Awakenings

            The scream echoed off the buildings around them, elongating the sound.  Marin flailed wildly and Thom struggled to hold onto her, biting back a curse as she slammed her arm into his injured ribs, setting fire to one side of his chest.  He gasped, then caught her face in his hands.
            Her eyes are still closed!  What the hell?  “Marin!  Marin, wake up!”  He sucked in a breath.  Shit. Is she dreaming?  What the hell is she seeing?  “Wake up, damn it!”
            Her eyes snapped open and her scream died into a croak followed by a ragged gasp.  For a moment, it seemed she didn’t know where she was, then she focused down on Thom’s face and sagged, breathing hard.  She wrapped her arms around his neck and let out a sob, holding on tight.
            Thom looked at J.T. over her shoulder, feeling as shocked and worried as his friend looked.  Kellin had appeared at J.T.’s back sometime in the interim and she stood blinking at them.  Thom cleared his throat and willed his voice to be steady.  “Jay, can you go and get her something to drink?  Doesn’t matter what, just something to help her get steady.”  Thom laced his fingers through Marin’s hair as he looked up at Kellin.  “Think you can make sure a crowd doesn’t…”  His voice trailed away as he saw some of the others appearing behind Kellin, some of them soaking wet and breathless, as if they’d run here through the rain.
            “What happened?”  Kellin asked quietly.
            Thom shook his head a little.  “Don’t know.  She was just screaming.”
            “I saw something,” Marin whispered into Thom’s neck.  She took a deep, shaky breath and slowly uncurled, straightening and looking at Kellin.  “I saw something,” she repeated, a little more loudly.
            Kellin’s brow furrowed.  “Bad?”
            Marin nodded, pressing closer to Thom.  He winced a little but held in any sound as he wrapped his arms around her protectively.  Fucking ribs…  “What did you see?”  He murmured, stomach knotting up.  Do I want to know the answer to that question?
            Marin swallowed.  “I was standing…I was standing on some sort of observation deck, looking down at trees and rock and then everything started to shake.  I thought it would end after a few seconds, but it just got worse and worse and I started to hear this…this terrible cracking sound.  Then the ground just opened up, ripped apart.  I could hear the earth screaming.”  She paused, shivering in Thom’s arms.  He squeezed her gently.  Marin took another deep breath, then continued.  “I could see the glow deep down in the cracks.  Then the shaking started again and the ground jerked and then I saw the light and heard the explosion and screaming.  When the shockwave and the wind hit, everything went black.”  She swallowed hard.
            I didn’t want to know the answer to that question.  Thom just held her, mouth dry and heart thudding against his ribs.  She sees things and you can’t.  She sees things and you can’t.  She sees things and you can’t.  Your dreams aren’t real.  Yours aren’t real.  He kissed her temple gently.  But what is it that she saw?
            “Did you recognize where you were?”  Kellin asked quietly, slowly kneeling down.
            Marin shook her head.  “No.  It wasn’t anywhere I’d ever been.”
            “What could it have been?”  Someone asked quietly behind Kellin.  Thom couldn’t quite sort out who it was.
            “I don’t know,” Marin said softly.  “But that wasn’t all of it.  After the blackness, I was back here.  It wasn’t for very long, just a few seconds, but the ground was shaking and buildings were coming down.  I could hear them coming down.”
            “Did it feel like it was connected?”
            “Visions don’t usually follow each other like that if they’re not linked, Kel.”  Marin rubbed her eyes, some of the tension finally starting to drain from her.  “But the shaking wasn’t as bad here.  I don’t know.  Maybe it was just a nightmare, not a vision.”
            There was too much doubt in her voice for any of them to believe that for more than about fifteen seconds.  Thom just held her, brow furrowed.  She sees.  I can’t.  “Kel, maybe we should make sure that we don’t have anyone in any buildings.”
            Kellin paused, then nodded, glancing back over her shoulder.  “Rory?  Dav?  Think you can handle that?”
            Rory nodded.  “I’ll do a head-count.”  He stayed nearby long enough to count the heads crowded around them before slipping off into the rest of the tent.
            “Do you think anyone would be able to tell where that was, Mar?”
            She shook her head in response to Kellin.  “No.  I didn’t see enough of anything before the shaking started to be able to describe it very well.  I just know that it wasn’t anywhere I’d ever been.  That’s not very helpful, though.”  She slumped against Thom and sighed, seeming to notice the audience that had gathered for the first time.  “…don’t you people have something else you should be doing?”
            Thom winced at her tone and ran a palm along her arm.  “That was a little harsh,” he murmured.  “It’d even be harsh for me.  You okay?”
            “My head’s pounding,” she murmured back.  “Something isn’t right.”
            What was your first clue?  Thom bit his tongue and kissed her temple, wrapping his arms around her again.  Some of their unintended audience had started to drift away, leaving them alone with Kellin.  She watched them both for a long moment, then cleared her throat.
            “Any trigger, Marin?”  She asked softly.
            “No,” Marin said, staring at her lap.  “Maybe I was dreaming something before I had it, but if I was, I don’t remember what it was now.”
            J.T. appeared with a mug of something steaming and pressed it into Marin’s hands, then sat back down on the ground and resumed work on Thom’s ankle as if nothing happened.  Marin cradled the mug between both hands and leaned against Thom, staring into the dark depths of the coffee.
            “Maybe it was just a nightmare,” she repeated softly.
            There would be a first time for everything, Thom thought, and just held her.  It was all the comfort he had left to give.

