By lunch, I was starting to think the radios were making Chenghai worse.

Not medically worse. Probably. I didn’t know enough about radio poisoning to say for sure. But he had gone from quietly intense to sitting at the dining room table like the static was whispering state secrets directly into his brain.

Of course, Zhenlan wasn’t helping either.

He stood beside the map with his arms crossed over his chest while Chenghai marked another road in black pen. More lines had been crossed out since the day before. Some had circles around them. Others had little symbols that meant absolutely nothing to me, which was fine because I had not asked to become emotionally involved with cartography.

I stood in the kitchen doorway eating a cookie and watching the two of them ruin the mood.

Yuche was making lunch because apparently Chenghai had forgotten that food was supposed to be edible and warm. Lingyun sat on the counter beside him, stealing pieces of sliced meat whenever Yuche looked away.

The baby vine was wrapped around my wrist, its tiny head following each stolen piece with the kind of judgment I normally reserved for people who thought raisins belonged in cookies.

One of the radios crackled.

"...Rongdu Central requesting engineering support. Root systems have compromised the lower drainage tunnels. Repeat, lower tunnels are no longer stable..."

Static swallowed the rest.

Chenghai wrote it down.

Of course he did.

I took another bite of cookie. "Are you planning on writing a book?"

"No."

"Then why do we need all that?"

"Information matters."

"That sounds like something someone says right before asking me to do work."

Chenghai finally looked up. There were dark shadows under his eyes, and I was pretty sure he hadn’t blinked since yesterday. "We need a supply run."

"No."

The word came out before he even finished breathing.

He stared at me.

I stared back.

There. Conversation finished. Very productive.

Zhenlan’s mouth tightened. "You didn’t even ask what we need."

"I don’t care what we need."

"That is shortsighted."

"That is peaceful."

Lingyun made a small choking sound from the counter and pretended to cough into his coffee. Yuche didn’t laugh, but his shoulder moved once like he wanted to.

Chenghai set his pen down slowly. "Fuel. Spare parts. Medical supplies. Ammunition. Wiring. Replacement tools. Batteries if we can find any. We don’t know how long the systems will hold, and we shouldn’t assume everything here can be repaired indefinitely."

"We have solar panels."

"We also have generators."

"Turn them off."

"We need backup systems."

"For what? So you can listen to strangers scream on seven different channels at once?"

His jaw flexed once.

Huh.

That probably meant I was right.

Another radio hissed to life before he could answer.

"...western industrial route blocked by unidentified growth. Convoy Three has been rerouted through Rongdu South..."

A second voice cut in, sharper and more panicked.

"Do not send them south. Repeat, do not send them south. Fire teams reported pollen ignition along—"

Static.

Silence.

Chenghai wrote faster this time.

I pointed my cookie at the radio. "See? This is why I don’t like listening to people. They are noisy and depressing."

"They are warning each other," Zhenlan replied.

"They are panicking at each other. There’s a difference."

"They are trying to survive."

"So are we. Inside. Where the snacks live."

Yuche finally turned around from the counter with a plate in his hand. "She has a point." 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

Zhenlan’s eyes moved to him.

Not just looking.

Measuring.

I didn’t like it.

Yuche didn’t seem bothered. He put the plate down in front of me and stole half my cookie before I could stop him.

I gasped. "Rude."

"You were waving it around like a weapon."

"It was still mine."

"You have more."

"That isn’t the point."

Lingyun leaned over and stole a slice of meat off the plate Yuche had just made me. The baby vine shot forward and snapped near his fingers, missing on purpose.

Mostly.

Lingyun grinned. "Your plant child is getting possessive."

"It has good instincts."

"Unlike some people," Yuche said mildly, glancing toward Chenghai’s abandoned can of cold beans sitting near the map.

The air tightened again.

Not enough that anyone else might have called it a problem. But I felt it. The room had started doing that more often. Tightening. Pausing. Waiting for someone to say the wrong thing.

