The last thing they wanted was to spend the night out in the open. The last thing, after staying the night in town. They made it to the outskirts of the ruins, the market an orange glow at their back. Their arm throbbed and their palms stung where they hadn't been careful with the burning debris. More than that, they were tired. Deep tired. Muscle weighing too heavy on bone.

By a stroke of luck, they stumbled upon a farmhouse just off the abandoned highway beyond the rusted power plants that marked the edge of the city. It wasn't the safest place to lay, but it was better than nothing. True walked in. The door wasn't even locked. Country folk were like, before they all died. Not a lot of break-and-enter type crime out in the sticks.

They shunted the bolt shut behind them and straggled through a cursory check of the house.

Empty. Empty. Empty. No shadow dwellers, no factioneers, no bodies. The basement was either nonexistent or hidden behind a locked hall door that they couldn't be bothered to dig up a key for. They scrounged a blanket out of the linen closet and retreated to the master bedroom to lick their wounds. The bed called to them. Fluffy, rumpled blankets looking practically luxurious. They dropped their salvaged blanket on the carpet and killed the desire to crawl onto the giant, comfy mattress with the reminder that someone had probably died on it and oozed into the springs.

Pack unclipped, thumping to the floor next to the tokens. They stuck the gun deep in the bottom. Old coat, shrugged off. They rolled up their ragged sleeve to inspect the damage there. It looked better than it felt. A crescent of welts decorated it top and bottom, but their coat had borne the brunt of the bite. The blood had come from a small, jagged puncture on the soft belly of their wrist, from a shard of glass or a loose nail when they'd hit the ground. Which was a more horrible way to die, they wondered, rabies or tetanus? They fished out their meager first aid supplies.

Half an old baby food jar of salve and a dwindled supply of gauze wrap. They smeared a thin layer of salve over the bloodied patches of their skin and the burns on their calloused palms. They wrapped the blisters in hopes of protecting them from bursting, and the last of their precious gauze went to the seeping wrist puncture. Coat on back. Blanket around shoulders. They rested their head on their pack and blinked up at the bed until an uneasy sleep fell over them.

Suffocating pressure startled them awake, and realization seized their sleep-addled brain.

There were no bodies.

Replaced at once by the instinct to throw the weight pinning them down. Hissing. A beat of struggle passed while their eyes adjusted and their brain overrode their fight or flight to register Radio's caliginous form.

Hushing, not hissing.

True grabbed its wrists and tore it off.

"What the fuck are you doing?" they demanded. How had it even gotten in? It scuttled away and rolled under the bed. Hiding now? They reached. The door slammed open, straight into True's face, deleting the next several seconds from existence. They blinked back to life with a mouth full of blood and splitting headache.

They dove for their shovel only for it to be kicked out of reach by a pair of ugly yellow sneakers. The doorslammer grabbed a fistful of their hair and yanked them to their knees.

"Look at this little rat," the doorslammer gave them a shake. Asshole. They spied the red medic patch on his shoulder and recognized the weaselly form of one of the factioneers from earlier that night. True punched him in his weasel schnozz. Blood sprayed, True's knuckles smarted almost as much as their scalp. Doorslammer swore viciously, dropping True. It gave them a few precious seconds. They snatched their shovel from the corner, swung. And froze at the razor-sharp edge of a makeshift spear pressed to their throat. The curly-haired factioneer stood in the door, looking down the spear with dead eyes, as if he could slide the blade into True's gullet and watch them choke to death on the end of it without blinking. Best not test that theory. They dropped their shovel.

"Smart," Spear said. "On your feet."

"Hey!" Doorslammer lurched deeper into the room. True could only watch with clenched teeth as the factioneer crammed his broad shoulders under the bed and re-surfaced dragging Radio.

Great, now they were both dead.

The factioneers marched them out of the bedroom. The reek of smoke clogged the air, feeding True's dread. A door banged shut in the kitchen with a force that rattled the abandoned picture frames on the hallway wall. Doorslammer shoved Radio into the kitchen, and True couldn't miss the way it tripped on the lip of the tile.

A short woman stood before the shut kitchen door, fingers drumming on the counter. Scorch marks glowed on her arms, soot stained the white streak in her hair and streaked her red cheeks.

"Done kissing your boyfriend goodbye?" Doorslammer asked. Sneered, more like. Otsana slammed her fist on the counter, whipping about. Doorslammer squeaked Radio into her path in his place in the nick of time to shield him from her blow. With an audible thump her fist sank into Radio's gut. Doorslammer let it drop. It curled with a limp heave that True didn't make sense of until a wet splatter hit the tile. Morbidly, True envied the ability to puke silently. Less morbidly, they noticed the only substance coming out of it was highlighter yellow bile. No wonder it had tripped on that non-existent tile ledge. It hadn't eaten in a while.