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            It was raining again by the time J.T. came to check on them, carrying a bag in one hand and a crutch in the other.  His hair was still wet, but his clothes were dry as he tossed the bag down onto the mattress next to Thom.  Thom blinked a little at him, frowning.
            “What’s that?”
            J.T. shook his head and sat down in front of him in the grass.  “Something we thought you’d need.  Both of them, really.”  He eyed his friend for a long moment, then smiled briefly.  “Don’t tell me you thought no one saw your ass limping over to her earlier.”
            Thom smiled weakly.  “I’d hoped.”  His arm tightened around Marin.  She was asleep, curled up against his chest with her arms around his waist, forehead resting against his neck.  “There wasn’t anything else I could do,” he said quietly.  “Matt was pissed at me, which meant that I’d done something wrong again.  So I came to her, since she wasn’t coming to me.”
            “You guys were fighting again, weren’t you?”
            I hate how everyone can tell when we’re fighting.  Thom shook his head slightly.  “It was stupid shit again.  I lied to Jacqueline in front of her and she took it as a betrayal.  I shouldn’t have done it, but it’s still a stupid thing for us to be fighting over, you know?”  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “That’s the problem with her knowing me too well, I guess.  She can tell from my face when I’m lying even when no one else can.”
            “Probably why you guys are so good together when you’re not fighting,” J.T. said.  “Anyone else tell you not to fuck things up this time?”
            Thom tensed up for a moment, wincing as his ribs protested.  He forced himself to relax, not only because of the sudden pain but because it wasn’t worth getting offended by.  I’m not sure which side of this is fucking things up, but if everyone thinks it’s me, I guess that’s my cross to bear.  “More than one.  Not sure which side is actually responsible for anything getting screwed up, but whenever something goes wrong, it’s apparently my fault.”
            “Well, can you blame them all for thinking that?”  J.T. shook his head.  “You’re the one that abruptly hauled back on the reins, y’know.”
            “I know.”  Thom looked down at her, just listening to her breathe for a moment.  I did it to save her.  I did it because…because I’m an idiot, I guess.  I’m not sure anymore.
            “Not sure what the hell that nightmare you had months back was, Thom, but whatever it was…was it worth all this?  All the shit?”
            Thom shook his head.  “I don’t know, J.T.  I just feel like there wasn’t any other choice.”  If that nightmare was more than just a nightmare, I’m going to lose her and I can’t handle that.  I can’t let that happen.  “Glad I stopped short of what I almost did, though,” he mumbled.
            “So are the rest of us, if running off to Chicago’s what you’re talking about.”  J.T. shook his head again.  “Never understood any of that, bro.  You’re not the running type.”
            Some things are just too much to stand for.  “I know.”
            “Did she say no or something?”
            Thom blinked at him.  “What?”
            J.T. looked vaguely uncomfortable for a moment, a rare sight.  “I mean, did you propose or something?  And she said no?”
            Something fluttered inside of Thom’s belly as he stared at J.T., struck dumb by the question.  I almost wish that was it.  By god, did they think we were that serious?  Did they know that I was that serious about her?  He shook himself and looked down at Marin.  She stirred a little, then pressed her face a little harder against his neck and settled again, drifting deeper into sleep.  Thom shook his head slightly.  “No, Jay,” he said at last, voice quiet.  “That wasn’t it.”
            “Good.”  He sounded relieved.
            A shiver went through the ground beneath them, rattling the pinned furniture that made their cubby within the tent.  Thom frowned.  “I wonder when those are finally going to stop.”
            J.T. shook his head.  “Don’t know.  Maybe never.  Ask Matt at dinner.”
            Thom grimaced.  “If Matt decides I’m worth his attention.”
            “You and Marin apparently kissed and made up.”
            “That won’t mean anything to Matt.  He’s protective as hell.”  Thom rested his cheek against Marin’s head for a moment.  In some ways, I’m sometimes glad he is.  If I ever really fuck things up, he’ll be there to take care of her.  “He’ll lay off when and if she tells him to.  You ask him at dinner when these quakes are going to stop.”
            J.T. shrugged.  “Maybe I will. Y’should be the one to ask, though.  For your sketches.  He’ll listen.”
            Thom glanced at the bag his friend had brought.  “Is that what that is?”
            The other man nodded.  “I chanced Kirkhof and made out pretty well.  Leah helped.  Not sure how long the building’s going to stay standing, though.  I don’t think any of the windows are still intact.”
            “There aren’t many big windows still intact anywhere on campus, Jay.”  Thom peered at the bag, but didn’t reach for it.  “What’d you bring me?”
            “Couple sketchbooks, pad of graph paper, a drafting tablet, two sets of tech pencils with extra lead, some erasers, set of technical pens and a ruler.”  J.T. grinned, looking proud of himself.  “We stowed some more of the same with the rest of the supplies.”
            “Thanks, man.”  Thom smiled.  “Davon’ll have to help me with some of the engineering here and there, but I think I’ll be able to get a start in the morning.”
            J.T. waved a hand.  “Wouldn’t worry too much about that.  I’m sure Davon’ll have to coordinate building for the first little bit anyway.  Get your sketches together first.”
            Thom nodded.  “I’m pretty useless for heavy lifting right now, but the drafting I can do.”
            “You bet your ass you are,” J.T. grinned.  “And don’t let anyone catch you pulling any stunts in that direction, either.  Jac’s liable to tether you to something.”  His smile faded.  “Do you want me to have a look and make sure you haven’t done any more damage?  Knocked anything out of true?”
            After a moment’s hesitation, Thom nodded.  “Really would rather have some kind of splint I can walk on, but I’ll have to take what I can get, right?”  He shifted with a wince, stretching his leg out toward J.T. to give the former volunteer EMT access to his injured ankle.
            J.T. shook his head.  “The crutch should help and a splint you can’t walk on prevents you from doing shit you shouldn’t.”
            Thom smiled wryly.  “Like heavy lifting?”
            “I see we understand each other, young Skywalker.”  J.T. gently started to unwrap Thom’s ankle.  Thom rubbed Marin’s back, distracting himself.  He really didn’t want to see if he’d done additional damage to his ankle.  It already ached enough as it was.
            “You’re bruised all to hell, Thom,” J.T. announced as he got Thom’s ankle unwrapped.  Thom tried to suppress a grimace at J.T.’s touch.  The other man’s fingers were like ice.
            “You been dunking your fingers in ice water, Jay?”
            J.T. snorted.  “I wish.  Your ankle feels like I just pulled it out of an oven.  Does it hurt?”
            “That’s a pretty stupid question.”
            J.T. grimaced, handling Thom’s ankle gently with cold fingers.  “Right.  Maybe this’ll discourage you from walking on it again.”  He gently ran his thumb along the bones of Thom’s ankle, which was swollen up to the size of a grapefruit, Thom noted with a wince.
            Yeah.  Maybe it will do that.  Thom pressed his nose into Marin’s hair again, inhaling sharply as pain shot up his leg.
            Marin suddenly went tense against him and started screaming.

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            Thom lay on his back, staring at nothing with Marin’s blanket pulled across his chest, so he could at least have a hint of her near, since it smelled like her.  It had taken half an hour to convince Jacqueline that he was all right, that he just wanted to rest, no, nothing was wrong with his head—not from a building falling on him, anyway.
            She’s so pissed at me.  Maybe it’s better that she is.  He closed his eyes.  If we’re apart, maybe nothing will happen.  Maybe the nightmares will stop.
            He opened his eyes to the sound of footsteps and pushed himself up on his elbow, watching Matt as he rooted around in Marin’s bag for something.  “Hey Matt.”
            The glare Matt gave him could have melted steel.
            Thom tried not to recoil.  Fuck.  What did I do?  “Is she okay?”
            “No thanks to you,” Matt snapped.
            What the hell?  Thom sat up fully, ignoring the sharp complaints from his ribs.  “What’s wrong?”
            “Damned if I know, because they won’t tell me, but I know it’s got something to do with you.  You two can’t go three days without fighting about something, can you?”
            What happened to her?  “We’re not—”
            “If you’re not fighting again, Thom, then why the hell is she on my mattress instead of hers?”  Matt growled and jerked Marin’s bag up and onto his shoulder.  “You would think that the apocalypse coming would teach you that there’s more important shit to worry about than whatever the hell you’re fighting over.”
            She can’t accept that I don’t see the shit she sees.  That’s all.  My dreams are just that—dreams.  Nightmares.  That’s all.  Maybe the shit she’s seeing is real.  I don’t know that one way or another because I can’t see it.  What I see isn’t real.  It’s not.  It can’t be.  Thom shook his head.  “You wouldn’t understand anyway.”
            “Yeah, right,” Matt said, voice dripping with sarcasm.  “Probably not.”
            Thom tried not to make a sound, slumping back to the mattress as Matt pivoted and marched out, carrying Marin’s bag.  Thom groped blindly for her blanket, fist closing around the fabric.  He closed his eyes.  Mar, what did you do?  What happened?  He took a steadying breath, trying to tamp down the fear welling up inside of him.
            “I can’t just sit here,” he murmured to himself.  He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the screaming, almost blinding pain in his ankle.  The splint only supported him so much.  Jacqueline and J.T. would kill him.
            But maybe she won’t.  He threw Marin’s blanket across his shoulder and started the painful limp toward where her brother had been sleeping.  He tried to keep as much of his weight off his injured ankle as he could as he made his slow trek to where he hoped she’d still be.  By the time he made it there, she was alone, just curling up on Matt’s mattress with a blanket.  Her back was to him.   Thom leaned against one of the shelving units that still stood in place, still served as a sort of wall between each sleeping cubical, and stared at her for a moment.  She had the blanket pulled up to her shoulder, hair spilling across the pillow.  He limped over and slowly sank down on the ground next to her, starting to spread the blanket he’d brought over her.
            Marin gave a start and started to roll onto her back.  She blinked up at him, then rolled back onto her side, not looking at him.  “What do you want?”
            “Are you okay?  Matt said you got hurt.”  And it’s my fault, probably.
            She shook her head slightly, staring straight ahead.  “You don’t care.”
            It was like she’d plunged a frozen knife into his chest, sharp and cold, enough to stop his heart.  There was never a time I didn’t care.  “I care,” he whispered.  “What happened?”
            “You won’t believe me.  You don’t think any of it’s real.”
            The ice in his chest worked its way down into his guts, coiling like a great, frosty snake inside his belly.  He reached down to tentatively brush her hair away from her face.  “Mar…”
            She jerked away.  “Thom, don’t.  Please.  I already know you’re not going to believe me, so why bother?”  She tugged the blanket closer.  “Thank you for my blanket, but you didn’t have to bring it.  Could you leave me alone now, please?”
            Thom swallowed hard.  Don’t want to leave her.  I don’t want to leave things like this.  “What did I do?”  He finally murmured.
            She rolled onto her back again and stared at him.  “You lied to my face, Thom.  That’s what you did.  You lied to my face in front of Jacqueline.”
            “About what?”
            Her eyes narrowed.  “About why you fell over.  You weren’t dizzy.”
            Thom looked away.  “No,” he agreed.  “I wasn’t dizzy.  My mind was wandering, that’s all.”
            “Wandering.”
            “Yes, wandering!”  He glared at her for a moment, then instantly softened as he saw the hurt and disbelief in her eyes.  He sighed.  “Mar, I was daydreaming, okay?  Just…imagining things.  Like what could happen if all of this actually somehow works out and we don’t all die in the next couple of months.”  It wasn’t a complete lie, anyway.  He hoped she’d take it as truth enough and believe him.  “Now what happened to you?  Did you fall or something?”
            Marin’s lips thinned and she slowly sat up, staring at him for a moment.  “You won’t believe me.”
            “Stop saying that.  Just try me.”
            “Fine.”  She looked away.  “It was the grays.  The little mischief-maker entities that Drew’s been sensing almost his whole life.”
            Thom’s stomach twisted, noting that Marin hadn’t mentioned that he himself had admitted to seeing them, too, before he decided that it was too dangerous to accept that it was more than their imaginations running away with them.  All the moisture in his mouth dried up.  “What did they do?”
            “They got me surrounded.  Thank god Drew and Rory followed my sorry ass down into the ravine.  I broke our rule and almost paid the price for it.”  She still wasn’t looking at him; she was instead very interested in picking lint off her blankets.
            Thom reached over and took her hand, noticing what looked like some kind of burn on her left arm as he twined his fingers in hers.  Her fingers were cold, trembling.  “Did they do that?”  He asked quietly.
            Marin squeezed her eyes shut.  “You believe me when I’m telling you that the grays hurt me, but you won’t believe that you and I can both see things before they happen?”
            “Maybe you can,” Thom said quietly, forcing doubt into his voice and trying to quell the sick feeling in his stomach, the feeling that said that he was in denial and maybe she was right, “but I can’t.  I don’t see any of it.”
            She jerked her hand from his and hit him, backhanded him hard enough that he toppled over backwards, more stunned than hurt.  He blinked up at the bottom of the wooden bunk above his head, sucking in a deep breath.  Marin was crying next to him, painful, wrenching sobs.  A big, cold hand wrapped icy fingers around his heart and squeezed.
            God, Marin, why can’t you understand?  He squeezed his eyes shut.  “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
            “Just leave me alone, Thom,” she managed to say through her sobs.  She mopped at her eyes with the corner of her blanket.
            “I can’t,” he whispered as he forced himself up on an elbow, wincing at pain in his ribs.
            She shook her head a little, staring at him.  “Why not?  You obviously can’t accept…a lot of things.”
            “Because no matter how much we fight about what you think I can see, I still love you.”  He took her hand again and squeezed, then let go.  She needs space, though.  Maybe I should give it to her.  He forced himself fully into a sitting position with a wince, then started climbing to his feet.
            “…did you come here by yourself?”
            He nodded, trying not to look or feel guilty.  “I had to.  Matt wouldn’t tell me anything.”
            “Matt didn’t know anything.”
            Thom nodded, shifting his weight fully onto his good leg.  “Are you going to be okay?”  He whispered.
            She stood up slowly, leaving her brother’s blanket behind.  She slid her right arm under Thom’s shoulders.  “Lean on me,” she murmured.  “Jac’s going to kill you for walking on that ankle.”
            “Only if you tell her,” he answered, looking down hat her.  He settled an arm around her and leaned against her, keeping most of his weight off his ankle again.  “I’m sorry, Marin,” he repeated after a moment of shared silence, voice a bare whisper.  “I do believe you.  You see what you see.  I have to trust that.  I just wish you could believe me.”  I wish you could believe that I don’t have the same gift—or curse.
            Marin looked up at him, pain flickering through her dark eyes.  He had to look away; he couldn’t bear the sight.  Her arm tightened around him and he winced despite himself, his ribs protesting the pressure.  “I love you,” was all she said in response.  It wasn’t an affirmation, just a matter-of-fact statement.  Then she started walking, leading him gently back to their cubby, their space.  They sank down to the mattresses together and he gathered her into his arms, lacing his fingers through her hair, ignoring his throbbing ankle and sore chest.  She was so small in his arms, trembling and cold.  He rested his chin against her head.
            She buried her face in his neck.  “I just hate you sometimes,” she murmured into his skin.  He shivered a little.
            I hate me sometimes, too, Mar.  His arms tightened around her.  “I’m sorry.”  He kissed the top of her head, inhaling the scent of her hair.  “But you’re stuck with me.  I can’t live without you.”
            She shivered and he drew her blanket around them both.  They stayed like that, sitting together, holding each other, for a long, long time.

