Ch. 44

It was raining at the perimeter, where the dead rails met the tangled scrub and the wolves marked their shifting claim with tooth and ink. Carolina had never liked the border patrols, but as self-appointed alpha of a pack that wouldn’t admit to hierarchy, she had to, on occasion, suit up and look the part. She slopped through the ankle-deep slurry, poncho sticking to bare arms, and rehearsed the speech she’d give to the morning work crew about the necessity of using latrines when they were provided. Good habits for a new world.

She found Lyra at the checkpoint, propped on a cinderblock, head bowed against the drizzle. Her hair was mud-streaked, and her hands fiddled endlessly with the broken-tab lighter she’d been carrying since forever. The night shift’s smuggled bacon still hung faintly on the air.

The pair of them could have passed for sisters, if you didn’t know their history: same fatalistic eyebrows, same impatience with comfort. Lyra flicked the lighter in a steady rhythm as Carolina squelched up. “If the rain keeps up, it’ll wash out the bridge,” she said by way of greeting. “Then we’re stuck.”

Carolina smirked. “We’re always stuck.”

“Not like this.” Lyra’s teeth flashed in a grin, then vanished. “Briony says you’re letting the stranger stay.”

“She brings something we need,” Carolina said. “You disagree, you can call council. If you think you can outvote me.”

Lyra’s fingers stopped. “No one wants the old way anymore, Lina. They just want not to die.”

A silence stretched between them: the spool and grind of so many memories.

“She wants to call a meeting,” Lyra said. “Old-fashioned. You coming?”

Carolina pretended to consider. “If there’s coffee.”

“There’s something.” Lyra stood, wiped her hands on her pants. “You know, you’re not as scary as you think.”

Carolina drew herself a little taller, chin up. “Want me to bite you?”

“Does it count if you already did?” Lyra fired back, voice like a dare, and for a moment the world retreated to the two of them, the place where loyalty outran fear.

They headed back toward the gym, where the work crew had cleared most of the detritus and made space for the growing pack. Briony was already inside, setting up benches, arms folded, watching the door like it owed her money. Riss lurked in a far corner, face obscured by the battered parka, flipping pages in an engineering manual.

As the pack filtered in—maybe forty, maybe fifty, it changed day to day—Briony clapped her hands. “Council. Sit down or fuck off.”

There was assembly, shuffling, the nervous laughter of a school caught misbehaving. Someone wheeled in a drum of cider, a peace offering or bribe.

Briony waited until the room’s noise simmered down, then said, “We’ve got a vote. Do we take in the newcomers? Riss and her lot.”

A sullen kid named Fen, head shaved except for a line of code tattooed above the ear, called out, “They’re engineers. They’ll take over.”

Briony rolled her eyes. “So will anyone with more IQ than shoe size. This isn’t a monarchy.” She glanced at Carolina, daring her to disagree.

Carolina pushed to her feet. “You know the rules. If we don’t grow, we die. If you want to keep the food running, we need people who can fix shit. This isn’t a sideshow, it’s survival.”

A murmur rippled—some agreement, some dissent. Lyra, sitting next to Riss, raised an eyebrow and kept silent, as if to say, your move.

There was the ritual of proposals, counterproposals. A few wanted to vote Riss out, on principle. But in the end, they voted, and in the end, Riss was in.

Afterward, Carolina watched the new girl navigate the crush of bodies, watched her claim a patch of floor by the far window. Saw the way she watched the collective the way a biologist might watch a nest of ants, with fascination and the tiniest spark of hunger.

Lyra sidled up, hip to hip, and whispered: “She’ll challenge you.”

Carolina didn’t flinch. “I know. I’d respect her less if she didn’t.”

“You miss it? The before-times?”

Carolina shook her head. “I remember all of it, but I don’t miss it.” She exhaled. “Once, I was sure I’d only ever want you.” She didn’t know what compelled her to confess, but the words hung between them, trembling and true.

Lyra pressed her shoulder, careful. “It’s not a bad thing. Wanting something else, too.”

Maybe Lyra was right, and Carolina—who’d survived the end of everything and grown from it—could learn to want more. To want better, even for herself.

She lingered in that moment, letting it settle and set. She watched Briony make a joke, watched the children scamper for handouts, watched Riss’s eyes flick back and forth across the room, calculating, promising.

The world wouldn’t stop breaking. But maybe, if she worked at it, Carolina could keep piecing it together.

*

Later, after the meeting, once the crowd had dissipated, Lyra found her in the hall where the roof had caved. The moon glimmered through the ragged gap. Lyra pressed close, her skin pulse-hot, mouth brushing Carolina’s ear as she said, “You’re doing all right, you know.”

Carolina let the words wash over her, hungry for their salt and simplicity. “Might even do better tomorrow,” she replied.

With nothing but the ruins and the rain, they held each other against the cold, building a world out of what was left, out of what wanted to live.