“Has anyone told his dad yet?” It was Rose’s turn to almost whisper. When his makeshift family had found the camp, French had been reunited with his father, a reunion neither had dreamed was possible after so much time. And now, in one moment of dropped defense, there were miles and maybe the boundary of death between them again.

“I did,” Derrick answered. Like Bullet, Derrick wasn’t a part of the original family who’d wandered into their camp, but he, like Bullet, felt close to them. He felt especially close to Rose—or at least, he was hoping to get closer. “He’s lying down. Spent the whole night in the bush, looking.”

During their time apart, French’s dad had lost a leg after taking a bullet from vigilantes. That, coupled with age, diabetes, and life on the run, meant he had to rest often. Put grief on top of all that, and the group wasn’t sure he’d ever leave his cot again. And for a moment, that seemed to Rose like a perfectly reasonable response. Maybe she should just lie down… just for a moment, or maybe until this was all over, regardless of how it ended.

“Fuck this.” She slapped her hands against her thighs and spun on one boot, stomping off into the trees.

“Where’re you going?” Derrick looked up from braiding his hair. Chi Boy held Wab by the forearm lest she get any ideas about following the girl. Rose had joined them years into their never-ending journey to evade capture, but she was, without a doubt, one of them.

“The road,” Rose tossed over her shoulder, moving fast.

Derrick sighed, let his hair fall down his back, the thick strands loosening from the design, and picked up his rifle. He spoke to Miig. “I’ll keep an eye on her.” Then he jogged into the shadows, leaving the depleted group to their worry. Derrick’s concern was amplified by his feelings for Rose, even though it had become clear she and French had a thing.

“Rose…Rose…wait up!” he called out to her, but she didn’t slow down. Finally, he reached out and caught her shoulder.

Her round face was dark, all angles with anger. “Don’t try to stop me, Derrick. I don’t expect you to understand.”

“I don’t understand? Just because I wasn’t with your little crew until you stumbled into our camp doesn’t mean I don’t understand family.” He refused to let her go, making her stop for a moment. “Rose, you’ve gotta calm down a bit.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down! I need all this—all of this.” She patted her chest and her arms to show the twitch and tightness of her muscles. “This is how I get shit done.”

“Yeah, and it’s also how you get caught.” He looked at his feet. “Or worse.”

She paused. Derrick had been there when they’d tried to rescue their Elder Minerva, the one who carried the language, the one who had burned down an entire school with her words. That had ended in the old woman bleeding out in the road from a Recruiter gunshot. Things hadn’t been the same since. Rose just couldn’t find the right ways to mourn. She cried, she cut her hair, she spent hours focusing on everything Minerva had ever told her, every word she’d pushed into her vocabulary, but it wasn’t enough. A loss like Minerva was monumental. A loss like Minerva these days was unimaginable.