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             Kellin was at the rim of the ravine as they scrambled onto higher ground.  Her eyes widened as she caught sight of their generally disheveled appearance, the mud and water spattering all three of them from their wild dash.  Drew struggled to catch his breath, feeling like his heart was going to pound right out of his chest.  “Don’t stand there,” he said hoarsely.  He could see J.T. jogging up from the direction of camp.  “Get back.”
            “What happened?”  Kellin caught Marin as she stumbled, then let go of the other woman, eyes popping wider with shock as Marin went to her knees, breathing heavily and shivering.  “By every god and demon, Mar, you’re like ice.”
            “She got jumped by the grays.”  Rory cleared the edge of the ravine fully and glanced back, squinting.  He glanced at Drew and shook his head.
            Hopefully that means we lost them, at least for the moment.
            “Grays?  Like aliens?”
            Kellin ignored Brandon’s question as he approached and began to overhear a conversation he couldn’t possibly understand.  She stared at Drew.  “I thought you said they weren’t dangerous.”
            “I said they weren’t aggressive.  I never said anything about dangerous.”  Drew started shepherding them away from the ravine.  He couldn’t sense the grays near, but he wasn’t keen on taking any chances.
            “They seemed pretty aggressive to me, Drew,” Rory said, looking and sounding exhausted.  He nervously flicked his knife partially open and closed again.  “I think the end of the world pissed them off.”
            “Maybe,” Drew agreed.
            “Either way, those wards just got a lot more important, Kel.”  Marin leaned against J.T., who loomed protectively over her, tucking her under his arm and against his side.
            “What the hell were you doing down there by yourself in the first place, Mar?  You know better than that.”  Drew frowned at her as they made their way back to camp.  Hell.  You’re the one that made that rule after what happened to you and Thom and I down there that night.
            “I don’t want to talk about it, Drew.  It’s between me and him and I just needed to get away.  I already told you more than I should’ve.”  She rubbed her face.  “And now I want to get warm and I want to sleep.  Arm hurts like hell, though.”  Marin cradled her left arm against her belly, the sleeve of her sweatshirt slightly discolored.  She was also favoring her right foot, the foot she’d kicked at the grays with, but it didn’t seem to be bothering her as much as her arm.
            “Leah’ll look at it,” Kellin said.
            “Leah?”  Drew frowned.  “Not Jac?”
            Kellin grimaced.  “Jac’s sitting with Thom.  She’s worried he’s got some kind of head trauma they couldn’t pick up when they looked at him originally.”
            Marin growled.  “The only head trauma he’s going to have is going to come from one of us knocking sense into him.”  She looked at Kellin.  “He had a vision and fell over.  Then he lied about it.”
            “What are you guys talking about?”  Brandon asked.
            Drew grimaced.  Like some kind of lost puppy, following us and asking questions like a kid getting curious about what his folks talk about after dark.  “Just take a breath and settle down, Brandon.  Either it’ll make sense or it won’t.”
            “Either way, Leah’s looking at your arm,” Kellin said firmly.
            “And no one’s going down into that ravine alone anymore,” Drew added.
            “Thom won’t listen,” Marin said.
            Neither did you, and it was your rule in the first place.  Drew kept his voice firm, but even.  “Then we’ll make him listen.”
            Marin just shook her head.  J.T.’s arm tightened around her.  Drew tried not to sigh.
            Fantastic mess.  Rory can stop grays that are suddenly aggressive but probably not in a way any of the rest of us could manage, Marin’s fighting with Thom because he’s being a stubborn bastard, most of the people around us are going to think we’re batshit crazy until they start to see evidence of the shit we’re dealing with…  He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  Marin was seething again, but her heart wasn’t quite in it.  She’d let go of it soon enough, hopefully before he got a headache.
            God, but I should be so lucky.
            Kellin touched his arm.  “You look like hell.”
            “I feel like it, too,” he mumbled, then scrubbed a hand over his eyes.  They let the others outpace them a little.  “You need to set those wards, Kel.  Y’should start now.”
            “You always told us the grays were just mischief.”
            “They used to be.  Dangerous mischief sometimes, but down there…that was malice, Kel.  I don’t know what flipped the switch, but something did.”
            Kellin smiled wryly.  “End of the world?”
            “Maybe.”  Drew exhaled.  “We have to do something about Thom and Marin.”
            “You mean other than letting them work it out?”
            “Letting them work it out could’ve gotten her killed.”
            Kellin grimaced.  “It was that bad?”
            “They had her surrounded.  She was starting to be in a bad way when I got to her.”  Could they have killed her?  I don’t know.  I don’t know what anything can do anymore.  He shook his head slowly.  “I don’t know what Rory did, but it quite possibly either scared them or pissed them off.”  Either way, it hurt them.  He could touch them.
            “I’ll get the wards set,” Kellin said softly.  “The rest of you can dump energy into them later.”
            Drew nodded, feeling drained.  “I think it’s going to be an early night for most of us.”
            She patted his arm.  “I’m starting to think you’re right.  Maybe we should reschedule the powwow.”
            “Might be best.”  Drew scrubbed his hand over his face again.  “Worry about the wards.  We’ll see how everyone is at dinner.”
            Kellin nodded in agreement.  “That sounds like a plan.”
            “Good.  It was meant to be one.”  Drew squeezed her shoulder.  She squeezed his arm and smiled.  He smiled back, then took a deep breath.
            At least Marin had given up her rage by the time they made it back to camp.  That would help, at least, until the next time.