­"Don't take your bad mood out on me," Doorslammer said, dodging Otsana's next swipe.

"Hrōkr is my spouse, bitch."

"You and your spouse—" he drew it out mockingly "—fucked our chance at the market."

Doorslammer rounded on True, shoving them into a kitchen chair. They dropped out of range of the spear, but zip-ties snapped tight around their wrists.

"Did you like Otsana's fireworks show, scavenger?" He jostled the chair arm. Grabbing True's face, he squeezed and swivelled them to face Otsana. Spear was busy flopping Radio into a second kitchen chair.

"How was I supposed to know there was propane in that basement?"

"Did you check?" Spear chimed in. Otsana turned an evil eye on him. He caved much easier than Doorslammer.

"At least the night isn't a complete loss. Don't worry we'll make more use of you and your friend than we did of your crispy-fried market buddies."

True bit their tongue, gasoline percolating in their gut. The weaselly factioneer seemed to notice and relish in it. He smacked them upside the head on his way past.

"This one has a nasty glare on her," he said.

True graced him with the full glory of their nasty glare, unfortunately he was halfway down the hall.

"Her? You think?" Doorslammer pulled them up by their hair. Their achy scalp was on the verge of peeling off. Otsana settling her hip on the counter, a glower on her smoke-stained features. She flicked her fingers noncommittally over True.

"Hard to tell with that junk on their face."

For the first time that night, True flinched, away from the factioneer reaching for their bandana. To no avail. The bandana came off in one fell tug and then it was the factioneers' turn to flinch. Otsana's lip curled, revulsion plain on her face.

The doorslammer scoffed. "Shit, dude, can you even speak with a face like that?"

"Fuck you," they said with as much venom as they could muster. His knuckles cracked across True's face, snapping their head to the side. Their vision sparked. They found their way back to Otsana's sullen gaze. Her haughty attitude wavered for a brief second her eyes shifted and her arms folded tighter over herself. Good, she should be scared of them.

"Whatever, Heath, stop messing around. You can't even tell that's human," she muttered. Spear came ambling back in with True's pack in his arms.

Seizing the distraction, Otsana grabbed the pack. She met their glare for a second, then dumped it out with a rough shake. All their things clattered on the dusty tile. Loot and food and personal items.

They were going to kill her.

"Killjoy," Doorslammer said, tilting True's head with a pull of their hair. Appraising and displaying. A new slimy gleam in his eye made True's skin crawl. True's stomach churned. They shifted, feigning discomfort to test the bindings.

The gun hit the floor with a heavy thud. The other two factioneers paused to watch Otsana heft it. Fiddle with the mechanisms until the magazine popped. Raised an eyebrow at the bullets.

A sharp gasp and the echo of skin hitting skin sparked the air.

"Bugger bit me," Spear hissed.

"What, are you scared?" Otsana clicked the magazine back in. Then, horrifyingly, aimed at Radio. True's heart skipped the next few beats. She wouldn't. At night? The noise would echo for miles.

She clicked the safety off. Okay, time to leave. True did the first thing that popped into their brain and opened their mouth. "Where did Tweedledum go? Did you fuck up that bad? They had to run off without you?"

Her face bunched, she was too easy to goad.

Molten pain burst at the corner of True's eye. Blood trickled from the fresh injury. Red stained their image of Otsana receding, blood marking the handle of the gun.

"I'm right, huh?" They tracked the passing of the gun from Otsana to Doorslammer.

The temperature in that kitchen must have gone up two or three degrees, by the way sweat beaded on their skin. That fresh injury throbbed with heat. Otsana returned armed with a damp white square in place of the gun. Alcohol cut the smoke stench as she scrubbed the tiny volcano on their temple.

"Get off me." They contorted, but there wasn't exactly a lot of room to flee. She flicked their forehead, held up a hollow plastic needle filled with glossy red blood.

"Hrōkr went ahead to the next After Market," she said, taunting them with the tiny vial of their blood. "And all you can do about it is sit there and stew."

"Should you be telling them that?" Spear finally found his voice again. Otsana rolled her eyes, scraping True up and down like she had at the market. Her brown eyes held so much cold they sword they felt the chill.

"Like I said, not even human," she said. Then she was gone, waving the tiny vial in Radio's direction. "What about that one?"

Spear shook his head, "there's something wrong inside that head."

The conversation moved out of sight.

"Alright, well, drain them, too."

"Now?" Doorslammer chimed in.

"Yes! Then we can haul twenty bags of spoiled blood across to provinces!" Otsana said with a heavy coat of sarcasm. Her voice came from farther now, a different room. Doorslammer straightened his collar with an attitude.

"She thinks she's such hot shit," he grumbled under his breath, his halitosis rolled over True's bruised cheek. He was staring again. True ground their jaw against the panic swelling under their skin. They thought when he lifted his hand it was to push their hair from their ugly face to ogle it.

