I WORE THE SUNDRESS AGAIN. Ben reached for my hand as we kicked up dust in the deserted avenue, twilight staining the sky purple. For the first time in months, I felt a spark of humanity in my chest. Mr. Choi had owned a gourmet bakery in his past life down in Portsmouth. As it turned out, we weren't invited for dinner, but dessert.

"It's nothing really." Mr. Choi waved a hand as he revealed a plate of little cakes.

I gaped in surprise. "But you don't even have an oven!"

"I don't need one. I'm just that good with a hot plate."

Mr. Arnold swore audibly outside. Mr. Choi clucked his tongue as he peeked out the window. Ben was helping Mr. Arnold figure out if the generator hooked up to their trailer was salvageable or if they needed to scavenge another from nearby. Mr. Arnold kicked the machine. Clearly, things were not progressing well.

"Hopefully, Ben can work a miracle out there, if only to prevent that man from having a stroke on me." Mr. Choi shook his head as he popped open a nice bottle of wine, another surprise they had brought with them. "That's the last thing we need."

"I'm sure we can figure something out." I took the offered glass and sipped the bitter merlot. "We are both so happy to have you here."

"We're glad to be here, let me tell you," Mr. Choi said, raising his heavy eyebrows as he swirled his glass of wine. "Though you're something of a surprise."

I swallowed and cocked my head to the side. "What do you mean?"

"When Ben mentioned he had a woman living up here with him, I didn't expect something like you. Young, soft, and forgive me, but somewhat fragile. I anticipated a Linda Hamiliton type from Terminator 2."

I shrugged off the assessment with a light laugh. "Even Linda had to start somewhere, if you remember her character in the first Terminator movie."

"Oh yes, I suppose you're right. But I hope you never lose this piece of you. In a world as quickly crumbling as ours, hearts will be hard to come by in a few years time. Your Ben out there is in imminent danger of losing touch with his own."

I had never heard another person talk about him. I only knew the side of Ben that he chose to show when he was home; considerate, focused, and hardworking. But I saw the blood stains on his hands when he returned to Silver Gardens on some nights. Once, I'd helped him nurse a broken nose. That was after only my third week of living with him. I didn't have the courage at the time to ask him how he'd gotten it.

"What- what makes you say that?"

"Compassion is just as necessary as strength to help rebuild a life someday. Believe me, I know. Lessons from combat are not easily forgotten." Mr. Choi smirked as he took a drink. "That is if we survive the next few years and live long enough to put that thought into action."

His morose opinion didn't bother me. We had all been thinking it for months. There was no telling if the epidemic would rear it's head in the coming winter. And whether it had mutated, leaving those once declared genetically immune as vulnerable. But it helped to see that there were others out there like us, just doing their best to get by.

Ben had hooked up our own generator and did regular upkeep on it so we would be ready come winter. Till then, we didn't use it in order to preserve fuel. We ate early and used battery powered lanterns or candles when it got dark. Mostly, we just went to bed early. With Ben waking up just shy of 5AM every other morning, it was the most sensible option.

After braiding back my hair, I paused before blowing out the candle on my bedside table. I looked back at Ben as he sat down on his side of the bed. He was loading a handgun, a nightly ritual of his, even when we had first moved into the trailer and he slept on the couch by himself. He always left the weapon within arm's reach on the bookshelf by him. I had never thought about it before, or the barbed wire that he had curled around the outer perimeter of our trailer. 

Mr. Choi's words echoed in my memory. Who was this man that I had been sharing a bed with? There were some moments I thought I caught glimpses of his true self, but how much did he allow to the surface around me?

He gave a vague glance in my direction as he swung his legs under the covers. I blew out the candle and followed suit. He reached for me, something he did on nights like these when all seemed well. Truth be told it had been the best day for us in some time. Perhaps ever. So where did this weight on my heart come from?

Bracing an arm between my breasts and gripping my shoulder, he pulled me to his chest, resting his face against my braid. He didn't say anything, but fell asleep quickly. My breathing synced with his and I forced my fears away, allowing the chorus of crickets in the rose garden outside and the comfort of his presence to lull me to sleep. 

In the dead of night, he woke before I did. I jolted from sleep as he sprang from the bed in his boxer shorts, grabbing his firearm.

"Stay here," he commanded calmly, pulling on a shirt as he strode through the kitchen towards the door.

The cat hopped up onto the bed, circling and buffing me anxiously. Cradling the animal to my chest, I rose from the sheets and dared to peek through the curtains. The rumble of the motorcycle engine made me freeze in horror. A dark figure was on the bike, trying to jumpstart it. Ben was running towards it.