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            They broke into a run, slipping along the bank until they reached the fork in the ravine.  Drew cut right, heading for the wide expanse of meadow below what used to be the arboretum and central campus.  The sun was slowly slipping lower in the sky, obscured by gray clouds that grew heavier as the day wore on.  It was getting darker, almost looking like twilight despite the fact that it was the middle of the afternoon.
            Not good.
            He could see Marin, maybe a hundred yards away, scrambling back to her feet.  Hazy figures surrounded her, half her size, looking as if they were made of fog and smoke.
            “Shit,” Rory cursed.  “Are those what they look like?  I’ve never been able to see them before.”
            Looks like only six of them, but something’s allowing them to manifest more strongly…but not completely.  Drew swallowed bile.  One of the diminutive figures lunged at Marin and she recoiled as if she’d been burned.  But completely enough.  Damn.  “Take the left side, I’ll take the right.”
            “What’re we going to do?”
            “Get her the hell out of trouble.  Go!”  He didn’t bother to wait and see if Rory was following; Drew just began to run, taking the right side and hoping Rory would head left, so they’d flank the grays and Marin.  Drew wasn’t sure how they were going to shake the little buggers loose, but he hoped that they’d come up with a plan sometime before they were all in deeper trouble.
            Marin yelped again as one of the creatures touched her.  She jerked back, eyes going wide.  Drew could feel her fear spiking.  The creatures seemed to grow stronger, more solid as they struck at her.
            Are they feeding on her fear, or just on her?  Drew didn’t have time to overthink any theories.  He barreled through the ring of grays, which hissed and recoiled as he blew past them.  Grabbing for Marin’s arm, he took a bare moment to count how many of them there were, realizing to his horror that more were coming from the left, across the marshy meadow.  Damn.  We’re in trouble.  We don’t even know that we can get past them, get through them.  Getting a hand on Marin’s arm, he yanked the younger woman toward him.  Her hand was like ice and she was shivering as he pulled her against his chest.
            “So cold,” she mumbled through chattering teeth.
            Drew looked around them.  The grays were closing, hissing angrily at him for his interference.  He could feel their mischief turn to malice in a heartbeat.  Marin shrunk against his chest, shivering more violently, dark eyes wide.  Drew couldn’t feel the cold that she clearly felt, but the way she was trying to scramble up him to get away from them told him that just busting through and running wasn’t going to be an option.  He was running out of choices.  How do we fight these things?
            One of them lunged.  Drew cursed and struck out with a fist.  His hand passed right through the creature and it seemed to laugh at him.
            Oh shit.
            And then, Rory came barreling into the fray, howling some sort of battle cry from either a bygone era or a fantasy novel.  Rory dropped a shoulder and tucked his head down, striking one of the grays with the force of a charging linebacker.  Drew half expected it to just laugh at him, too, the way he’d been laughed at.
            The gray screamed and dissipated into mist and smoke.
            Drew sucked in a breath.  Rory was wreathed in a faint red-orange glow, almost invisible to his eye.  What is that?
            Rory looked at Drew for about half a second before he punched another of the grays in the face.  The creature recoiled, stumbling back, hissing at Rory as whitish smoke oozed from its mouth like blood or sputum, dissipating before it ever hit the ground.  “Don’t just stand there,” he roared at the older man, “get her the hell out of here and I’ll catch up.  Go!”
            How the hell does he know how to do that?  One of the grays lunged toward he and Marin again.  Marin struck blindly with a foot, crying out again as she made impact with the gray, frost coating the heel of her tennis shoe.  Drew jerked her back again, holding her upright.  It took him another ten seconds to get his wits together.  “Cut us a path!”
            Rory kicked one of the grays between the legs.  It stumbled backwards, into one of its fellows.  They both toppled, taking a moment to hiss again at the three friends before starting to rise.  “Will that do?”  Rory shouted.
            Drew hoisted Marin up for the second time in three days, threw her over his shoulder, and ran like his life depended on it.  He could feel the grays trying to give chase but heard the distinctive sound of Rory’s four-inch pocket knife snapping open.
            “Don’t think so, you bastards,” Rory growled.
            “Drew, put me down!  We have to help him!”
            “He’s doing more against them right now than we ever could,” Drew snapped as he hauled ass back toward the narrows of the ravine.  “He’ll catch up.”
            Marin groaned.  She was still chilled to Drew’s touch, but he wasn’t going to be able to carry her for much longer.  He slowed and risked a glance back as they crossed into the ravine proper.
            Rory was running toward them now, waving them onward.  “Keep going!”  The grays weren’t giving chase, but it looked like they might have been regrouping.
            Drew set Marin on her feet, grasping her arm.  “Run.”
            He didn’t have to tell her twice.  At the sight of Rory following, she was off like a shot, headed for the spot further up the ravine where they could climb back up.  The three splashed through the creek, heedless of water and mud, scrambling as quickly as they could.
            They have to stop chasing us at some point.  They’ve got to.  We just have to get back to camp.  We outnumber them.  Don’t we?
            He kept running.

