“Have you got any CDs?” Tatum leaned through the gap between the front seats.

Devin glanced in the mirror at the girl. “Nothing you’d like.” The silence while he drove was the only silence he let himself enjoy these days. The open highways were where he didn’t feel as if he had to be constantly on guard, waiting for the next bad thing to sneak from around a corner.

“Like what?” She wasn’t going to give up.

“Rod Stewart,” he lied, and glanced at Noah in the passenger seat. Noah smirked, then turned to watching the scenery.

“Who?” Tatum screwed up her nose. With a huffed breath, she sat back in her seat, settling between her parents. “Why are your eyes like that?”

“Tatum,” her mother chided softly. She nursed her sick boy in the back of the car. “Don’t be rude.” The woman sounded exhausted.

Devin chose to ignore the girl, focusing instead on the road. They were fifteen minutes from the prison, and then he could escape this new hell he had found himself in.

“I’m just asking.” Tatum was looking at him when Devin glanced in the mirror. “It’s just you look like…” She shrugged.

In the end, it was Noah who answered. He seemed to check for Devin’s permission before facing her. “Well, he isn’t. His eyes are just a little different, that’s all.”

Uncomfortably, Devin swallowed back the painful memory of the attack in Chicago. He couldn’t help but reach up and massage the healing mark on his shoulder. Weeks of nightmares had followed, of waking to the echoes of Corden’s roar as he had torn into his neck, of Emily’s screams as she could do nothing to help him, nothing but run.

As if I don’t have enough disturbing crap in my head already.

Sometimes his head felt so heavy, as if he had fallen into a thick darkness and was drowning in his memories.

“But I saw his hand. Look at his hand. He asked us all those questions, but we never got to ask you anything.”

Now was not the time for full disclosure. Noah’s immunity was not a secret to be shared lightly.

I can’t deal with this.

“If you have questions, you can ask them once we’ve fixed up your dad’s leg and helped your brother.” He wasn’t going to discuss things further.

Noah turned around and settled back into his seat. The girl didn’t say anything else and, in the mirror, Devin noted how her father brought his arm up around her shoulder, pulling her close.

“We’ll be there soon.” Noah made the simple statement, then returned to watching out of the window.

They passed abandoned cars, some damaged from desperate escapes, others simply forgotten, covered in dust as they sat waiting for owners who would never collect them.

Would anything ever get any better out there?

Had any of the people capable of fixing the world managed to survive? People who could give them back what they once took for granted—running water, electricity, the gas they put in their cars, the toilet tissue they wiped their asses with? Devin sniffed a laugh, drawing Noah’s attention.

“Okay?” Noah reached out, and rested his hand on Devin’s thigh. His touch was warm on Devin’s leg, despite the temperature in the car.

“Yeah. I was just thinking.”

Noah looked inquisitively at him.

“Just dumb stuff.” Devin sighed and reaffirmed his hold on the steering wheel. He lifted his gaze and considered the girl sitting in the back. There were probably plenty of things she missed too—her bedroom, her friends, her cell phone, and music.

Guilt crept into his thoughts. He might not be able to get her cell phone working, or magic up some Wi-Fi so she could keep up with her friends on Facebook or Twitter, or whatever, but he could reach out and switch on the stereo.

The sound of static filled the car, and Devin lowered the volume before selecting the CD player. He had no idea what was in there as a disc whirred to life. He slipped on his shades and straightened in his seat as Taylor Swift’s Love Story played from the speakers. He looked sideways at Noah who faced the passenger window, but was clearly trying to hide a smile as he held his hand to his mouth. Devin considered protesting the music choice had nothing to do with him, but was too weary to bother.

“Whatever,” he uttered. He glanced in the mirror, aware Tatum was smiling as she lay on her father’s chest. Noah squeezed his knee. “Whatever.” He sighed and focused on the drive.

Pulling into the parking garage, Devin was surprised to find Hank waiting for them. He was standing in the open, with his arms folded across his chest and wearing a frown. Devin studied him through the windshield for a moment. Hank Donovan was never one to put his emotions on view, but there was definitely something there, a tension and also relief at Devin’s return.

What hadn’t Jack told him over the radio?

“You’re needed,” Hank said as soon as Devin opened the car door. He tucked a strand of his dark hair behind his ear, then scratched his neck below the rest, which was tied up.

“Is everything okay?” Devin got out of the car and pushed the door closed. He pulled off his sunglasses and checked the yard. A handful of people were working on the vehicles. There was nothing to imply anything had happened while they were out.

“It’s best if you see for yourself.” Hank ducked his head. “I’ll deal with them,” he said of Devin’s passengers. “You should head to the dining hall.”

