Two soldiers were stationed outside the army bus. One held his rifle low and stood guarding the passenger door to prevent the people inside from leaving their seats. The other stood beneath the red glare of the rear lights, rifle up, eye to the aim, pointing it straight at Emmett. Emmett was on his knees as if praying. Behind him, the Dead lay strewn in bloody piles across the snow. And they looked so harmless in their little array of uniforms, and Emmett so small, that somehow the soldier’s fear of them seemed monstrous. But it was only now Peter saw that Emmett wasn’t begging for the soldier’s mercy. He was already dead. A black hole, no bigger than a penny really, disturbed the back of his head, making the hair gummy. Peter cupped the back of Cooper’s head, quickly pulling him to his chest so he couldn’t see, and Emmett fell face forward into the snow.

Cooper bucked, punching at Peter’s chest like an animal desperate to get away. But Peter clasped his face with both hands, kissing first his cheek and then his nose, silently begging him not to give up their whereabouts, and shoved them into a doorway.

The bus revved twice, indicating that it was time to leave. One set of footsteps disappeared inside the bus. The other grew louder. Snow creaked underfoot like leather belts flexing and the soldier turned into Mainstreet.

“Who goes there?” he said, his voice dull and blank.

Peter pulled Cooper closer into the shadow of the doorway. Their noses touched. The quick exhalation of Cooper’s breath across Peter’s face seemed too loud, so he kissed him, holding his lips to his, and the soldier came closer.

“I said who goes there? Come out.”

Cooper’s hand found Peter’s, just as it had done many times over these few short months they’d spent together. And it struck Peter as a wonder that he should ever have been so lucky as to live a life where someone would want to take him by the hand and by doing so, lift him from the world. The world beyond the doorway may have belonged to the soldier. But here, inside its shadow beneath the veiling snow, if only for one more moment, it was just us.

A man stepped out from between two cars. For a second, Peter thought that Val had created a diversion to stop the solider from noticing him and Cooper standing there. But it wasn’t him. The fleeced hood of the man’s parka jacket shielded his face, but he raised both hands to reassure the soldier that he wasn’t a threat and stopped in the middle of the road across the way from where Peter and Cooper were hiding.