I hated it.

I liked my house warm, fed, and mildly chaotic. I did not like whatever this was.

For a moment, I wondered if a cast-iron pan to the back of Zhenlan and Chenghai’s head might reset them to factory setting.

Probably not. With my luck it would have just made them crankier.

Chenghai stood slowly from the table. "This isn’t about comfort."

I picked up the plate and walked toward the couch. "That is exactly where you’re wrong."

He followed me with his eyes. "Comfort doesn’t keep people alive."

"It does if discomfort makes people stupid."

"Safe places fall."

I stopped walking.

That one landed differently.

Not because it scared me.

Because it sounded rehearsed.

Not like something he believed. Like something carved into him.

I turned around slowly and looked at him over my shoulder. "Safe places fall when too many people think they know better than the people in charge."

No one spoke.

Good.

Maybe they were learning.

"The second people know we exist, they will think they deserve a piece of what is ours," I continued, my voice flat enough that even Lingyun stopped stealing food. "Food. Power. Beds. Medicine. Internet. Doesn’t matter what it is. If they don’t have it and we do, they’ll tell themselves needing it makes it theirs. Or have you not figured that out yet? I knew you were a slow learner, but this is ridiculous."

Chenghai’s face didn’t change.

That was worse than if he had gotten angry.

Zhenlan watched me from beside the map, too still, too quiet, too much like a man waiting for a blade to drop.

Whatever. Let him wait.

I went to the couch and sat down with my plate.

The baby vine crawled off my wrist and curled beside my thigh, still facing the dining room like it had decided the table was now suspicious. Smart baby.

Yuche carried another plate over and set it on the coffee table before sitting on the arm of the sectional near me. Lingyun followed with his coffee and dropped onto the floor with his back against the couch like none of us had just been discussing whether or not humanity deserved access to my pantry.

Chenghai didn’t move.

"The run would not be about helping people," he said after a long moment. "It would be for us."

I paused with a piece of food halfway to my mouth.

That was annoying.

Mostly because it was the first thing he had said that wasn’t completely stupid.

Then again, he didn’t know how much stuff I had stored away in my space, and after all this? I was glad that I hadn’t told them about it yet.

"For us," he repeated. "Fuel, repair parts, medicine, things that will get harder to find later. If the roads are closing, then waiting makes the risk worse, not better."

The radios crackled again before I could tell him exactly how much I hated when people used logic against me.

"...Rongdu East Shelter requesting confirmation from Central Command. We have civilians at the gate claiming vegetation breached the lower service entrance..."

Another voice answered.

"Hold position. Do not open exterior gates."

A pause.

Then, quieter.

"They’re already inside."

Static cut the channel dead.

Nobody moved.

Outside, something rustled against the glass. A wide green leaf slid slowly across the window like the jungle was politely reminding us it was still there.

I chewed slowly.

Swallowed.

Then looked at Chenghai.

"Fine," I said, letting out a sigh. I wasn’t going to get any peace until Chenghai got whatever was bugging him out of his system. "One run."

Zhenlan’s eyes sharpened and Chenghai straightened slightly.

"One," I repeated, pointing at both of them. "And I pick where we go. We are not rescuing people, we are not answering radios, we are not joining anyone, and if either of you starts acting like we need uniforms and a marching song, I’m going home without you."

Lingyun lifted one hand from the floor. "Do we get snacks for the road?"

"Yes."

He nodded. "I support this mission."

Yuche looked down at me. "You’re actually agreeing?"

"No," I replied, picking up another bite from my plate. "I’m supervising bad decisions before they get worse."

Chenghai looked like he wanted to argue.

Good thing for him, he didn’t.

The radio hissed softly behind him, another voice trying to break through the static.

"...all units near Rongdu South, be advised..."

The transmission dissolved into white noise.

I turned back toward the television.

"One run," I muttered again. "And if I miss a new episode because of this, I’m blaming all of you."