The bike started. The wheels screeched against the gravel. It was going to get away. Mr. Arnold appeared out of the darkness close to the bike, a lead pipe in one hand and revolver in the other. With one deft action, he jammed the pipe into the spokes of the wheel. The sudden stop sent the thief flying over the handlebars onto his back, right at Ben's feet. Ben let out a snarl as the thief lashed out with the flash of a blade and sank the knife into his bare ankle. 

Ben didn't waver. He pounded one bullet into the thief's head. The sound thudded into my chest and the cat scratched me as it leaped out of my arms with a startled yowl.

My mind went blank. My body acted out of impulse. I stumbled towards the door, shock slicing into my brain. Muscles tense and ready to run, I felt like I was back in Portland, frantically packing what I could into the sedan as the city erupted in chaos. 

I tripped over the step crate out the front door as Mr. Choi came running up to the scene, a shotgun under his arm. He held out a hand with a warning glance.

"Wait, Annabeth. Get back inside," he ordered in a tone that made me obey without question.

Once inside, I went through menial actions. I put on a bathrobe over my t-shirt and pulled out our extensive first aid kit from the bathroom. I put water to boil over the hot plate. 

Mr. Arnold kicked open the screen door, Ben's arm draped over his shoulders. His ankle was bleeding profusely, though Mr. Choi had made a tourniquet with his t-shirt.

"Son of a-" Ben hissed as Mr. Arnold lowered him into a kitchen chair. "That fucker nearly got away with it."

"Stop bitching, it wasn't that bad," Mr. Arnold snapped, obviously shaken by the event as well.

Mr. Choi unwrapped the shirt. "Annabeth, I need that kit. This might need stitches."

It did. Ben threw back a couple shots of the bourbon that we had in our cabinet as Mr. Choi sewed up his ankle.

"You're lucky. It missed any tendons or major veins. This is nothing. You'll be back on your feet in a matter of days," Mr. Choi said.

Mr. Arnold poured himself a glass. "Don't know what possessed me to grab that pipe. I'm glad I did. He would have gotten away for sure."

"The bike, the wheel is shot." Ben's expression twisted in pain and anger, making him almost monstrous in the greenish lantern light. "Fucker-"

"He's a dead fucker now so let's move on, shall we?" Mr. Choi chided in a dead calm voice. "Annabeth? That antibiotic ointment please."

I could feel Ben's eyes on me as I handed the bottle to Mr. Choi. I didn't look up at him. Hugging myself, I moved back to the stove and leaned against it, shivering despite the lingering heat of the night.

Mr. Choi and Mr. Arnold helped us get Ben back to the bed. The three men collectively decided that the chance of anymore trouble that night was slim. Still, they promised to be especially on guard, with Ben off his feet for the rest of the evening and probably the next couple days. They left us to the awkward quiet and glow of the candle in our bedroom, the cat hiding under the bureau.

I hung my robe over the door. He was still watching me, deciphering what to say next. That was how he worked. He observed the situation before taking action. That was a piece of the Ben that I knew. The man that had shot someone without a moment's thought, that another beast entirely.

"Are you okay?"  He turned towards me as I laid down on the bed next to him.

"As well as I can be. How is your ankle?"

"Hurts."

"I'm sorry."

His hand crossed the distance between us and took mine. I froze, but did not pull away. 

"What happened tonight... you saw it."

"Yes."

He sighed through his nose, his jaw clenching in pain. "You need to know something now, Annabeth. The way things are, if anyone threatens me or my home or you, that's enough. Especially you. That's the end of it. Times like these have no room for trials or mercy. He could have come to our house, knocked on the door, made himself useful. He could have tried to become our friend, like Mr. Choi and Mr. Arnold. But he didn't. What if he had tried that one night when you were here alone, pulled a knife on you?" He shuddered. "That's all I have to know about it."

Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Mr. Choi was wrong, compassion was something that had to be put on the shelf for the time being. Or maybe Ben was merely justifying the fact that he had become desensitized to the violence of our new world. It no longer shocked him, like it did me. But then again, I was safe here because of what he did. It was partially my responsibility, though he would never accuse me of such a thing.

"You don't have to explain, Ben. I know it was a hard choice to make. And you did what you thought was right."

"But you don't think it was right."

"No. It's never right to take a life. But in this case and many more these days, perhaps it's necessary for our own survival. Even if that's simplistic and selfish."

"It is selfish. But the selfless rarely survive world crisis events," his tone was desperate as though he was trying to justify his actions to himself more than me. It made my stomach turn.

"Get some sleep. Or at least try to."

I didn't let go of his hand till he had drifted off to sleep. Turning onto my side, away from him, I watched the candle burn down till the grey light of day steeped our curtains. I tried not to think about the dead body outside as I finally fell asleep.