noah blinked. There was a blurred edge to his vision. “What’s it matter? They’re dead. Nothing anyone can do to change that.”

“It matters because I don’t want to make the same mistakes.”

Softly, Noah snorted a laugh. He winced as his stomach muscles tensed. The pain distracted him and he turned his head, focusing on the bookcase on the opposite side of the room. A line of academic texts filled the top shelf and Noah couldn’t help but wonder if that was it, the last of the written word. Would anything new ever be written? Printed?

“Noah?” Brandon’s voice was low, soothing. He wore a concerned expression when Noah met his eyes. “You feel okay?”

“Yeah.” Noah raised his hand to his cheek. “Yeah. Just tired.” His skin was heated beneath his touch. It was strange, the opposite to the cold chill that crept over him.

Brandon pressed his palm to Noah’s forehead. “You’re a little warm.” Brandon glanced over his shoulder. He must have beckoned to March as there she was kneeling at his side. “What do you think?”

With a steady hand, March reached past Brandon and pressed it against Noah’s forehead. She wrapped her other hand around his wrist, feeling his pulse.

Noah lifted his head as March examined his wound.

“Relax,” Brandon said. “Just a checkup.” He wore a strained smile shifting his focus from Noah to March as she eased back the bandages. “Well?”

March shook her head. “I don’t know.” She reapplied the dressing.

“Is everything okay?” Noah said. He looked directly at March. “If there’s something then tell me. Please.”

“Nothing to tell,” March said. Her words had maybe been harsher than she’d intended as she rotated her shoulders and took a breath. “Not yet. You need to rest. Give your body a chance to heal.” She smoothed back the loose strands of her hair and ran her hand down the length of her dark ponytail. She rocked back then pushed herself up and onto her feet. “We just have to wait.”

Brandon appeared unsettled as March returned to where she had been seated on the floor.

“I’ll be fine.” Noah tried to sound reassuring but knew he had failed. He remembered the sensation of sheared bone stabbing him, the feel of ice-cold rotted flesh pressing into his own. He might have been immune to the bites and blood of the undead, but he was just as vulnerable as everyone else to injury and its complications; sickness, infection.

Taking a deep breath, Noah made a decision. He met Brandon’s eyes and said, “Okay. What do you want to know?” Talking seemed a halfway decent distraction right then.

“Who were you talking about before? The others who thought they might use you to find a solution?”

Noah thinned his lips. “Do you know what I was before all this?”

Brandon shook his head.

“My dad was a farmer and I…I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.” Noah shifted. The hard feel of the floor was uncomfortable against his back. “I used to come up with excuses not to have to spend time with him or work on the farm. I didn’t think that was what I wanted to do. Plus my dad was a tough bastard at times, always pushing for us to be the best. Funny thing is, I’d give anything to go back and have that time again. But I can’t, can I?”

Brandon didn’t say anything. He simply stared at the floor.

“My family was dead and I was alone. It was months after when Devin showed up. Sure, I’d come across others but I’d done my best to keep my distance. I remember seeing him and a group of those things. Everything was telling me not to get involved.”

“But you did,” Brandon stated.

“I did.” Noah glanced at the door, willing it to open and for Devin to walk through. “And as my reward I got locked in a cell and forced into something I didn’t want any part of.” He turned his gaze to Brandon. “I can’t do it again.”

Everything he had been through and everything that had brought him to this point, he couldn’t risk hitting the reset switch and ending up in a worse place than he already was. He had Devin, the only person who gave a damn about him, and not just because he might be the key to some miracle cure to the undead problem. He was sure of that. In fact it was the one thing he was certain of.

“And I won’t let anyone hurt me or Devin. Not this time.”

Brandon shook his head. “Nobody wants to hurt you. But we do need your help.”

“I tried helping and all it did was bring more misery.”

“What do you mean?”

Did he really want to recount the crushing tale? Noah winced when he raised his arm to push back his bangs. His fingers caught in the matted strands of his hair where blood had dried.

“Noah?”

“I don’t know where to start.”

Brandon shrugged. “Wherever you want to.”

Noah swallowed hard. “Where we’re from, Devin and I, there was this man. A leader. An asshole.” He gave a humorless laugh. “Seems just because it’s the end of the world, doesn’t mean people stop being dicks and out for themselves.”

“Who was he?”

Thoughtfully, Noah curled down his lower lip. “I don’t know. I didn’t want to know. Whoever he used to be in the old world, he knew how to manipulate situations, and put himself in power over a group of frightened and desperate people. But he kept the group together, functioning.”

Brandon nodded. “I know the kind.”

“He knew of other groups. One in particular was in Chicago.” Noah noted how Brandon’s expression changed. “What?” Did he know something?

“Sorry. You said was. And I assumed…” Brandon knitted his eyebrows.

Noah understood. Was, were, had been. All words he’d heard too often. He flicked out his tongue across his dry lips as a way of composing himself. “They took me out there. Devin and some others. It was far and took so long to get there and—” He recalled the screech of tires, of metal impacting metal as the car he had been in had slammed into Devin’s already crippled vehicle. “It was a stupid idea.”

“I’m guessing it wasn’t worth it?”

Noah closed his eyes. “In some ways it was.” Devin was alive. But would he have ever been in such danger if not because of Noah in the first place? “But in others, not so much. We had hope. For a while anyway. We got there, lost some people, but got there.” He opened his eyes and looked up at Brandon. “There were some doctors there. They were supposed to know something about something. I don’t know. About what happened, how maybe they could use me to fix it. They took my blood. Then we headed home.”

“That simple, huh?”

Noah chewed on his lip. “Yeah. That simple.”

“What about Devin? I saw his eyes.”

Noah recalled the empty feeling in the pit of his stomach at the thought of losing Devin, of having to watch him die. “He’s not immune, but he was bitten. It was the one thing they could do with my blood. A serum or something.”

“Passive immunity,” Brandon said easily.

“Maybe.” Noah tried to remember what Emily had said when she’d explained it to him.

“Okay.” Brandon’s voice was low. It was clear he knew Noah was still holding back. “So what happened after? I’m assuming something changed if you’re out here searching for answers.”

Swallowing hard, Noah shook his head. “We didn’t hear anything for weeks. It was a no news is good news kind of deal.”

“But you got news?” Brandon prompted.

Noah nodded. “Chicago was…gone. No more doctors. No more hope.”

Brandon blinked. “I’m sorry.” His expression was apologetic with a hint of guilt. He probably regretted pressing Noah for his story. “Do you know what happened?”

With a shrug, Noah dismissed the question. He didn’t feel like recounting Lukas’s half-tale of Chicago’s demise. “It doesn’t matter what happened. It’s all gone.” Tiredness weighed heavily on him. He cleared his throat and opened his eyes wider. “It’s why I’m here. I know it was stupid. I just wanted to fix things. Give people back that hope.”

Brandon leaned closer. “What if you could? What if we could?”

Noah was struck by a strange sense of numbness. Even if there was a way, did he really want to? Did he want to risk having that hope ripped away again? He didn’t think his heart could take it. “I don’t know.”

“Come with us back to Fort Collins.” Brandon swallowed hard. “There’s people there who can help.” Brandon sounded more desperate with each word, but it was clear he believed what he was saying. “Together we can save the ones who are left.” Brandon sat back and stuck out his chest. There was strength, purpose behind his words as he stated, “Nobody else has to die.”