“Those pigeons couldn’t take us out if they sent their entire chirping flock,” Boden scoffs. His face is red and he looks ready for a fight. “Just let ‘em try.” The white-knuckled grip on his rifle is making me nervous.

“We’ve had to detain a fair number of people here since the cannibal attacks started,” says Obi. “You’re the only ones who managed to make it out. There could be a place for the two of you here. A place with meals and friends, a life with meaning and purpose. Right now, we’re fractured. They have us eating each other, for God’s sake. We can’t make a stand if we’re bashing each other over the head and killing each other for cans of dog food.”

He leans toward us in earnest. “This camp is just the start, and we need everyone to pitch in if we’re going to have a chance in hell of taking back our world from the angels. We could use people like you. People with the skills and determination to be humanity’s greatest heroes.”

Boden snorts. “They can’t be that good. They stumbled in a big semi-circle around the compound like a couple of dildos. How skilled can they be?”

What dildos have to do with it, I have no idea. But he did have a point in that we did get caught by an idiot.

~

It turns out I don’t really get latrine duty. Only Raffe gets that honor. I end up with laundry duty. I’m not sure that’s much better. I’ve never worked so hard in my life. You know the world has ended when manual labor in America is cheaper and easier than using machines. Men can seriously grime up jeans and other heavy clothes when they’re out in the forest. Not to mention unmentionables.

I have more than a few “eww” moments during the day. But I do learn a few things from the other laundry women.

After a long stretch of wary silence, the women begin to talk. A couple of them have only been at the camp for a few days. They seem surprised and still mistrustful of finding themselves unharmed and unmolested. There’s a wariness about them in the way they keep their voices low and their eyes scanning their surroundings that keeps me from relaxing even when they begin to gossip.

While working our butts off—or more accurately, our arms and backs—I learn that Obi is an absolute favorite among the women. And that Boden and his buddies should be avoided. Obi is in charge of the camp, but not of the entire resistance movement. There’s apparently talk, at least among the women, that Obi would be a great worldwide leader of the freedom fighters.

I love the idea of a leader destined to lead us out of our dark times. Love the romance of being part of something good, and right, led by a group of people fated to be heroes.

Only, it isn’t my fight. My fight is getting my sister back safe and sound. My fight is keeping my mother out of trouble and shepherding her to a safe place. My fight is feeding and sheltering what remains of my family. Until those fights are permanently won, I don’t have the luxury of looking beyond them to the grander picture of wars with gods and romantic heroes.