Chapter 7 - The other woman.

Following someone you love should feel romantic.

Soft footsteps. Wind in the trees. The quiet certainty that you are moving toward something.

Maya follows Dex across three streets and an empty car park and discovers that what it actually feels like is surveillance with better lighting and worse outcomes.

He doesn’t notice her.

That part is almost impressive.

He moves the way he always does now when he leaves now: purposeful without being careful, like the world is dangerous in theory but not in a way that applies directly to him.

Maya keeps her distance.

Not hiding, exactly. Just… placing herself where she isn’t expected. Behind a burnt-out sedan. Inside the shadow of a collapsed awning. Pausing when he pauses, moving when he moves.

She is good at this.

That lands quietly. Not pride. Not relief. Just a fact she adds to the growing list of things she did not know about herself before everything broke.

He heads toward Riley’s. Of course he does.

The sign is half-hanging now, one side torn loose so the smiling burger tilts like it’s reconsidering its life choices. The front shutters are up just enough to suggest selective access. Not open. Not closed. Curated.

Maya stays across the street.

There are people here. Five, maybe six. Spread out. Watching each other without looking like they’re watching each other. Strangers who have agreed not to be a problem as long as nobody else is first.

Dex approaches like he belongs.

That’s new.

Maya watches his shoulders drop a fraction as he gets closer, tension bleeding out of him in a way she hasn’t seen in days.

He knocks. Not their pattern. A different one.

The shutter lifts just enough to let him in. Maya counts. Four seconds.

She waits.

There’s no version of this where she turns around now. Curiosity is not the word for it. Neither is suspicion. Those are earlier-stage emotions. Softer ones.

This is confirmation. This is following a line to its end because leaving it unfinished would be worse.

The door opens a few minutes later. Dex steps out. He’s laughing.

Maya stills. The sound is quiet, but it carries. Not loud, not forced. Just… easy. She hasn’t heard that in days. Weeks, maybe. Time is unreliable, but absence isn’t.

He turns back, says something over his shoulder.

And then she sees her.

Cara? The one with the love heart and kisses?

Mid-thirties, maybe. Dark hair pulled back. A bandage wrapped cleanly around her forearm. Cleanly being the operative word. Not improvised. Not desperate.

Intentional.

She looks at Dex the way people look at something they’ve already decided to keep. Not clinging. Not unsure. Certain.

Maya watches Dex hand her something. A bar. One of theirs.

He says something. Cara laughs, softer than his, but real, and reaches out to touch his wrist. Small. Familiar.

Maya feels it land in her own body like an echo that doesn’t belong to her anymore.

Emotional truth: this is exactly what she expected.

Deflection: excellent. Love triangle unlocked. Do we get experience points or just emotional damage?

Sharper truth: she is watching him be someone else’s version of him, and it fits.

That’s the part she didn’t prepare for. Not the lying. Not the missing supplies. Not even the existence of another person.

The fit.

He stands differently here. Looser. Less… managed.

With Maya, there has always been a shape. Subtle. Unspoken. The shape of her competence filling in the gaps of his uncertainty. The shape of her decisions becoming their decisions. The shape of her carrying what needed to be carried.

Here, there is no gap. Cara doesn’t look like she needs filling in. She looks like she would simply walk away from anything that required it.

Maya watches them share the bar.

Dex breaks it in half. Hands her the larger piece.

She notes that. Of course she does.

They lean closer, their space overlapping in that easy, unconscious way that says we have already negotiated this without words. No urgency between them. No panic. No clinging. Just agreement.

Maya waits for anger. For heat. For something loud and immediate she can point to and say there, that's the problem, I can work with that.

Nothing comes.

What arrives instead is quieter. Colder. Like a room after the power has gone out and you’re only just noticing how fast the temperature is dropping.

She considers stepping out. Walking across the street. Saying his name. Watching his face rearrange itself around the truth.

She imagines the confusion first. Then the apology. Then the explanation that somehow makes her responsible for understanding.

She lets the moment pass. Not because she’s afraid. Because it’s unnecessary. You don’t interrogate a solved equation.

She steps back. One pace. Then another. Turns. Walks away.

No rush. No drama. Just movement.

The city is quieter here.

Not safe. Not empty. Just resigned.

Emotional truth: she is alone.

Deflection: fantastic. Less laundry.

Sharper truth: she has been alone for longer than she admitted.

By the time she reaches the warehouse, the sky is starting to darken. She lets herself in. Closes the door. Secures it. Everything exactly as she left it.

Maya stands in the middle of the space. Looks at the crate. The water. The barricades. The systems she built for two.

Then she sits at the desk. Finds a piece of paper. A pen that still works. And starts a list.

Water — how much she actually needs.

Food — what remains, what she can stretch, what she can replace.

Fuel — routes, distances, alternatives.

Medicine — inventory, priorities.

Exits.

Contingencies.

Alone.

She writes it down this time. Not in her head. Real. Line by line.

Because this is no longer theoretical.

This is not a feeling.

This is math.

And Maya has always been good at math.