Two joints later, we sat chewing through a couple of bags of chips each. I was feeling pretty good. I always preferred pot to drinking for the sheer fact that I wouldn't have a hangover later. I was not a giggly pot smoker and thankfully, neither was Darren. We both sat in companionable silence eating our fill and wondering about the pretty colors shining off of roofs and windows as the sun set. Darren turned to me, breaking the silence.

"You know I had nothing to do with those murders right?"

It took me a minute to gather my thoughts away from the sunset and into coherent words.

"I know." I hadn't shared our find in Wyatt's condo with him.

And I really didn't want to have this conversation with him, even when I was sober.

"Good," he nodded and turned back to face the city skyline.

I snorted and then started to laugh, "But when we first met, I thought something was up with you. I mean, where were your friends you were with?"

Darren put down his chips, his face falling. "I left them."

There was an awkward pause which I ruined by giggling again. He shot me a hurt look.

"Sorry, I'm normally not a giggler when smoking pot." I giggled again, ruining my previous claim.

"That wasn't the only thing," Darren said cryptically.

"I've told you everything. Quid pro quo, Clarice." I giggled again at my lame joke.

Darren took a breath through his nose. "I had to kill one of my friends."

That stopped my giggles.

"It was back at our hotel. My buddy, Brodie, got bit by one of the infected downtown while we were all plastered. A couple of us took him back to the hotel to patch him up. The stupid bastard wanted to stay a keep drinking, but we forced him back to the hotel room." Darren gave a sad smile. "Within two hours he was really bad and a few after that, he stopped breathing. We were freaking out, still drunk when he...came back. I had to bash his head in with the tiny closet safe that wasn't bolted down."

"I can't even imagine." I don't think I could have ever done that to Zoe, especially back then.

"I've felt so guilty this whole time," Darren said. "We had drove to New Orleans together as a road trip and when Brodie died, they panicked and drove back home. I thought that was a stupid idea, so I left them and headed for the school. I don't even know if they got out of the city alive."

I breathed through my nose, trying to stifle the urge to laugh. I swear I wasn't normally like this.

"I've felt guilty for a lot of shit too," I confessed.

Darren sighed. "You have nothing to feel guilty about."

"I killed two people, Darren." I paused. "Shit, I guess it's up to four now."

"Once again, you had no choice. It's kill or be killed now," was all he said in regards to my continuing confession.

I hadn't realized just how much of a burden holding this in had been. Between my admission in the truck and now, I felt the straps of my heavy conscience loosen once again. It was liberating, adding to the high I was already feeling.

We fell back into silence, chewing on each other's words this time instead of our chips.

"Come at me you crusty, pox-filled mother fuckers!"

I turned to Darren. "What did you say to me?"

"That wasn't me." Darren looked back at me confused.

As I tried to jump up, a wave of dizziness sent me back to the lounger.

"Whoa," I said, holding my hand to my forehead.

I watched Darren stumble to the ledge, his steps slightly off. We were really baked. Fear ran through me as I started to panic. This was a bad idea. How were we going to fight infected while high? I could barely stand up, let alone shoot. This is how those fatal accidents happened.

"Holy shit, there's a kid down there!" Darren yelled louder than necessary.

"That's no way for a kid to talk," I yelled back, slapping my hand over mouth at the volume and then started to laugh again. I really shouldn't be yelling.

"Well, he's more like a teenager," Darren bellowed as if his external volume dial was broken.

I tried getting up again and this time the floor stayed put under my feet. I walked over to Darren and peeked over the edge. Indeed, there was a teen boy running through the street, infected all over the place like scattered game pieces. He was easy to spot as his short, but shaggy hair was dyed electric blue.

He shot at a bunch of the infected with a handgun. The sound bounced off of the tall buildings, echoing through the streets.

"Take that, you brainless fucks!" he yelled again, as if he expected them to shout an insult back.

"That stupid shithead is going to bring in all the infected!" Darren said angrily.

"We need to shut him up," I said.

"We could shoot him from here," Darren said.

"What?!" I jerked my head to face him.

"I'm joking." Darren put his hands in the air.

I narrowed my eyes. "Should we yell at him to shut up?"

"If he knows we're here, he'll head for the dorm front doors which are currently zip-tied," Darren pointed out.

I jogged around the entire perimeter of the roof, looking for a fire escape.

"Here!" I flagged Darren over. "We can tell him to run here."

Darren ran over, almost tripping over a pipe.

"If he does, then he'll be bringing a horde with him and we will probably need that for our own escape."

I sighed, exasperated. "Well, we can't just leave the kid to die."

"He's egging them on," Darren argued.

