“Abandoning us. You’re the only friend we’ve got in this world. And I think you need us as badly as we need you. We literally have crazy people for neighbors. You saw all the lived-in places before we found this one. I don’t know if they’re at a party or what, but they’ll be back. Probably carrying torches and pitchforks.”

Her words touched him, he had to admit. But he also felt uneasy, fidgety, like something wasn’t quite right. He had an inexplicable and sudden urge to yell at her, to tell her to leave him alone, that he could do whatever he wanted. Like a child. Thankfully he resisted.

“I just wanna know what’s out there,” he said, trying to keep the defensiveness out of his voice. “Sun’s almost down, but I’ll be quick about it. For one thing, we need something to eat. When’s the last time Dante had any food?”

Keisha let out a monstrous sigh of frustration and stepped over to a wall, then turned around, put her back to the cheap wood and slid to the floor. She gently dropped Dante into her lap, where he continued to sleep like he planned to do it straight through the end of days.

“Please wait until morning,” Keisha said, as quiet as he’d heard her speak yet. “I can’t... Life is hard enough, Newt. I can’t bear the thought of being here alone in the dark, terrified out of my wits at what may come walking by, knocking on our door, peeking through our broken window. Breaking through that flimsy door. All that on top of worrying about what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into out there? Please don’t do that to me. I barely know you from a lump of rock, but I can see the goodness in your eyes. We need you. Call me mama, call me mum, call me grandma for all I care. But we need you.”

Newt almost shook with confusion. Confusion turning into an anger that made no sense. He closed his eyes and forced himself to breathe. This bloody virus, he thought. He’d never know how much was paranoia and how much was the true effect of the thing on his mind. But in that moment he just wanted to scream and pound his chest like a damn gorilla.

“Newt?” Keisha asked, looking up at him from the floor. “You forget how to talk?”

A sudden calm washed over him. A calm he hadn’t felt in a long time. The extremes were getting to him, but for the short term he’d take that peace and take it happily. He took the few steps to where Keisha sat and sunk to the floor, trying his hardest to fake a genteel smile.

“You’re right,” he said. “Walking around the bloody Crank Palace without a map and with the sun about to set sounds like something only a crazy person would do.”