Alexei snagged a small military backpack off a nail on the shack wall and opened it.

Inside there were bracelets with numbers stamped in metal, a punch, and a cheap hammer.

He went still for two seconds and then closed the bag again, single-fingered like it smelled bad and to touch it any more than strictly necessary would contaminate him in some way. He hung it back on the nail and walled it off in his head with a pin in it for later.

"We’ll need to expect pens," he murmured, almost to himself. "And not the kind to write with."

Elias heard that anyway. "We free those first."

"We free ours first," Zubair cut in. His voice wasn’t harsh, just a correction from a man who kept priorities in a simple list.

Sera cut the tension in half with a flick of her wrist. Her space responded the way a good dog did—a small cooler dropped into her palm from thin air, and a smile appeared on her face.

She tossed it to Lachlan who caught it without a thought. "Water, energy drinks, Gatorade. Pick your poison."

He caught it, popped the lid, and whistled. "You’re everyone’s favorite miracle."

"I can’t reproduce it, so once it’s gone, it’s gone," she advised, and he grinned even more.

They moved for the trucks, Lachlan handing out drinks like they were candy at Halloween.

Alexei carried the ledger under his shirt like a heart transplant and didn’t adjust his stride.

He climbed into the passenger seat of the second truck and unfolded the map in his lap.

Small print, smaller roads. The river they had just crossed looked like a dark vein. Xs marked bridges above and below. Some had names—short, ugly ones. Some didn’t.

He took the pencil that came with the map and started a new layer of information above the old.

He made arrows for plausible ambush points. Circles around fuel caches they had just stolen from men who would want them back. A triangle where a settlement might live, given the pattern of incoming "tolls" marked as grain, hides, water jugs.

The ledger had turned men and food into something more tangible... and the numbers weren’t looking good.

Sera climbed into the lead truck and leaned forward into the cab space to touch Luci’s ear.

The dire wolf closed his eyes and leaned as much of his whole head into her palm like praise was the only oxygen that mattered to him.

Zubair watched her in the windshield reflection and let some unnamed tightness let go between his shoulder blades.

Elias tapped the mirror with two fingers. "Move on one."

"On one," Zubair echoed, and rolled the engine into a low growl that promised forward.

The bridge behind them still burned, but Anselmo didn’t chase.

Apparently, he had more sense than that.

He stood on the far lip of smoke and watched them go with that thin almost-smile and the kind of restraint that meant that this wasn’t over by any stretch of the imagination.

The road ahead kinked left into a stand of scrub trees with trunks like knuckles. Beyond, fields surrendered to weeds. Every so often, in the distance, a farmhouse slumped under its own roof, the skeletons of cars dotted along both the road and fields.

There was no blood or bodies along the route, but that didn’t mean that the stench of death wasn’t always around them.

Alexei marked a point on the map where a smaller road cut south and east toward the big river’s bend. "Left in a mile," he reported. "Then we find a shadow to park in and reconsider our sins."

Lachlan stuck his head out the window and let wind slap his face. "I feel cleansed already."

"Not even close," Alexei returned, but his mouth softened at the edge because victory never got old and this one had tasted right.

Elias checked the side mirror, then the rear.

There was no dust trail behind them that wasn’t theirs. No one was following them.

He relaxed that half inch he allowed himself and ran inventory out loud the way he did when order was the only thing keeping him sane. "Rifle rounds: six spare mags each. Pistols: three each. Shotgun shells: one bandolier, mixed. Tools: good. Fuel: better. Food: thanks to magic, fine."

"Magic tastes like bear," Lachlan announced to the open air.

"Magic tastes like candy and energy drinks," Sera corrected, her voice amused.

Zubair pushed the truck into the kink and let the tires find a smoother line through broken asphalt like the vehicle and his hands had traded secrets. The heat around him went from simmer to nothing; only Sera noticed the absence and only because the air near her skin told her the difference.

Alexei put the map on the dash, weighted it with two empty magazines, and pulled the ledger out again.

He flipped to the back and ran a thumb down the list of names under GEN. They weren’t men. Instead, it looked like places, bridges, roads, and farms.

The General had a good appetite, and it seemed like he was able to maintain control of a lot of balls.

He closed the book and looked out at the road and the world that had decided not to die as long as something else kept food and fear moving.

"We’re not done here," he offered, voice quiet enough he might have been talking only to himself.

Elias didn’t look around. "We’re never done. Not when a threat is still breathing down our necks."

Sera stretched her legs out along the bench and let Luci put his head on her knee. The creature under her ribs hummed like a cat who owned the house. For once, she didn’t argue with it.

They continued to drive south. The river fell away behind them like it had ever existed. Like the war and death that just happened was nothing more than a dream.

Smoke from the fires thinned, then vanished. The world opened up a little—just enough to breathe, just enough to make room for the next fight.

The radio crackled one more time, a voice far away asking for a man who wouldn’t answer anymore. Alexei reached over, turned the volume down to a whisper, and let it talk to itself.

"Left," he reminded Zubair, tapping the map.

Zubair turned the wheel without a word.

They took the ghost road and left the bridge to burn out behind them. The ledger rode under Alexei’s ribs like a second heart. GEN stamped every other page like a dare.

No one argued with the dare.

They would answer it when the time came.