"You want to start working away at that guilt?" I asked. "Then start by helping people."

Apparently I turned into a philosopher when high.

Darren ran his tongue over his teeth. "Fine."

I ran back to the side of the building that the street was on and cupped my hands around my mouth.

"Hey! Kid with the stupid blue hair!" I yelled.

Darren raised a brow at my word choice. We watched the kid stop his tirade and look around, blue head whipping back and forth.

"On top of the college!" Darren piped in.

His head whipped up towards us and I waved my arms like I was front row at a concert.

"Head to the south side; there's a fire escape you can climb!"

He darted across the street taking out more infected with his loud handgun. We followed him around the building, watching to see if he made it. Once he reached the fire escape, he looked up.

"It's not all the way down!" he shouted.

I scanned the alley between the buildings.

"Push the trash bin closer," Darren instructed, his mind working quicker than mine at the moment.

"Are you kidding me? What about the pin-heads?"

It took me a couple of seconds to get who he was referring to. I started to laugh at his name for the infected. Darren rolled his eyes as I struggled to stop laughing.

"I thought you said you weren't the giggly type."

"I'm not, I swear!"

Darren turned back to the kid. "Maybe you shouldn't have run around yelling then, yeah?"

He flipped Darren the middle finger.

"Little shit," Darren muttered.

"Pffft," I tried to smother another round of laughing.

As the kid started to push the garbage bin towards the fire escape, I could hear the rusted wheels squeal from the rooftop. That also meant the infected could hear it. A bunch poured into the alleyway between buildings.

The kid let off a few bullets, not even making a dent. I stumbled back to the lounger I had been sitting in, trying to sober up with every inhale.

"What are you doing?" Darren asked as he followed me.

"Getting my Beretta," I said as I reached down and cocked the gun.

"Shooting while stoned isn't a good idea," Darren scolded.

"The kid's going to become a live happy meal if we don't do something!"

Darren blinked, and then started to laugh. Oh sure, now he started the giggling. I ran back over to the ledge to see the teen on top of the garbage bin reaching for the end of the fire escape. The infected were surrounding the bin, trying to reach him in the center with their grabbing hands.

I took some deep breaths trying to clear my head and even gave my cheek a slap. If my aim was off, I might accidently hit the blue haired teen. His legs were now flailing below as he clung to the bottom of the fire escape, enticing the infected even more like a squirming piñata. One of the infected managed to latch onto his leg and I heard him yell a slew of curse words that even made me cringe.

Using the ledge, I aimed for the offending infected. The thing's head blew back when I shot, its body sinking backwards, taking a few others down to the ground with it. The teen's head wiped up.

"Hey! You could have hit me you crazy bitch!"

"You're welcome asshole!" I yelled back down.

Instead of continuing this argument, the kid swung back and forth until he could get enough momentum to hook is legs onto the bottom rung. From there he was able to climb upright and scale the ladder until he hit the first floor escape. Taking the steps two at a time, he ran up the metal stairs while the infected swarmed below like a pool of enraged sharks denied their meal.

Darren and I helped the kid over the ledge and onto the roof. The teen practically collapsed, hunched over trying to catch his breath. Even when bent over I could see that the teen was tall and lanky. His electric blue hair was matted with sweat and dark circles bagged under his eyes. He looked like he hadn't gotten a good night's sleep, or a full meal, in months. He was pale, like me after a long Canadian winter, but who wouldn't be after all that.

"Holy," he took a deep lung full, "shit."

"Thanks kid, now you've trapped us as well," Darren said as if he was a father scolding their kid.

"Kid? What are you, fifty?" he arched a brown brow at Darren.

Darren bristled at his comment. The teen turned from Darren to me.

"Why hello there. What's your name?" he gave me a lopsided grin.

"Crazy bitch, remember?" I answered.

His grinned widened. "I was a little frazzled at the moment, didn't mean anything by it. Let's start over, I'm Colin, but I prefer Captain Awesome."

"Captain Douche would be more appropriate," Darren got his jab in there.

Colin ignored Darren and extended a sweaty palm my way. I looked down at it until he wiped his hand off on his shorts.

"I'm Bailey and the old guy here is Darren." I took his now dry outstretched hand with a laugh.

Darren muttered something, not unlike an old man, making me laugh harder.

"What's wrong with you two?" Colin sniffed the air. "You stoned? Care to share?"

"What are you, thirteen? No way in hell I'm giving pot to a kid." Darren crossed his arms for emphasis.

"Fifteen actually and who cares? It's the end of the world, we're all fucked."

"Is that why you were running down the street like you had a death wish?" I asked.

