Kira swept her arm across the metal desk in the center of the room, clearing away decades-old dust and thick stacks of papers. Last was a thin computer monitor, which she knocked aside on her backswing before flipping the desk on its side, diving behind it for an extra layer of shielding. She crouched low behind the barrier, her rifle tucked into the side of her face, the barrel trained squarely on the door; if the knob so much as twitched, she could put a whole clip into whoever stood beyond it. She waited, barely daring to breathe.

She waited.

A minute went by. Five minutes. Ten minutes. She imagined another gunman on the far side of the door, lying in wait as carefully as she was. Which one of them would break first? There were more of them, and they had the advantage; they had more room to maneuver, and more people to do it with. But she wasn’t going to give up that easily. If they wanted her, they had to come in and get her.

Ten more minutes went by, and Kira shifted her weight painfully from one leg to the other. She blinked sweat from her eyes, feeling them red and raw, but still she refused to move. Another ten minutes. Her throat was parched and painful, her fingers cramped around the handgrip of her gun. Nothing moved. No sound disturbed the night.

Kira’s flashlight flickered, sick and yellow as the batteries started to fail. They’d been weak for a few days, and she hadn’t found any replacements yet. Ten minutes later the light winked out for good, and Kira closed her eyes uselessly against the utter blackness, listening with every ounce of her focus: for the doorknob, for the creak of floorboards or the squeak of shoes, for the click of a gun as it readied to fire. Ten more minutes. Twenty. An hour. Were they really this patient?

Or was there nobody there?

Kira rubbed her eyes, thinking back on the attack. She had assumed there was a trap—it was the most logical explanation—but she hadn’t actually seen anyone. Was it really possible that the man outside, unarmed and alone in a dead city full of monsters, was really the only one? It was extremely unlikely, but yes, it was possible. Was she ready to bet her life on that possibility?