“You’re welcome,” Charlie said to me and Emily when he turned our way.

I resisted an eye roll, deciding to give Charlie his moment instead.

“My feet thank you kindly,” Emily offered.

Charlie smiled. “So… Kansas,” he said, looking around. “It really does exist.”

Emily laughed. “Did you think it didn’t?”

“Have you ever heard of anything that came out of Kansas?”

Emily chewed at her lip for a moment. “The Wizard of Oz,” she finally said.

Charlie grinned and I turned up the road to get a visual of what was ahead.

I could see the distant skyline of Topeka, smoke rising in the air from various points. There’d been fires here too. And likely more death than I wanted to think about as large groups of people in a small area of land fought over limited resources. I also noticed several clusters of people walking on the edge of the highway, away from the city. I’d have preferred Emilio and Wells drop us off near more wilderness, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and I also didn’t want to end up lost somewhere.

On the bright side, civilization did mean more chances to find food that didn’t have to be hunted and skinned and honestly, another cereal truck would be fucking fantastic.

“A highway,” Emily said as she joined me. “Is that bad?”

“It’s not ideal, but we might be able to score some snacks again from a broken-down car. And we can use one of them to sleep in again. It’s going to be dark soon enough and there’s nowhere around here I might hunt.”

Until I could find a map, being in a location with signs was important even if populated areas worried me and I’d have to be much more vigilant about being ambushed while we slept.

We traveled under the overpass, a few fires already lit beneath the massive structure with groups of people hunkered down around the flames. I moved behind Emily and Charlie, prepared to pull my weapon out should someone approach us, but no one did. I smelled the roasting scent of meat and saw a few of the people lift their heads and watch us as we moved past, likely ready to defend their food should they need to.

“What are they cooking?” Emily asked quietly, turning her head and barely moving her lips. “There are no woods around here.”