Chapter 13 Rowans POV
1059 Words
Dinner is quieter than usual.
Not silent—but measured.
Conversations stay low. Laughter is softer. Everyone heard the howls. Everyone felt the shift.
Long wooden tables fill the center of the warehouse floor. Lanterns hang from rafters, casting warm light that almost makes this place feel like the world didn’t end seven years ago.
Almost.
I grab a tin plate—beans, dried venison, a slice of cornbread we managed from the last harvest—and scan the room.
She’s sitting alone near one of the support beams.
Of course she is.
Bandanna down now, resting around her neck. First time I’ve seen her full face in clear light. Strong jaw. Scar along her collarbone disappearing under her shirt. Eyes that don’t idle—they track exits, windows, hands.
Nicole.
That’s what Dad told me her real name was after she agreed to the strike tomorrow.
Nicole.
Death feels like armor.
Nicole feels human.
I take my plate and sit across from her without asking.
She looks up briefly. Measures. Doesn’t object.
“You always sit alone?” I ask.
“Usually.”
“You don’t have to here.”
A small shrug. “Habit.”
Fair.
We eat in silence for a minute. She doesn’t shovel food like someone starved. Controlled bites. Efficient.
“You grew this?” she asks, nodding toward the cornbread.
“South plot,” I confirm. “Took two seasons to get the soil right.”
“It’s good.”
That’s high praise coming from her.
I lean back slightly. “You’ve been on the road seven years?”
“Yes and two years in change alone.”
“So you were with someone before.”
A pause.
“My dad.”
The way she says it tells me enough.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
She nods once. Not dismissing it. Not inviting more.
“He was military?” I ask.
“Former. Taught me early.” She taps the hilt of her katana lightly. “Situational awareness. Movement discipline. Trust instincts.”
“Trust no one,” I guess.
Her eyes flick up sharply.
“Yes.”
I give a faint smile. “My dad says something similar. ‘Trust slowly.’”
“That’s how you get hurt,” she replies.
“That’s also how you build something that lasts.”
She studies me for a long second, like she’s weighing whether I actually believe that.
“You always live behind walls?” she asks.
“No.”
I take a slow breath.
“First year was chaos. We moved constantly. Lost half our original group in winter. Raiders took my mother three years in.”
Her gaze sharpens—not pity. Recognition.
“Infection,” I continue. “We couldn’t treat it.”
She nods once.
Loss is a language we both speak fluently.
“So you built this,” she says.
“My dad laid foundation. I fortified it.”
“You sound proud.”
“I am.”
No hesitation.
She looks around the warehouse—at the kids laughing quietly over a shared bowl, at Mara teasing Jensen across the table, at the guards rotating shifts even while eating.
“You think it’ll hold?” she asks.
“Against walkers?”
“Against what’s coming.”
There it is.
I don’t answer immediately.
“I think walls aren’t what hold,” I say finally. “People do.”
“That intact one today,” she says quietly. “It wasn’t mindless.”
“I know.”
“You kill it, they destabilize.”
“That’s the plan.”
“And if there’s more than one?”
I meet her eyes.
“Then we adapt again.”
She leans back slightly, studying my face the way she studies terrain.
“You don’t scare easy either,” she says.
“I do,” I reply calmly. “I just don’t let it steer.”
That earns the faintest smirk.
Around us, someone starts telling an old pre-fall story about concerts and traffic jams. A few people laugh. The sound echoes off metal walls.
Nicole’s gaze drifts toward the kids again.
“You ever think about leaving?” she asks suddenly.
“No.”
“Not even when it gets hard?”
“That’s when staying matters most.”
She’s quiet for a while after that.
I decide to push once.
“Why north?” I ask. “Why keep heading this way?”
Her fingers tighten slightly around her fork.
“There was a bunker,” she says. “Supposed to be safe. That’s where we were going before my dad died.”
“And now?”
“I don’t know if it’s real anymore.”
I nod slowly.
“Maybe it was never about the bunker,” I say.
Her eyes lift.
“Maybe it was about having a direction.”
That lands.
Because I see it in her—the drift. The forward motion without anchor.
“You found one here?” she asks.
“Yeah.”
Silence stretches again—but not uncomfortable this time.
More contemplative.
A horn sounds once outside.
Routine rotation.
We both glance toward it automatically.
Then back to each other.
“Tomorrow,” she says quietly, “if it goes bad—”
“It won’t,” I interrupt calmly.
She raises an eyebrow.
“If it does,” she continues, “you prioritize collapse of the tunnel. Don’t try to pull me out.”
I hold her gaze.
“That’s not how I operate.”
“That’s how you lose leaders,” she counters.
“I’m not dying tomorrow,” I say evenly. “And neither are you.”
Confidence isn’t bravado.
It’s commitment.
She studies me again, longer this time.
“You believe that.”
“Yes.”
Another small silence.
Then, almost grudgingly—
“Good.”
The lantern light flickers across her face.
For a moment, she doesn’t look like Death.
She looks like someone who’s been alone too long and isn’t sure what to do with the option not to be.
Across the room, my dad catches my eye briefly.
He doesn’t smile.
But he nods.
Tomorrow we hunt something evolving.
Tonight—
We eat.
And for the first time since the howls started,
The drums outside don’t feel like the only rhythm in the dark.
- Writer