Was there ever going to be a day when things were just okay? Devin pulled open the back door, and leaned down to speak to the family. “Hey. This is Hank. He’ll get you checked over and the help you need.” He looked over his shoulder at Hank. “You can trust him. He’ll keep an eye on you until I get back. Okay?” He straightened up. “Keep them together. I want them checked out properly. You got that?” he said to Hank.

Hank nodded. He’d been in Chicago. He was aware of how important it was to be sure of exactly who they were letting in.

“Noah.” Devin indicated for Noah to follow him. They headed inside.

“What’s going on?” Noah asked, falling in beside him.

“I don’t know.” They made their way through the guard area and toward the north wing of the prison.

Noah stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. “Hank didn’t say?”

No, Hank hadn’t. Devin wasn’t sure if that was a good or a bad thing. “Let’s just get there, okay?” He pulled open the gate at the end of the corridor, then headed for the dining hall. He quickened his pace when he heard raised voices echoing along the sterile white passage.

“…some big man aren’t you. Are you gonna hit a woman, too?” Kerry Wrexley confronted the man who stood a good foot in height above her. She had positioned herself between him and Jack, who was leaning back in his wheelchair, holding his bloodied nose.

Jonas Conroy stepped toward Kerry. His expression was one of intimidation as he towered over her. He looked as if he was going to hit her.

“Whoa, whoa, whoa.” Devin darted forward and held his arm up between them. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Jonas curled his top lip. There was hate in his eyes and anger on his face. “Figured you’d have to wade in and play hero. Pathetic, the lot of them.”

“Pathetic? You want to take a long hard look at yourself, buddy.” Kerry went for Jonas.

Devin stopped Kerry in her tracks, wrapping an arm around her waist and swinging her around and behind him. Her fiery curls hit him in the face as she struggled for freedom. He let her go, pushing her in the small of the back and away from him. “Enough,” he warned. “Both of you.”

The last few weeks had seen people barely keeping a lid on their frustration. With Corden dead, and the control he’d exerted gone, the cracks were beginning to show.

“Everybody needs to calm down,” said Noah.

Jonas snorted a laugh and backed away to where others were hanging back. Devin eyed the men whose support Jonas clearly had. All of them had been part of Corden’s personal army, and all had expressed grievances recently. They didn’t like they were being treated in the exact same way as everybody else at the prison. With no Corden came no perks, no preferential treatment. They couldn’t go around taking whatever they wanted and doing whatever they liked anymore, and Jack had told them as much. Corden had put Jack in charge when he’d left for Chicago, but Corden had never come back, so Jack had remained in charge whether some people liked it or not.

Devin glanced at Jack. Blood from his nose covered the front of his T-shirt and the crotch of his pants. “Are you okay?” he asked his old friend.

Jack nodded, lowering his head as he continued to squeeze the bridge of his nose.

“Can someone explain to me what the hell’s going on?” Devin kept his eyes on the four men. The well-armed band was half the size it had been before the ride to Chicago. Corden had taken some of his best people with him, his personal meat shield, as Devin had often joked, only for them to end up dead or choosing to stay in Chicago.

When nobody spoke up, Devin scanned the room. Kerry and Jack also seemed to have some support of their own, a handful of people who had stayed in the dining hall despite—it seemed from the look of the abandoned plates on the tables—everyone else having been cleared out. Devin narrowed his eyes as he spotted a familiar face. He had to be seeing things.

“Lukas?” The last time he had seen Lukas was back in Chicago.

Lukas was one of the ones who had chosen to stay behind. Although he’d spent some time with Kerry, it hadn’t been enough to call it a reason, a necessary connection to come back to the prison.

Lukas stepped forward. “Devin.” He looked paler than Devin remembered him, darker rings under his eyes as if he hadn’t slept in a while.

Devin turned back to Jonas. Lukas had been one of Corden’s men, until Corden’s careless actions had gotten Lukas’s young partner killed. “Your friend is back and you’re picking fights?”

“Are you going to tell him?” Jonas said.

“Tell me what?” Devin glanced over his shoulder. Lukas was obviously here for more than a catch up or a presumable booty call with Kerry.

Lukas tensed his jaw.

Jonas blurted out, “It’s gone. Chicago is gone. Overrun. And with it the hope of your cure, vaccine, whatever.” Jonas settled his gaze on Noah. “Guess you’re back to being a useless farm boy again.”

Chicago was gone? Devin didn’t understand. “Gone?” He felt as if he had been punched in the gut. What the hell was Jonas talking about? What had happened?

Before Devin and the others had left Chicago, there had been talk of bringing in some of the infected monsters to experiment with. The scientists there had hoped to find a way to use Noah’s blood for a more permanent solution, not just the quick fix they had managed to create for Devin. Could one have gotten loose?

Devin looked at Lukas, but given the way Lukas looked back at him, it didn’t seem as though he had any real answers. “How?”

