Ch. 62

They took turns at the tiller, hugging the black curve of river, silent except for the blare of the battered prop, the coughs and grumbles of the patched-up engine. Even after the cans of hard-diesel ran low, Morgan stretched the run by bleeding motor oil into the tank, a technique she claimed to have learned from her dead brother or possibly, she admitted, from a spammed apocalypse forum. Wyn slept on, cheek pressed to the deck, drooling and dreaming under his battered goggles.

By the time the city’s towers shrank into memory, Lyra had stopped shivering and started picking at the slough of blood under her bandage. A burst of fever spots colored one cheek, but her eyes were sharp and feral in the cold. She kicked Xander awake at the first hint of sunrise, biting off her own pain in the act.

They passed under two collapsed bridges, their bones hanging into the water like the ribs of some extinct leviathan. At the third, they had to portage, dragging the boat across slush and gravel while the sun glared off the ice. Every step ached. Carolina’s hands were a patchwork of bruises, but she refused to let Xander take her end, even when she saw him watching her limp.

On the other side, Morgan scouted ahead, vanishing into a hoarfrosted thicket and returning with a thermos of pilfered coffee and a smile she rationed only for mornings after disaster. “Two hours out,” she said, slamming the tin down on the gunwale. “No signs. No tails. You’re welcome.”

Xander offered a rare grin, and Wyn, finally stirring, blinked at the rising sun and said, “Shit, you got us out.”

“In your honor,” Carolina said, giving Lyra’s shoulder a squeeze. “First mate gets to pick the breakfast.”

They had eggless ramen, scrounged from the stash under the floorboards, and split a can of peaches. When it was gone, they sat in the boat’s belly, each balancing the sick thrill of not knowing what would happen next.

In the open stretches, the cold was aggressive. It stripped the flesh from your hopes, made you want to sleep forever. But Carolina had made a promise: to herself, to the crew, to whatever battered pulse she was still able to find in each new morning. She forced herself to look up, past the river’s mutilated banks, to the swathe of color that built and bled and brightened the sky.

She remembered Xander’s voice from last night, blunt and certain: We lose ourselves if we don’t hold on.

She reached for his hand now, lacing fingers together until the ache in her chest started to feel less like fear and more like future.

They drifted for hours, letting the world catch up to their stolen time. Sometimes Lyra sang, sometimes Wyn recited bad poetry, sometimes even Morgan joined in, her voice so clear and metallic that Carolina wondered if she’d been a singer once, before all the noise and blood and ruin.

By dusk, they spotted the checkpoint: three houseboats lashed together, rotting flags tangled from their decks, sentries prowling the top decks in mismatched winter gear. This was where the rumors promised refuge. Or a bullet, depending on which syndicate controlled the gate this week.

Morgan cut the motor and let the boat glide the last hundred yards. “I’ll talk,” she said. “They remember me, from last spring.” She rolled her sleeve to show a faded tattoo, a signet ring burned into her bicep. “Scrip gets us in. Don’t act desperate.”

Wyn snorted. “If desperation had a smell, it’d be us.”

“I’m counting on it,” Morgan said, and vaulted to the dock before any of them could say goodbye.

Carolina watched her go, small and straight-backed, heels crunching the rime. On the far deck, two guards in surplus helmets lowered their rifles but didn’t aim. There was a shout. An exchange of hands. It seemed for a moment that Morgan had miscalculated, that it was about to go bad in the dumbest, simplest way. Carolina tensed, ready to throw herself between the bullet and her people, even as she knew how dumb and final that would be.

But then Morgan laughed—sharp and bright—and the guards laughed with her. There was a transaction, then a salute. One of the sentries waved them in, still smiling.

“You see?” Wyn whispered. “We always look worse than we are.”

Carolina guided the boat into the slip, Xander and Lyra hunkered low. The sun dropped, helixing the sky in ribbons of blue and pink. She wondered when she’d last seen color that wasn’t smeared with violence or panic, when she’d last cared enough.

They disembarked together, a hunched, sodden blur of found family, and crossed the code-taped dock. Inside the central houseboat, the air was a fug of soup, old sweat, and the citrus-bite of disinfectant. Bunks lined the walls, and people watched them with a wariness she recognized: the reluctance to invest, to care, in anything that might vanish tomorrow.

Morgan met them just inside the door. Her tattoo looked raw, re-inked, as she flashed it to a young girl tending a hanging lamp. “They got food. They got warmth,” Morgan whispered. “No one’s after us, for now.”

Wyn sagged against the wall, making a show of it. Xander let Carolina lean into him, and this time, she did. Lyra collapsed to the floor, pressing her forehead to her knees and breathing through the pain.

They were given blankets and two cans of stew, a currency rarer than gold. Carolina ate hers slow, let the fat and acid coat her throat. For the first time in weeks, she felt the edges of her hunger dull.

Hours later, she found herself on the houseboat’s top deck, the city long behind them, the sky an ink-wash of speckled stars. Morgan stood with her, the bottle from the other night half-empty between them. The river whispered under the hull.

Carolina shook her head. “I don’t know if I want it to get better,” she said softly. “If it did…I wouldn’t know what to do with myself.”

Morgan laughed, and her teeth flashed white in the dark. “You’d live. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

Below, Xander slept in a tangle with Lyra and Wyn, safe for now, haunted only by whatever dreams they could afford.

Carolina let herself lean back, close her eyes, and drift. The river, too, kept moving, ferrying them forward, even if they weren’t ready for what waited at the next bend.

She could stay here. Maybe for more than just a little while.

She could stay.