Chapter 20 Rowans POV
889 Words
By afternoon the settlement has shifted into reinforcement mode.
Outer barricades get layered with scrap steel. The east watchtower adds a secondary ladder for faster rotation. Dad has three runners mapping wider perimeter arcs in case more variants are nesting in abandoned structures nearby.
Controlled response.
No panic.
That’s why we’re still alive.
I’m in the strategy room—an old shipping office we converted into command—when Nicole steps in.
Her hair is still damp from washing, white strands darker where they haven’t fully dried. She’s swapped into a clean jacket but the small cut along her forearm is freshly wrapped.
“You should’ve let Mara stitch that,” I say without looking up from the map.
“It doesn’t need stitches.”
“That’s not the point.”
She leans against the table, arms folding.
“You’re hovering.”
I glance at her.
“I’m assessing.”
“Uh-huh.”
There’s the faintest edge of amusement in her voice.
I refocus on the map spread across the table. We’ve marked the tunnel collapse site in red. I add a wider circle around it.
“If that one established territory,” I say, “others will too. Rail lines. Industrial zones. Anywhere defensible.”
Nicole nods. “High ground or narrow entries.”
“Exactly.”
She steps closer, studying the terrain markers.
“We should scout north of the quarry,” she says. “Old water treatment plant. Lots of concrete corridors.”
I look at her.
“You’re thinking nesting.”
“I’m thinking command nodes.”
The word sits heavy in the room.
Command.
Dad walks in halfway through that sentence.
“Command nodes?” he repeats.
Nicole doesn’t backtrack.
“If they’re evolving structurally, they won’t spread randomly. They’ll anchor. Defend. Expand.”
Dad studies the map silently.
“And you think we hit one last night.”
“Yes,” she and I answer at the same time.
He exhales slowly.
“Then we adapt faster than they do.”
That’s the rule.
Always has been.
Dad leaves to coordinate scouting rotations, and the room quiets again.
Nicole stays where she is.
“You don’t like it,” she says.
“Like what?”
“That we killed it.”
I meet her gaze.
“I don’t like that it existed.”
She nods slightly.
“It looked at you,” I add before I can stop myself.
Her expression shifts just barely.
“I noticed.”
“It wasn’t mindless.”
“No.”
Silence stretches.
There’s something different in the air now.
Not tension.
Awareness.
“We’ll see more,” she says finally.
“Yes.”
“And next time they might be faster.”
“Or smarter.”
She steps around the table, stopping directly across from me.
“Then we get smarter first.”
There’s no fear in her voice.
Just resolve.
It hits me then—what unsettles me isn’t that she stepped into the open last night.
It’s that she’d do it again if the math made sense.
And I would let her.
Because she’s right.
Because she calculates risk as well as I do.
Because she’s not reckless.
She’s precise.
“You could stay,” I say quietly.
She tilts her head slightly. “Stay?”
“Inside the walls more. Train others. Build defense protocols. You don’t have to be first through every breach.”
Her icy blue eyes sharpen.
“You asking me to step back?”
“I’m asking if you’d consider it.”
“Why?”
There it is.
The question under the question.
I hold her gaze.
“Because assets that rare shouldn’t be risked unnecessarily.”
One brow lifts slightly.
“Asset.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
A faint smirk touches her mouth.
“I know.”
But she doesn’t look away.
“I didn’t survive seven years to sit behind walls,” she says evenly. “I survived because I move toward threats before they grow.”
I know.
That’s exactly why she’s still here.
“And you?” she asks.
“I don’t send people where I won’t go.”
“So we’re even.”
Something about that settles in my chest.
Equal footing.
No hierarchy between us in the field.
Just capability.
Outside, a horn sounds twice—scout team returning.
Nicole steps back from the table.
“Looks like we’ll find out soon enough if there’s more,” she says.
As she turns to leave, I stop her.
“Nicole.”
She pauses.
“If there is another one,” I say, “we adjust formation. No solo draws.”
Her eyes study me carefully.
“That wasn’t solo. You were covering.”
“You know what I mean.”
A beat passes.
Then she nods once.
“Fine. We adapt.”
That’s the closest either of us gets to compromise.
She exits the room.
I stand there a moment longer, staring at the red circle on the map.
Last night proved something dangerous.
They can evolve.
But so can we.
And as I step outside to meet the returning scouts, I realize something else.
The settlement isn’t just stronger after that fight.
So are we.
Whatever is coming next—
It won’t find us unprepared.
And it won’t find her alone.
- Writer