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            Everyone else’s stress had created a dull pounding in his head over the past few days, exacerbated by the atmosphere of desperation mixed with hope and despair.  Marin’s anger and frustration was like a knife cutting through all of that, and Drew broke off from helping unload the building supplies Rory had driven over from the construction site on south campus to intercept her.
            He caught the edge of Rory’s sudden flash of annoyance.  “Drew!  Where’re you going?”
            He waved Rory off.  “Marin needs to stop seething.  I’ll be back when I’ve taken care of that.”  The annoyance faded quickly with the explanation.  Drew suppressed the urge to shake his head.  If I can’t get her to stop seething, I’m going to have a migraine before the end of the night.  I’ve got to learn to control this.  He’d been able to feel strong emotions since childhood, but as he got older, he started to perceive a low-level buzz of other’s emotions in the back of his brain.  In the past three days, that buzz had almost become a howl, one he couldn’t block out.  He’d told Rory about it, but hadn’t told Kellin or Marin yet.  They both had more important things to worry about; namely everything else.  He’d tried to stay away from most of the others when he could and that seemed to help.
            Keeping his distance wouldn’t be a solution forever, but for the moment, it was the only option he had.
            “Marin, wait up.”
            She didn’t stop walking, but she turned and looked toward him.  A tear was oozing down her cheek and Drew jogged to keep up.
            What now?  “Marin?”
            She tried to wave him off as she kept walking, down toward the ravine.  “I’m fine, Drew.  Help Rory.”
            “Rory’s got that mess well in hand,” Drew said evenly, drawing up alongside of her.  “What did Thom say this time?”
            Marin stumbled and would have fallen if Drew hadn’t caught her.  He waited until she’d regained her balance before he let go.  She didn’t look at him.  “How did you know?”  She whispered after a long silence.
            “Because he’s the only one that can ever affect you like this.  He’s the only one you allow to affect you like this.”  He touched her shoulder, squeezed it gently.  “What happened, Mar?”
            “He lied to my face, Drew, that’s what happened.”  She swiped angrily at the tears rolling down her cheeks.  “I don’t care how scared he is, or what the hell he’s dreamed that’s made him freak out, but I can’t take him lying to my face.  I can’t.  It’s not fair, especially when he knows I know he’s lying.”
            There was fear beneath her words, bone-deep, gnawing at the edges of his consciousness.  He’d missed it beneath her rage.
            “You’re afraid,” he breathed.
            “Of course I’m afraid!  He’s in denial and it’s going to kill him one way or another.”  Marin shook off Drew’s hand and started walking again.  “Don’t follow me,” she snapped.  “I need some time alone.”
            “In the ravine?”
            “Just leave me alone, Drew.”
            Her rage beat against him like storm surge against breakers.  He couldn’t follow, just watched her go, watched her disappear down toward the lip of the ravine.
            Can’t leave her down there by herself.  Can’t follow her by myself.  Drew took a deep breath.  Time to snag Rory.  He grimaced and thought about what Kellin was going to say.
            Another thing to talk about tonight, after everyone else’s gone to bed.  Something to announce at breakfast.  No one goes down there alone.  Drew marched back toward where Rory was still unloading the truck, though with a few extra sets of hands, now.
            “Rory, I need you to come with me.”
            Rory stopped in the middle of hefting one end of a three-by-ten plank, almost dropping it on his toes.  The camps staffer at the far end of the board started to push it forward and Rory cursed, this time dropping the beam as it shot through his hands.  “Damn it, Carl, hold up.”  Rory glanced down at his palms, grimacing.  “The hell’s wrong, Drew, other than splinters two inches long in my hands?”  He started picking one of them out, not looking at the older man.  He waved for someone else to take over, stepping away from the back end of the flatbed.  The probably wouldn’t use it very much in the future after they finished most of the heavy lifting from south campus, given the rapidly deteriorating state of the roads, though it was nice to have at their disposal for long as they could get the diesel to run it.
            “We’re going down into the ravine.”
            Rory stopped in the middle of yanking one of the silvers out of the meat of his palm.  His voice came flat, disbelieving.  “What?”
            He thinks I’ve lost it.  Maybe I have.  “Marin went down by herself.  I can’t carry her back kicking and screaming without backup.”
            Rory stared at him.  “What the hell is going on, Drew?  She knows better.”
            Drew shook his head quickly.  “I’ll explain when we’re down there.  Come on.  I need you now.”  Every minute we’re wasting up here is a minute she could be getting into serious trouble down there.
            “Okay, okay.”  Rory glanced to the side.  “Tala, take over, can you?”
            Tala flashed a thumbs up and went back to helping haul a pallet of bricks.  Rory glanced at the sky, frowned, then looked at Drew.
            “Go.”
            Drew took off at a jog, Rory following a little more slowly but catching up quickly.
            “So what the hell is going on?  She went down there alone?  She never goes down there alone.  Not since that time you and her and Thom went down and ran into…whatever the hell you ran into.  When she lost that pendant of hers.”
            When gave it to Thom and he threw it at the thing following us.  Slowed it down at least, because it never caught us.  When we started to really realize what’s out there.  “Yeah, I know.  And it’s Thom that’s the reason she’s out there right now.”
            Rory blinked at him, then frowned.  “I don’t want to know, do I?”
            “Not yet.”  Drew started down the incline into the ravine, the ground slick from the recent rains.  Hopefully it won’t start pouring before we get to her and get out of here.  Otherwise, we’ll never get out of this alive.  “At some point, I think we’re all going to know.”
            “I’ll stay blissful in my ignorance a little longer,” Rory grumbled, following Drew down to the muddy bank of the creek at the bottom of the ravine.  Marin’s footprints crossed the clear-running water about twenty feet away from where the two men were standing.  It was deathly quiet, not even birds made a sound in the trees above, only the sound of the wind and the water near their feet, of their footsteps.
            I wish I had that luxury.  She wasn’t too far ahead of them.  Her anger was slowly bleeding away.  We need to close that gap before she calms down and I can’t track her anymore from her feelings.  “C’mon, we need to hurry.”
            They jogged a little ways, until Rory slipped on the muddy bank and went down, cursing.  “Bloody slick, I guess.  Thought I had my footing.  Maybe we should slow down.”
            Drew took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “It’s all right.  She’s stopped moving.”  At least I think she’s stopped moving.  He helped Rory up, looking further down the ravine.  It opened up into a marsh not far beyond where they were standing, if you followed the right-hand fork.  Feels like she went that way.  Feels like she’s over there.  Of course, that’s where we were when we ran into that thing, but it should be okay right now, right?  It’s still daylight.
            Something brushed past him, something cold.  He caught a fleeting glimpse of gray in his peripheral vision, got impressions of mischief and mayhem.  “Shit,” Drew murmured.
            Rory blinked at him, then grimaced.  “…I didn’t slip, did I?”
            “No,” Drew mumbled.  “I don’t think you did.”
            “It’s those little gremlins, isn’t it?  The little gray things.”
            “You feel it?”
            “Yeah, little grabby hands against my ass shoving me into the creek.”  Rory looked at his soaked and muddy jeans and grimaced again.
            “It’s headed for Marin.”
            “You sure?”
            Drew nodded.  “Pretty sure.”
            Rory started to move again, then glanced back at Drew.  “That is bad, right?”
            God, I hope not.  It probably was.  Drew shook his head.  “Move.”
            Somewhere ahead, Marin yelped.

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             “What were you and Kellin talking about?”  Thom asked as Marin moved the pile of finished blankets out of the way and settled down next to him, near the fire.
            She shook her head a little.  “Nothing important.  She wanted to know how you were without asking you, for one.”  Marin grinned.  “I told her you were worrying yourself ragged.”
            I can’t do anything else but think about shit.  What do you want from me, Marin?  Thom frowned a little and set down the shears.  “I’ve got a head for logistics.”
            “Among other things,” Marin said, smoothing a hand over the fleece spilling across his knees.  “I see we found something to occupy your hands, at least, and maybe your mind, too, since all of your fingers are still intact.”
            She looks tired.  He put his hand over hers and squeezed her fingers before letting go.  He wrapped his arm around her shoulders, drawing her tightly against his side.  “Think you could spend the rest of the afternoon helping me with all of this?”
            “Probably not.”  She smiled wryly.  “My legs kind of work.  That means I get to wander around and do things, even if I’m still sore.  You, on the other hand, need to stay the hell off that ankle so it heals.”
            At least a month, if not more, of doing nothing but sitting on my ass and being useless.  Joy.  That’s not going to last.  Thom rubbed his eyes with his free hand.  “For a few more days, anyway.”
            “Thom.”
            He squeezed her.  “Don’t worry.  I won’t overdo it.”  At least not by my standards.  “And I won’t try to get farther than a couple dozen feet on my own until you guys get me some crutches.”
            She gave him a disapproving look, but he’d expected as much.  He smiled at her and squeezed her again.
            “Stop worrying so much,” he murmured, letting the tip of his nose brush against her ear.  She smelled like wood smoke and that shampoo she liked.  His eyes slid closed for a moment.  Can’t lose her.  “Worrying about me doesn’t do any of us any good and all it’s going to do is give you an ulcer.”  He kissed her ear gently before straightening again, ignoring the protests from his ribs.  She doesn’t need to know that they still hurt.  The less she knows, the better.  She’ll worry less.
            She put her hand on his knee and sighed quietly.  “We found horses.  Did anyone tell you?  Maybe cows, too.”  Marin squeezed his knee.  “Davon and Matt put the tent up a while ago.  Rory’s going to try to move the wood and bricks from the construction site on south campus, so we can maybe start building shelters.”  She smiled weakly.  “So you might need to start drawing some sketches.”
            “I’ll need a sketchpad.  Maybe graph paper.  Pencils.  Erasers.”  He grinned.  “Anything to get me away from this mountain of fleece.”  Been a long time since I sketched plans for anything.  Been using computers for so long…it’ll be different to draft longhand.  He paused for a moment.  She’s trying to distract me from worrying about everything else…and it might be working.  It’s something useful to be doing, anyway, that’ll keep my hands and my brain busy.  So she can stop worrying about me worrying.
            Marin grinned.  “I’ll talk to Tala and see what I can do about getting you off blanket duty.”
            Thom nodded.  “Thanks, Mar.  It’s not really that bad, it’s just…”
            “I know.  You want to be useful and in your brain this doesn’t qualify.”

            He turned at the sound of her footsteps, his pencil going still in his hand.  “I thought you were asleep,” he said quietly.
            “I was,” she murmured, making her way over to him and resting her hands on his shoulders.  “Now I’m not.  What are you working on?”
            “Nothing,” he said, staring at the sketch in his lap.  “Nothing important,” he amended as he stared at what he’d drawn, what he was planning.  I wanted it to be a surprise. 
            “Show me?”
            He set the pencil down and handed her the sketchpad.  It was simple, clean-lined, and well within his ability to make himself between combat training, hunting, and other duties around the village.  He smiled a little nervously at her quiet gasp.
            “Do you like it?”  He murmured.
            “It’s beautiful,” she whispered.  He stood up and slid his arms around her, leaning in to kiss her neck gently.  Marin set down his plans for a baby’s cradle and put her arms around him.

