Chapter 3 - Day three. The math is getting harder.

By day three, Maya has developed a close personal relationship with the inventory spreadsheet in her head.

It has columns. It has projections. It has the grim emotional energy of a wedding seating plan prepared during a hostage situation.

"Breakfast," she says, placing two protein bars on the folding table like she's serving tiny beige steaks.

Dex looks at his. "Half?"

"Half."

"It's breakfast."

"It's apocalypse breakfast. Very exclusive. Terrible reviews."

He picks it up, frowning. "I'm hungry."

Maya almost laughs. Not because it's funny. Because if she doesn't laugh, something else might come out, and it has teeth.

They're both hungry. Hunger has become the third person in the room, sitting between them with its elbows on the table, breathing hot and sour into every conversation. Maya feels it behind her ribs. In her hands. In the new sharpness of her thoughts.

Dex eats his half in two bites. Then reaches for the wrapper, licks a smear of chocolate from the inside, and looks away like she hasn't seen him do it before.

She says nothing. That is becoming a skill.

Outside, the city has changed voices. The first day was sirens and screaming. The second was breaking glass, car alarms, distant gunshots. Now there's a quieter sound underneath everything. Shuffling. Waiting. The dead aren't fast. That's the one mercy. They gather where noise happens and stay there, patient as unpaid debt.

The community centre still holds. Mostly. The barricades are ugly but solid, a sculpture called Panic With Chairs.

At noon, Dex announces, "I'm going scouting."

Maya looks up from the last of the canned goods. Three tins of beans. Two soups. One fruit cocktail. A jar of peanut butter with a tragic amount left in the corners. Enough for two people for maybe four days if they're disciplined.

She knows what scouting means.

Not information gathering. Not reconnaissance. She knows it with the same part of her that understood the side door hinges would come loose; the quiet, practical part that has been awake since the world ended and is irritatingly competent about ruin.

Dex is going outside because the walls are pressing on him. Because hunger makes him restless. Because there are vending machines two blocks over and he thinks she didn't notice him looking at them yesterday.

She should say no. She should say, You are not good at quiet. She should say, Don't make me be the only adult here.

What comes out is, "Take the bat."

He smiles, relieved too quickly. "Yeah. Of course."

"Don't go farther than two blocks."

"Right."

"And if you hear anything, you come back."

"I know, Maya."

There it is. Her name as a complaint.

She nods like it doesn't land.

***

She spends the first hour working. Reinforces the back hallway with a broken table. Checks the bathroom windows. Fills every bottle, jug, and mop bucket with water from the taps because the pressure has started coughing, and water systems are staffed by exactly nobody now.

She finds a first-aid kit in a supply cupboard and nearly kisses it. Bandages. Antiseptic. Painkillers. A small miracle in a plastic box. She labels it mentally: DO NOT LET DEX "JUST CHECK" THIS.

Then she hates herself a little.

By the second hour, she is listening. Every sound outside becomes him dying. A scrape. A shout. A crash far off, followed by birds exploding from a rooftop like the sky has sneezed. She stands by the side door with the knife in her hand and tells herself she is only being prepared. Prepared is a good word. It wears sensible shoes. It sounds better than terrified.

By the third hour, she opens the food bag. Not to eat. To count.

Three tins. Two soups. One fruit cocktail. Peanut butter. Six protein bars, now five and a half, and one empty wrapper tucked badly beneath a stack of paper plates.

Maya picks it up. Smooths it flat between her fingers.

She imagines showing it to him. His face going hurt, then defensive, then sorry. Dex is very good at sorry. It arrives soft-eyed and sincere and completely unaccompanied by change.

She folds the wrapper once. Twice. Puts it in her pocket.

Evidence, says the mean part.

No, she tells herself. Memory.

***

The side door rattles just before dusk.

She lets him in. He stumbles through, flushed and sweating, empty-handed. No bag. No supplies. No miracle.

She bolts the door behind him.

"You're late," she says.

"I got cut off. Had to circle around." He bends over, hands on his knees. "Bad people."

His jacket is zipped. His mouth smells faintly sweet. Artificial strawberry, hiding beneath fear and sweat.

Vending machine. Of course.

She thinks: You left me here to guard our shelter while you ate candy in a dead city.

She says: "Okay."

Dex's shoulders drop with relief. He steps toward her, wanting comfort, forgiveness, maybe both gift-wrapped with a note saying don't worry, you're still good.

Maya gives him a smile. Small. Tired. Usable.

Inside, something marks a line.

Not an ending. Not yet.

Just a tally.

One.