But that doesn’t make me feel better. Nick told me it’s okay to be scared, and looking out over a field of corpses, I am terrified.

Dominion—Theo—lies in the grass at my feet. His brain is dead, but the virus hasn’t gotten the message, snaking through his suffering body. The Graces, the ones still alive, flee to the far corners of New Nazareth, unsure of where to go but understanding that the safest place to be is away.

Is this what the martyrs of Judgment Day witnessed before the Flood took them too? Was this the smell? Was this the silence?

No. Not silence. Someone is shouting.

“Stand down! Don’t shoot!” Nick. Nick. Oh God. “That’s Benji! Put your guns DOWN!”

I turn just in time to see Nick collapse into Erin’s embrace; a shivering, blood-soaked ball with his arms clamped over his head.

Those who need help are taken back to the ALC. The rest stay in New Nazareth to deal with what we’ve done.

Sarmat and another large boy, Rich, build a stretcher for Nick since he can’t walk on his own. He refuses to take a big scrap of cloth away from his face. At first, Nick shoves Erin away when she tries to coax him onto it. She gently points out that we didn’t lose anybody, we didn’t lose anybody, we’re all okay, it’s over. That’s enough to get him to agree to leave, but not enough to get him onto the stretcher. He stares at it like it’s the greatest form of humiliation he’s ever seen. Erin tries to reason him on, but Cormac shakes his head and says, “All right, go then,” and Nick tries to get to his feet but falls. “That’s what I thought. C’mon, boss.”

Faith goes; the wound on her arm is too bad, the one on her face too painful. Salvador goes too, because xe walks out onto the lawn and sees the expressions of the dead and can’t stop sob-laughing long enough to breathe. Sadaf goes with them, wiping blood off her hands and telling Lila to deal with the rest. Aisha lets out one long, muffled wail, but after Cormac helps her to her feet, she’s shockingly okay.

“I’ll lose my shit in a few,” Cormac says, glassy-eyed while Aisha clings to his arm, trying to regain her balance. “Give me some time.”

Erin leans against my gnarled arm and stares past the bodies toward the towering buildings of New Nazareth—Kincaid Chapel, the health center, the student union, the dormitories.

There are no questions about my body. We all heard Nick well enough.

“So,” Erin says. “What do we do first?”

I don’t know where to start. “The ears, I guess?”