He stuck his sweaty, sooty, sausage dinger inside their scar.

What the fuck.

True ripped their whole body back. Bile rose to the back of their tongue, and panic, and they threw themself against the zip-ties as much to perish the sensation before it clawed itself into their brain as to get away from him. The chair flailed on one spindly leg, tilting like a defunct carnival ride.

"Cut it out. Hey!" Doorslammer punted the chair. True landed on their arm, felt a pop, swore. "Shut up."

They braced for the next blow. The heel sank into their gut and they groaned through gritted teeth.

"You really are feral," he said, and toed the canyon of their scar. "Gross."

Then the weight vanished. He shoved the gun into his waistband and he was gone. And True stayed very, very quiet.

And they kept quiet until the first pinking of the sky through the window over the sink. Spear had taken over guard while it had been dead dark, and he'd been squirming for the better part of that time. Any minute now. True spied from barely cracked eyes. Sheer willpower kept their breathing steady in spite of the anticipation leaking through their shot nerves.

Any minute now.

If their heart beat much harder it was bound to pop. The factioneer cleared his throat, plucked at the waistband of his pants as if that would alleviate the pressure on his bladder. He threw a glance at the captives, bound to chairs and sleeping. Then, finally, turned and hurried out the back door.

Slowly—but not too slowly, the guard would only be gone a few minutes at most. They were banking a lot on how full his bladder was—they heaved onto their knees, ass in the air with the chair sat like a turtle shell on top of them. They tested the wood arm they'd landed on and sure enough, it gave. Ha, that dumbass, Heath or whatever, had cost himself a prisoner.

They wiggled the arm, wincing at the crackling wood. It took several long seconds to free the arm from the rest of the chair. Freedom, at last. They extricated their other arm and lowered the chair to the tile.

They crammed all their stuff haphazardly into their pack. Everything had been left where Otsana dumped it, except the gun.

Speaking of which, they eased themself across the sooty tile. Doorslammer draped on the living room couch, mouth hung open. Crouching next to him, they watched his eyes flicked under his eyelids. It would be so, so easy to kill him. Easy, but too time-consuming.

They eased the gun from his belt. Snuck to the kitchen window opposite the back door. Their hand pressed to the cool pane when they hesitated. Every beat of their heart careened them closer to Spear marching back in and turned this silent escape into a brawl that they weren't in any condition to fight. And yet. They huffed, retreating from the window.

As much as they hated Radio, and aside from the fact it had brought this on itself by not taking one or two dozen hints, True wasn't so dead inside that they would abandon it to these vampires. Besides, it had tried to help them.

The factioneers had fastened a belt too-tight around its head and in its mouth. Its cheeked squished out the top and bottom and drool dribbling past crooked bottom teeth. Leaving it would have been such an easy solution though. They pinched Radio's nose shut.

It blinked awake much more placidly than True would have. They pressed a finger to their lips for good measure before making quick work of the zip-ties. For once they were grateful for its preternatural silence.

They slipped out the window, landing on the balls of their feet. By the time they cast back, Radio had vanished. Never mind, they took back that bit about liking its quiet.

They forced themself to walk and not run across the lawn. No such thundering from their heavy boots or tripping on an abandoned hose was costing them this escape. They reached the ditch before the freeway and stopped to orient themself the right way. They had to get to the next After Market before the Red Faction blew it up.

A gentle morning breeze dried their tongue and they reached for the bandana around their neck. It wasn't there. Lost and forgotten in the chaos of escaping. Damn it. They couldn't help the twinge of regret that briefly tightened their throat. Never mind it. They shrugged their pack in place. People would just have to deal with seeing their scar until they found a new bandana.

A light tap on the back of their hand startled them half out of their skin.

"Damn, Radio," they huffed. Of course it was still here, it had the self-preservation of a panda cub. It held out a familiar blue square of cloth. Deep red filled each hairline groove in the skin of its hands. They snatched the bandana from it.

"...Thank you," they said, reluctantly, after the bandana was secure around their face. "Now shove off."

Radio shuffled from foot to foot, hands lost in the loose fabric of its raggedy beaded poncho so it looked like a cartoon sheet ghost that had sprouted human legs. Wet dripped from its black clothes. True stared hard at its steady, puffy eyes. At the red on its swollen, bruised mouth.

It took a hesitant step back. They motioned for it to keep going. This was it, no more playing Post-Apocalyptic Daycare. They didn't need a follower fish. Radio took another hesitant step, straight into the shallow dip of the ditch. It fell in slow motion, it gasped—the loudest sound True had ever heard come out of its mouth—when it landed in the cold run-off. The splash made True flinch. They shot a cursory glance at the farmhouse and swore under their breath. There was movement in the window.

The realization hadn't even fully set in when they bolted. Their boots hit the asphalt, they didn't spare a second glance back.