Chapter 12

I sleep for almost four whole hours. When I wake up, it's getting dark out, and I feel a little better about what happened earlier. I was stupid enough to make a mistake that almost cost me my life, and Tobe's, and I won't let it happen again. I can't afford to if I want to survive in this new world.

When I wake up, I stretch until my back cracks, and then head out into the living room. Reese, Ryder, and Tobe are all sitting at the dining room table with a deck of cards. They're playing poker and are using stale pretzels as money. Tobe smiles when she sees me. "Should we deal you in?"

I smile. "Sure, I haven't played poker in ages."

I take a seat across from Reese, and Tobe slides some cards towards me along with a pile of pretzels. I do a quick count. Twenty of them won't last me very long, so I play it as safe as possible. It takes me almost forty minutes to even out my pretzels with the others, and then I slowly pull