“I don’t know, exactly. Some people I got out with said an injured man had been brought in. They think the doctors tried the same serum they’d used on you, but it didn’t work. Maybe he was too far gone. I don’t know. Wasn’t as if they’d tell me anything.”

Devin made a fist with his marked hand. He thought he had been too far gone himself that day.

“How many got out?” Noah asked.

There had been almost three hundred survivors in the city.

Lukas looked at Noah. “By the time I knew what was going on, the place was in chaos. People were turning and attacking one another.” He lowered his head, regret etched on his creased brow. “It got bad real fast. There was nothing I or anybody could have done. I just ran and got out of there. Nobody was looking back.”

A sinking feeling hit Devin. Chicago had been the one shining light, a hope that there might have been a way to bring this nightmare to an end. And just like that, it had been snuffed out.

How cruel.

“So, the doctors? You don’t know if any made it?”

Lukas shook his head. His expression was solemn. “There were people trapped in the buildings, shouting for help from the windows. There were too many of those monsters between us and them.”

Three hundred people.

A barrier of newly-made monsters. They would have been so damn fast and strong. Maybe there was still something they could do. “When? When did this happen?”

Lukas screwed up his mouth. “Almost a month.”

“Christ.” Noah closed his eyes.

A month? Devin tensed his jaw. That was too long. Even if they set off right away, in his heart Devin knew they were already too late. When he weighed the risks, along with the manpower and resources needed to get to Chicago, he couldn’t justify it.

But the doctors… No. If what Lukas had said was right, they would have been at ground zero when the first person turned. They were dead.

“You’re alone?” Devin remembered the others who had stayed behind with Lukas, and the people who had died getting Noah there. In the end, their deaths had been for nothing.

“If you mean Travis and Flynn. I didn’t see them. I have no idea if they made it. I’m here with some others who got out, a few others from a group we met on the road.”

“And where are they?”

“We’ve kept them out of the general population until they’ve been checked out,” Jack stated.

Devin looked over at Jonas. “I get you’re angry. That your, our, hope of an end to all this has been taken away. But fighting among ourselves isn’t going to solve anything.”

Kerry stepped up. “They’re cowards.” She angrily pointed in Jonas’ direction. “Tell him. Go on. Tell him how you’re running away.”

“Kerry,” Devin warned.

“No.” Kerry wasn’t going to be silenced so easily. “They need to take a long hard look at themselves. They sit up there in their safe little nests. When was the last time they went out there? Where we’re dying? Where my boy died?” Her voice broke, and teary-eyed, she turned around.

Kerry had a point. Devin couldn’t remember the last time any of the men standing in front of him had left the prison walls. Their loyalty had lain with Corden. They were his show of force to the others, and were used to sitting high on the prison walls and roof, picking off the undead from afar.

It felt as if Devin had walked in halfway through a movie. “Look, you need to rewind for me here.”

Jack spoke up. “They’re leaving.”

Devin looked over his shoulder. “Leaving?”

Kerry jabbed the air. “Like the cowards they are.”

Tensing his jaw, Devin met Jonas’ eyes. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” They might not be out there on the ground, but these men were capable when they had to be. The group needed them, them and their guns.

With folded arms, Jonas stepped forward. “Do you think we care what you think? There’s nothing for us here. We only stuck around because of him.” He shot Noah a look. “The serum and what he could mean. We figured there might be a future here.”

“There still is. You know Prescott and the others have gathered equipment to make the serum themselves.”

“So what? One of us gets bitten and manages to get away from those things with just that, a bite, you might as well be handing us a Band-Aid.”

Devin gripped his other hand, pressing his fingers against the scar. The serum was the reason he was alive, but he knew it could just as easily happen again and maybe next time he wouldn’t be so lucky.

I don’t think I can win this argument. It was clear Jonas’ mind was already made up. It didn’t matter that Noah was immune. It didn’t matter about the serum. With no one left to do something beyond that, their hope for the future had been left in tatters.

Time to change tack. “You can’t just leave. You’d abandon them? People you’ve lived alongside for months. People who need your help, your protection.”

“We don’t owe them anything.” Jonas settled his narrowed eyes on Devin. “We don’t owe you anything.”

Noah snorted a laugh. “Right, because the food and ammo, gas and clean water just found their way onto your plate and into your hands by magic.”

Devin shot Noah a warning glance and shook his head. He shouldn’t get involved. Noah straightened, but backed down. “How about we talk this through when we’ve all cooled our heads? You have security here. You have people. We work together. We always have.”

“You think you can find that again, out there?” Jack added.

Briefly, Jonas lowered his head. Was he thinking things over? He had to see how foolish it was to leave the prison and what they had in place there. It might not be great, but it worked. They were surviving.

“Jonas?” Devin waited.

Lifting his head, Jonas met Devin’s eyes and stated, “You have three days to give us a reason to stay. After that, we and our guns are gone.”