Kira nodded. “We’re moving out again. They have another outpost, sounds like it’s about three miles away. With a break in the snow and some daylight to walk in, we should be able to make it in just a few hours.”

“Two more frostbite cases this morning,” said Heron, and pointed to Green, “including him. It’s the people on stretchers; we have to make them walk and keep their circulation high, or they’re going to lose more limbs.”

“Think you can convince them?” asked Kira.

Heron smiled wickedly, walked to the nearest stretcher, and overturned it with a grunt, spilling the sleeping occupant out on the floor. He woke up spluttering, still trying to figure out where he was, when Heron tossed his stretcher onto the nearest fire.

“What are you doing?” he cried.

“She’s saving your extremities,” said Kira. “Find something to eat. We’re leaving in an hour.” The man worked his jaw wordlessly, too exhausted to argue, then walked unsteadily to the dwindling pile of emergency rations, rubbing his legs as he went. Kira nodded to Heron, who nodded back before assaulting another stretcher. Kira looked back at Green. “She’s direct.”

“And smoking hot,” wheezed Green. “She attached?”

“You’ve already fought your way through Candlewood and the winter from hell and a nuclear explosion and your own body trying to kill you,” said Kira. “Quit while you’re ahead.”

She patted him on the leg and walked away to spread the word to the rest of the group. Marcus was on one side of the room, discussing something with a refugee, and Samm was on the other talking to his group from the Preserve. Kira stood in the middle of the floor, not knowing who to talk to first, or what she would say, or . . . anything. She took a step toward Marcus, stopped herself, and walked straight instead, rousing the people in a line down the center of the room. She would worry about Samm and Marcus when she wasn’t running for her life.

She snorted and shook her head. If that ever happens.

She had only spoken to a few more people when Samm walked up behind her. She had learned how to use the link through him, and she felt him coming now, his data as familiar to her as his face, and just as comforting. She closed her eyes, savoring it like an old, familiar smell, then wiped the emotion from her face and turned toward him. “Samm.”

“Kira.” He stood silent, not embarrassed or awkward but simply . . . uncertain. She loved these little flashes of vulnerability from him, like cracks in his armor of supreme, quiet confidence. Knowing that he’d led a team from the Preserve and conquered the wasteland and defeated an army to be here, only to see him hesitate, unsure what to say to her, made her heart flutter in her chest.

“I heard you say we’re moving out,” said Samm.