            “Thom, you’re hurting me.”
            He jumped a little, realizing that he’d squeezed her even more tightly against his side, that his ribs were screaming at him and his knuckles had gone almost white where they gripped her arm.  He loosened his grip immediately and took a deep breath, instantly regretting it.  Christ.  Ow.  “Sorry,” he managed to mumble, staring hard at the fleece covering his knees.
            “Are you all right?”  He suppressed another wince at the concern in her voice.
            “I’m fine,” he lied.  “Just moved my ankle funny, that’s all.”  Shit.  Shit, shit, shit.  “Think you could track down Jac or Leah to have a look?”  Of course, they’ll come, look, see the bruising and the swelling and remind me to stay the hell off of it, but they’ll tell me I didn’t do anything to it.  But that’ll at least keep Marin from knowing I keep having these waking dream-nightmare things.
            That’s all they are.  Nothing more than that.
            “Okay,” she said softly.  She squeezed his knee and stood up, leaving him there.
            Thom stared at his knees and slowly exhaled.  His ribs ached, right along with his heart.
            They have to be dreams.  Nightmares.  Because if they’re not, I might lose her.  And I can’t stomach that.
            “Thom?  You okay?”
            Thom looked up toward Jacqueline, who had a messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a basket braced against her hip.  He grimaced.  “Why does everyone keep asking me that?  I’m fine, I just moved my ankle wrong.”  He frowned.  “What’s with the basket?”
            Jacqueline shook her head a little.  “J.T. found a cat and her kittens.  I’ve got custody of them for the time being.”
            Talk about the last person I’d expect to bring back pets.  Thom shook his head.  “He still around?”
            “He and Jack and a couple others hiked back to the store.”  She set down the basket and her bag, then knelt next to him.  “Does it hurt?”
            “Not as bad as it did a couple days ago.”  Thom shifted uncomfortably.  “Ribs are still really sore, but don’t tell Marin that.”  He gingerly rubbed at his side, the side that hurt less.  “She can’t do anything about it.”
            Jacqueline carefully unwrapped his ankle.  “And you don’t want her to worry.”
            At least someone understands that.  “Exactly.”
            She nodded slightly, fingers cold against the warm, bruised flesh of his ankle.  “She loves you.  Still.”
            “I know.”  Thom looked past her toward Marin, who was having an animated discussion with someone he assumed was one of her former coworkers.  He couldn’t hear what they were saying—they were too far away.
            “Don’t push her away again, Thom.”  Jacqueline’s fingers sent a slight tingle through his ankle before she started to rewrap it.  “You need her.  Probably more than she needs you.”
            I know that.  But I have to do what I have to do to keep her safe.  To keep her breathing.  Thom stared at the fire.  “Get some more wood. We’ll need it before we start cooking dinner.”
            Jacqueline whacked him in the knee.  “Stay off your ankle.  Try not to move it too much, either.”  She shifted, moving from his feet to his side.  “Need me to look at your ribs?”
            He shook his head.  Either they’ll heal, or they’ll kill me.  Either way, nothing you can do.  “Only thing you can do is tell me to take drugs and sleep, Jac.  I’m not going to do either right now.”
            “Wrong there.”  Jacqueline dug into her bag and shoved a vial of pills into his hand.  “You’re taking two if I have to cram them down your throat.  It won’t do much for keeping you parked in one spot, but at least you won’t be a total grump.”

            “You’re a pain in the ass when you’re hurt, you know that?”
            Thom tried to suppress another wince, tried to ignore the feeling of her needle passing through his flesh, the tug of thread against the edges of the deep slash.  “At least no one was killed,” he muttered.
            “No, just you almost.  Again.  I swear, Thom, one of these days your luck’s going to run out and then where the hell are the rest of us going to be?”
            “Bereft but better rested, maybe,” he said.
            “Don’t be flippant.  I’m serious.”
            Thom tried not to groan.  “Go have some sex, Jac.  It lightens you up.”
            He never saw the right hook coming.

            Thom snapped out of his fugue to find himself sprawled out, flat on his back, ribs aching with Jacqueline and Marin bent over him.
            “Thom?”
            “I’m okay,” he mumbled, trying to wave them both off.  Marin was staring at him, and for the first time in three days, there wasn’t worry in her gaze, but dread.  He stared back up at her.  They’re not real, Mar.  They can’t be.  Just…shared delusions.  Our imaginations.
            I can’t lose you.  God.  I can’t.
            “What happened?”  Jacqueline asked, trying to check his pupils with a penlight she’d pulled out of somewhere.
            Thom was staring at Marin.  Just a nightmare.  “Nothing,” he lied.  “Just tired, that’s all.  Got a little dizzy.  Haven’t been sleeping well.  Too achy.”  He closed his eyes as Marin turned and stormed away.  Don’t look at me like that, Marin.  I’m not betraying you.  They’re nothing but nightmares.  Nothing real.
            The look on her face was real enough, though.  The look of betrayal and hurt in her eyes was still there before him, even though his eyes were closed.  He swallowed hard as Jacqueline helped him sit up.
            “Maybe I’ll take your advice,” he murmured, rubbing a hand over his eyes.
            “About not screwing things up and pushing her away again?”
            Might have already done that.  Screwed things up.  But what else can I do?  He shook his head.  “Give me the pills and help me to bed.  I think I’m going to snag a nap.”
            Jacqueline hesitated, then nodded.  “All right.”
            Even though he tried not to, Thom cast a glance toward Marin as Jacqueline helped him up.  She never looked back.  He felt a stab of guilt and tried to shake it off.
            She was wrong, after all, and he was right.  That was the way it had to be, for both of their sakes.