"More or less." His eyes drifted to my cleavage being showed off more than normal in the tight, V-neck shirt I borrowed. Lecherous teen boy.

I crossed my arms over my chest, covering my apparently enticing cleavage.

"Are you with others? Do you have a group somewhere?" Darren barraged Colin.

"I'm what you call a lone wolf," Colin said, his thin lips turning up into a grin. "Do you guys have a group? Or is it just you two?"

"Perhaps," Darren non-answered.

Colin narrowed his eyes. "What, you only ask questions, not answer them?"

The teen had quite a mouth on him, kind of reminded me of, well, me. Minus the blue hair of course, I never went through that phase.

"You want to come with us?" I blurted out and Darren shot me an enraged look.

"Uh," Colin hesitated, brushing his hand up and down the back of his neck.

"Well, sounds like you're not too interested. Can't say we didn't try," Darren said.

"We can't just leave him," I argued.

Darren grabbed my arm and dragged me off to the side out of Colin's earshot. I looked back to see him starring at his feet, rocking back and forth on his soles.

"Great, you trying to bring back a stray?" Darren whispered. Looks like I had picked up one of Ethan's bad habits- or good habits, depending on who you asked.

"You know, I thought that about you once," I pointed out. "Back when we met on the bus."

Darren let out a harsh breath.

"I can tell you don't like him, but he's just a teen. We can't just leave him to fend for himself," I said, stomping my foot for emphasis.

"What if he's lying about not having a group and some crazies come after us looking for him?" Darren countered.

"There's crazies inside Hargrove, so they got to get past them first. Do you think it's even safe to bring him back to?"

I wasn't sure if it was proper to disclose the murders to Colin or not. It seemed like something you would want to know before stepping inside. But I also didn't want him to say no, and then have to leave him out here by himself.

"Honestly I don't care about his safety, it's our group that I care about," Darren said gruffly.

"Awe, Darren," I cooed.

He glared at me, then turned to Colin. "Yes we have a group. You can come back with us, but be warned it's not some oasis in the desert."

"They should make pamphlets that say that," I laughed. "Not great, but it'll do." I waved my hand in the air in a wide arc.

"You guys really went hard on that pot, eh?" Colin smirked. "I still didn't agree to anything."

With a shrug, Darren returned to his lounger chair.

"How have you been surviving out here this long by yourself?" I asked.

"I'm fucking awesome?" Colin said more like a question.

"Yeah, I don't buy what you're selling," I said.

"Mind if we sit, I'm feeling a little tired from all that running." Colin pointed to the loungers we had been sitting on.

I motioned for him to go over and I followed him. Colin took off his backpack and plunked down on the ratty chair cushion, giving him one buffer seat between him and Darren.

He took a deep breath. "I've been keeping a low profile. Not staying in one area too long. The key is to always be on the move."

"What about food?"

"Scavenging grocery stores and convenience stores mostly."

"And you've been by yourself the whole time? What about your parents?"

"I was here for," Colin paused ever so briefly, "boarding school so my parents weren't with me when everything went down. I have no idea what happened to them."

I sat down on the chair in the middle. "Me too; well not the school part. I was only here for Mardi Gras. I'm actually Canadian."

Colin made a face. "Skin-walkers."

"What?" I asked confused.

"I knew this guy who used to call Canadian's skin-walkers because you get mistaken for Americans, until you say sorry, that is."

I laughed. "I probably shouldn't be laughing; I should be offended."

"Didn't your Canadian school ever tell you drugs were bad?" Colin grinned.

"You haven't had the week I've had, kid," I sighed.

"I know pot messes with your brain cells and all, but its Colin, remember?"

"Don't make me regret my offer," I chastised.

"Anyways, I'm not that bad off," Colin said, almost offended. "I met this guy at the hos- school and he still had braces. If he's still alive, he's stuck with them forever!"

"That is pretty shitty," I admitted.

Good thing I had mine over and done with in junior high.

"You never gave us an answer," Darren finally butted in.

"I'll think about it," Colin said with his nose in the air.

We decided to camp out on roof top since it was getting dark and hoped that the majority of the infected would wander off by morning. Colin told us about Krissy, his red Mustang that he essentially lived out of. It was official, even a fifteen-year-old kid had a better car than me. He said it was parked in a parking lot a few blocks away from the college. I asked him what he was doing at the college and he simply said, "I just wanted a chance to see what college was like. A lot less parties than I thought."

I liked the teen, but Darren treated him like a leaper for the rest of the night. The pot had left my system leaving behind a bone-deep tiredness. I tried to fight it, but eventually my heavy eyelids won as I laid on the lounger in between Darren and the new guy.