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            Marin was walking toward Thom when Kellin caught her by the arm.  “We need a pow-wow,” she murmured.
            Marin blinked at her.  “When?  Now?”  She glanced toward Thom.
            Kellin winced.  If we have it now, he’s going to wonder what the hell we’re talking about and we’ll have to include him and that wouldn’t be productive at all, now would it?  If he’s denying everything, he’s not going to be of any help.  Not until he knocks it the hell off.
            “No,” Kellin said after a moment.  “After he goes to sleep.”
            The smell of smoking meat filled the air.  Dr. Doyle and Tala were keeping a close eye on the smokehouse they’d rigged up, so they could preserve some of the meat looted from the grocery store before the generators gave out and the meat went bad.  Hopefully, it would work.  Otherwise, they’d have to start hunting deer sooner than anticipated.
            Marin’s hands balled into fists and Kellin shook her head a little.  “You know how he’ll react.”
            “I know,” she murmured, then exhaled.  “Doesn’t mean I like it.  What’s wrong?”
            Kellin shook her head.  “We just need to talk.  All of us who can feel it.  You and Rory and Drew and Carolyn and I, at the very least.  Plus anyone else you think we should include in that number.”
            Marin shook her head slightly.  “No.  I think that should be all right for the start.  Are you sure about Carolyn?”
            “You’re the one who told me she was Awake, Mar.”
            Marin took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  “No, I know I did.  I just…old habits die hard, and I still feel like we should be protecting her.”
            I wish that was an option.  But she needs to walk into this with her eyes wide open.  We can help her with that.  “She can feel it, too, Mar.  The light and the dark and the balance.  The lines and the boundaries.  She feels it.”  Kellin paused for a moment, then frowned.  “We should set wards.  Tonight, if we can.”
            Marin blinked.  “Why the sudden urgency?  You’re the one who kept saying that nothing would hurt us if we didn’t bother it first.”
            Kellin winced.  I did say that, but that was back when we outnumbered them.  Now I’m afraid that they outnumber us, and I’m pretty sure right now, they’d have the upper hand.  There’s a balance to be maintained, but I don’t like being defenseless, either.  “Maybe I’m worried I’m wrong.”
            Marin stared at her for a long moment.  “Better safe than sorry?”  She murmured, glancing toward Thom again.  He was roughly in the same position he’d been in the last time Kellin had seen him, a few hours before, half buried under several bolts of fleece.
            “Yeah,” Kellin mumbled, crossing her arms and following Marin’s gaze.  Thom was staring blankly at the fire, unmoving.  Then he suddenly snapped back to himself and got back to work.  Kellin frowned.  Either he’s thinking really hard, or…nah.  No.  That’s Marin’s gift.
            “He’s worried,” Marin said quietly, hugging herself.  “Probably about everything.”
            “Everything is a good thing to be worried about.”  Kellin shook her head.  “We’re all worrying about that, though some parts of that are more immediate than others.”
            “Like wards?”  Marin managed a weak smile.
            Kellin nodded slowly.  “Like wards.  We’d better save the salt, though.  I think we salvaged some sage plants from the grocery store.  I’ll see what I can do with that.”
            “Wards and cleansing,” Marin said dryly.  “I like it.”
            Well, to listen to you, this campus needs a little bit of both.  Kellin huffed a little and shook her head, crossing her arms.  “We need to save the salt.  Sage and some energy will do the trick, unless I’m mistaken.”  She frowned a moment.  “I’ll talk to Drew.”  Drew might have some ideas.  I’d talk to Rory, too, but I’m not sure what he’d have to add.  Maybe a few things here or there.  I’ll have to see.
            “You’re right, Kel.  Sorry.”  Marin smiled weakly.  “Just a little edgy.”
            “You’re still worried.”
            “Of course.”  Marin rubbed her eyes.  “It’s bloody hard.  I lay next to him at night and wonder how many more nights we’ve got together.  It’s awful.”
            Kellin squeezed her shoulder and didn’t say anything.  The single thing that could crack her in half would be losing him.  We can’t afford that—can’t afford to lose him, either.  So we’ll just have to make him believe again.  Carefully.
            “I just hate the way it feels sometimes, Kel, that’s all,” Marin whispered, still staring at Thom.  He hadn’t noticed them looking yet—or if he had, he’d decided to pretend he didn’t.  “Like he’s only half with me.  It’s not like it was before.”
            Kellin squeezed again.  “I made you a promise, Mar.  It’ll be okay.”
            Marin wet her lips.  “I hope you’re right.”
            Thom finally looked at them.  He smiled at Marin and waved with the hand he held a pair of heavy sewing shears in.  Marin waved back and started over toward him.
            “Don’t forget, Mar.”
            “I won’t, Kel.  Promise.”
            Kellin nodded to herself and headed over toward her cubby while she had a few minutes to breathe before hunting down something else to do.  She’d find a few things for the wardings they’d need to do as soon as they could.  The dim across the river made her nervous, probably more nervous than she should be, she admitted to herself, but it was, after all, better to be safe than sorry.
            Sorry wasn’t something they could afford about now.

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            Morning had worn away into early afternoon by the time J.T. came back to camp, his sweatshirt wrapped into some kind of bundle, cradled in his big arms.  Jacqueline blinked, pausing in her supply-sorting to watch him.  Did he find a baby or something?  God, I don’t know how we’d take care of a baby.  It’s hard to take care of the injured already, but a baby?  That’d be a disaster.
            J.T. spotted her and made a beeline toward her.  “Jac!  Do we have any baskets?”
            “Baskets?”  She stood up, tried to peer into the squirming bundle in his arms, to see what he was carrying.  She half expected a tiny fist to pop out from within the folds of the black hoodie.  She wasn’t far from right.
            The bundle mewed.
            Her eyes widened.  “A cat?”
            “And three kittens,” J.T. said.  “Their eyes are all open, but they’re still little.  Do you have a basket or not?”
            “Yeah, of course.  One minute.”  She darted over toward the small cube of furniture and the mattress she’d claimed and dug around in her rescued possessions, coming up with a wide basket.  She balled up a soft towel and shoved it into the bottom of the basket before heading back to J.T. and setting the basket down.  “Here, put them in there.”
            J.T. crouched and settled the sleek, dark-furred feline and her three kittens into the basket.  The kittens mewled softly as their mother turned wide, bright green eyes toward J.T. and Jacqueline before she settled to grooming her litter, which settled down at the application of their mother’s tongue.  Jacqueline shook her head.
            “How did you find them?”
            J.T. pointed to the cat.  “She found me.”  He swung the backpack he was wearing off his shoulders and settled it on the ground.  It clinked softly as he did and Jacqueline looked at him funny.  “Glass,” he explained.  “Was cleaning some bottles we found when the cat just…showed up.  Just started rubbing up against me and purring and then she started meowing at me and wouldn’t stop.  Ended up following her to her kittens.  I didn’t want to just leave them out there, so I brought them back.”  He reached down and scratched the cat’s ear.  She purred, green eyes sliding shut for a moment as she rubbed against his big finger, then she resumed grooming her kittens.  “She might have been someone’s pet,” J.T. said.  “Of course, she could have been one of the ferals that runs around out there, but she seemed too friendly for that.  Clean, too.”
            Jacqueline frowned a little, staring at the cat and her kittens.  She experimentally reached to pet the cat, who startled, looking at her for a moment, then returned to what she had been doing.  She stroked the cat’s back for a moment, then looked at J.T.  “I think you’re right.  How are we supposed to take care of them, too, though?”
            J.T. shook his head.  “I’m sure at some point they’ll take care of themselves.  They’re animals with instincts.  In the meantime, I’ll go hike up to the store.  They had a pet aisle.  There’s food.”
            Now we have pets.  Three days after what might have been the end of the world, and we have pets.  Jacqueline choked on a laugh and shook her head.  “I guess you’re right.  Who knows, if we’re lucky they’ll start bringing us squirrels to eat.”
            He cracked a smile.  “I hear it tastes pretty good.”  He rubbed his belly.  “Mm.  Squirrel gumbo.”  He glanced over toward the fire.  “…what the hell do you have Thom doing over there?”
            “He’s making blankets out of the fleece that Tala and Leah brought back from looting the fabric store.  They said there’s a lot of stuff still in there that we’ll be able to use.  They just couldn’t carry it all and really didn’t want to try.  Tomorrow we’ll send a larger group with some of those dollies we got from the hardware store.”  Jacqueline grinned.  “Their way of making sure he stayed useful if he couldn’t get up and walk around.  All he’s really got to use are his hands.”  She glanced toward the medical supplies she was sorting into bins.  “You want to give me a hand with this?  Two sets of hands’ll make short work of it.”
            J.T. nodded and picked up one of the bags full of drugs and ace bandages they’d looted from the grocery store up the road.  “Heard they found some horses after I left.”
            “Yeah, southwest of campus.  They brought them back here.  Stasia just left to go check out the dairy that’s further south.  If the folks there are still alive, she said she’d try to bring them back, but I think she was just saying that.  Anyone who’d have been there probably died at church, being good Calvinists and all.”  Jacqueline’s nose wrinkled for a moment and she touched the cross around her neck.  If it had happened later in the day, or on Saturday, I might have died at Mass.  “Sorry,” she murmured.
            J.T. shook his head.  “Who the hell do you think you’re offending?  You’re the good Christian around here.”
            Jacqueline took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.  It was true—she was the good Christian, and Catholic to boot.  It was strange; most of her friends were irreverent Christians at best, most of them actually adherent to other faiths if they were adherent to anything at all, their personal religions indefinable.  She tossed a box of pills into one of the totes.  “You know one of the groups around here was screaming about Revelations about two weeks ago, when the news about this asteroid broke.”
            “Really?”  J.T. looked at her strangely.  “I didn’t think you really believed any of that.”
            I didn’t until I met Marin.  Then I started to wonder a little.  If she has the gift of prophecy, maybe John of Patmos did, too.  She shrugged a little.  “I was never sure what to think about Revelations.  But you have to admit, the whole asteroid thing would fit.”  She wet her lips.  “After I heard them screaming about it, I looked up what they were talking about.  It’s the prophecy about the angels.  The first angel blew its horn and fire and blood rained down from the sky.  The second angel blew its horn and a mountain fell into the sea, blazing with fire.  And then the third angel blew its horn and a star called Wormwood fell from the sky to the Earth.”  She took a deep, steadying breath.  “All of those could describe the asteroid and its fragments, if Matt’s right and that’s what came down, what caused all of this.”  Her hand tightened, crushing the thin cardboard box around another vial of pills.  “But if it is, then this is…I don’t know what.  The last great suffering?  Is that what it is?”
            J.T. just stared at her for a few long moments before he reached out to gently touch her arm.  “I don’t know, Jac,” he said finally, voice quiet.  “Maybe it’s another Flood.  Cleaning the slate.  I don’t know—couldn’t hope to guess.  Neither can you.  I’ll tell you what I do know, though.
            “We’ve got each other and that’s just about the only thing that matters right now.  If there’s a God out there somewhere, I’m not sure he can help us now.”
            Her stomach twisted, more because she was afraid he was right than because of what he’d said, his questioning of her faith.  What if he’s right?  What if we’re really on our own?  What if there’s no one out there, up there, watching over us?  What then?  She looked down at the crushed box in her hand and chewed her lip.  J.T. squeezed her arm.
            “It’s going to be okay,” he said quietly.  “We’ve got each other, all of us.  I’m not much one for believing in higher powers—you know that—but if there’s one out there, I think whoever or whatever it is made sure that we had a team that could make it through this.”
            God help us.  She couldn’t look at him.  “You think so?”
            He squeezed again.  “I know it.  Why the hell else would we have all gotten to be friends, huh?”  He smirked.  “You guys aren’t really my type of crowd, after all.”
            Jacqueline started to laugh helplessly.  Punk-rocking, troublemaking, drinking, swearing, once-upon-a-time pot-smoking J.T., coupled with too serious for his own good Thom as a best friend, coupled with her goody-goody backside, Marin’s struggle to find her own brand of faith, and all the rest.  No.  No, if there hadn’t been something guiding them all together, the whole of them, this never would have happened.  They never would have become friends, become close.
            If she’d ever needed proof that there was something out there, working behind the scenes, she’d had it all along.
            “Thanks, Jay,” she murmured.
            “No problem.  ‘course, if you tell anyone I said any of that, I might have to kill you.”  He grinned and winked at her.  She laughed and hugged him.
            I’ve got good friends.  We’ll make it through this, somehow, whether God’s abandoned us or not.  He did give us this team.  It’s up to us to make the best of what He gave us to work with.

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            Horses.
            He was pitching a tent for horses.
            He wasn’t working alone, of course.  No way in hell could he get one of these big blue and white monsters up without help.  But for horses?
            Davon exhaled.  Of course he understood the logic—the barn they’d found the horses in was much too far away for them to hike every day to check on them even if it wasn’t in constant danger of collapse, so they’d brought them back to campus, knowing that there were at least two more large tents that they could use.  Davon had tried not to feel bewildered when he’d seen the small group of riders leading more horses by their reins trotting up between shattered buildings.  He’d even wondered aloud if anyone knew how to take care of horses.  One of the camps staffers, Stasia Lane, piped up that she’d grown up around animals all her life and was more than capable of taking care of the dozen horses they’d found.  Everything would be fine, she’d declared, and with that, Davon had found himself working with a few others to pitch another one of the large tents.
            I guess I shouldn’t be too upset, he thought glumly.  At least this way, we’ve got help with heavy lifting and hauling.  It was small consolation.  He was still in part struggling to understand why no one had shown up to help them, trying not to admit to himself that he already knew the answer—there was no one out there who could.
            So he’d pitched in to help, hoping that everything he did would be for naught, that all of a sudden the National Guard would show up and take them away from the shattered wreckage of the university, take them to a place where there was still civilization.  The more he looked around, though, the more he realized that was never going to happen.
            Doesn’t mean I have to be cheerful about the prospect of freezing or starving to death out here.  When his friends had ‘picked teams’ for the end of the world, he’d jokingly attached himself to one of them.  Now that it seemed that the end had come, he found himself wishing he’d been among the lucky ones to die.
            “Davon!  We’re ready to start getting those walls up.  You done with those stakes on that side?”
            He shook off the morbid thoughts running through his head and cursed under his breath.  “Yeah, it’s set, Matt,” he called back.  “Let’s get those walls up.”  He ducked through the center of the tent to help Matt Astoris with the walls.
            “You had a thousand mile stare going on there for a minute,” Matt observed as they started clipping up the tent’s heavy walls.  “You okay, or should I not ask questions I don’t want to know the answers to?”
            Davon grimaced.  He wasn’t sure which one it was.  “Just wondering if this is worth it.  Hell.  Wondering if it’s going to work.”
            Matt poked his head around the side of the heavy tarp.  “What’s that supposed to mean?”
            “I just…Matt, do you think it’s the end?  You think they’re right?  That what we’re doing here is a good idea?”
            “That’s a lot of questions there, Davon.”
            “I know.”  Davon shook his head and went back to rigging up the walls.  “Part of me thinks it’s crazy and part of me thinks we’re not working toward the long term fast enough.  Then another part of me wishes I died with all of those people we buried out by the PAC.”
            “It’s not crazy,” Matt said.
            “No, it’s crazy.”  They finished with the first tarp Davon headed to grab the next one.  “Who the hell could have predicted this shit happening?  Who would have imagined it?”
            “Marin did.”
            Davon made a face.  “Marin had a nightmare a few years ago.  That’s all it was.  I don’t know why we’re all hanging on her every word like it’s gospel.”  He paused, watching Matt’s expression darken.  “Look, I know she’s your sister and everything, but this is a little nuts.  Maybe we should be working harder on finding somewhere else to be than working on building something out of this wreck.”
            “Three days ago, you were all for finding a way to eke out an existence.”
            “Three days ago I was happy the library hadn’t collapsed on us.  Now I’m bloody tired.”  Davon scrubbed a hand over his eyes.  “You believe them, don’t you?”
            Matt shrugged.  “Not sure what else to think, Davon.  She’s my sister.  I used to think she was full of crap, but now I’m not sure anymore.  You’re right.  No one could have predicted this, but she did.”
            Dammit.  I was afraid he’d say that.  “And then the world ended, and now we’re setting up a tent for a bunch of horses.”
            Matt managed a wry smile.  “And probably supplies, too.  Horses won’t take up the whole space.  One of the groups is trying to hotwire one of those trucks out by the new apartments they were going to build so they can haul the wood and bricks over here.  Rory thinks he can get it pretty close.”  Matt hauled the tarp up toward the lines hanging underneath the tent’s roof flap and held it there while Davon started clipping the wall into place.  “If the National Guard was coming, we’d know by now.  If there was something else out there, we’d know by now.”  He shook his head a little.  “I’ve been fiddling with the radio at night.  There’s nothing out there, Davon.  Nothing but static.”  The other man swallowed and shook his head.  “I really think we’re on our own.”
            “Your professional opinion, huh?”
            Matt shrugged a little.  “Such as it is.  Don’t you think that we’d have heard something by now, even if it’s just an emergency broadcast signal?”
            He hated to admit it, but Matt was probably right.  That didn’t make it any easier to stomach.  “There’s forty of us, Matt.  How’re we going to pull this off?”
            “What we’re doing right now is a start,” Matt said, coming around the edge of the wall as they finished getting it up into place.  He started knotting off the overlaps.
            “Can we start bringing them in, Davon?”
            It was Stasia’s voice.  She held one of the horses by its bridle, already unsaddled, tail swishing lazily back and forth, standing near the edge of the wall they’d put up, the open edge that faced the tents on the hill.  Davon considered for a moment, then nodded.
            “Yeah, start bringing them in.  Don’t tie them to anything of the tent, though.  We’ll have to figure something else out to make sure they stay put.”
            Stasia smiled.  “We can drive a few stakes into the ground and tie them off, I think, though when the weather turns again, I think these guys’ll be happy not to be out in it.”  She patted the horse’s cheek.  The horse stared at Davon and he felt a strange tickle at the back of his mind.  He stared back at it for a moment, then the horse nickered and tossed its head a little.  She let go and the horse edged forward, nudging Davon with its nose.  Stasia laughed.  “I think she likes you.”
            A sense of gratitude spread through Davon, though he didn’t know where it had come from—certainly not from him.  He smiled back at Stasia.  “Maybe.”  He glanced toward Matt, who was waiting for him.  “We’d better finish getting those walls up.”
            Stasia nodded.  “We’ll leave you to it.  I’ll grab someone to come drive those stakes for us.  Is it okay if we set these guys up at the far end?”
            He nodded.  “Yeah.  Need us to leave access back there, too?”
            “Would be nice,” Stasia said, then led the horse away.  Davon headed back over to Matt.|
            “You okay?”
            Davon nodded.  “Yeah.  Let’s get back to work.”
            Matt nodded in agreement.  Davon took a breath and exhaled it slowly.  The feeling of gratitude was fading.  Where had it come from?  Stasia?  She didn’t seem that grateful.  He mopped his brow with his sleeve.  No time for it now.  Probably imagining things.
            Yep, that’s it.  Imagining things.

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