I stayed a little longer with Rachel and Sydney than I’d meant to, not long, just enough to make sure everyone was clear on the plan for tomorrow. I’d be back around noon and we’d head out together to the State Marina for the exchange. All five of us, ready for whatever shape the afternoon decided to take.

Mei was coming home.

Earlier than I’d dared to hope for, honestly. The whole thing had moved faster than I’d anticipated, which was the good version of a surprise for once. I’d been bracing myself for weeks of careful maneuvering before we had any real shot at getting her back, and instead here we were, tomorrow, noon, done. Or at least that was the plan.

I tried not to think too hard about what Lucy had let slip in the quieter moments of the past few hours. The things she’d said, intentionally or not, about what Callighan’s camp looked like from the inside. About the kind of people walking those halls. None of it had done much to make me feel better about Mei having spent days in the middle of that. I pushed it down. Tomorrow. I’d deal with what I found tomorrow.

The walk back to the Boardwalk was quiet in the way the city got quiet after dark, not peaceful, just empty. I kept moving.

When the barricade came into view I could already see the familiar shape of someone tall standing watch, and I found myself almost amused despite the tiredness sitting in my legs.

"Do you actually live here?" I asked as I approached, genuinely a little dumbfounded. "Like, every day, every hour, just permanently posted at this specific spot?"

Theo looked down at me.

"Most of my time, yeah," he said. "Marlon doesn’t put just anyone on barricade duty. Has to be people he trusts, people who know what they’re doing. I’m one of them." There was no brag in it. Just fact.

"What about the one in the east?" I asked, keeping my voice casual. Specifically the one I’d watched Summer go over like it wasn’t there. "I haven’t seen anyone posted over that side."

Theo’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"There are a lot of Infected over that way," he said. "We haven’t cleared that side. We’d hear anyone coming through long before they got close."

"Were," I said. "There were a lot of Infected."

He looked at me for a moment with the expression of someone putting something together.

"Right," he said slowly. "You people set up right next door to us and cleared the whole western side." He paused, something moving behind his eyes that was hovering somewhere between gratitude and mild unease. "Should I be thanking you for that or quietly worrying about the fact that you’re our neighbors now?"

"You’ve got nothing to worry about from us," I said. "Can you open up? I’m still standing outside."

A low grumble drifted down from his direction as he moved to work the makeshift door.

"High school kids," I repeated, stepping through as the door swung open. "That’s what you think when you look at me?"

"Molly said you were half monster," Theo said, no particular inflection on it, like this was a perfectly normal thing to say to someone. "Said that might explain some things. I haven’t seen it myself yet."

"I’m staying here for the next few days," I said, walking past him into the dim street beyond. "You’ll have plenty of time to make up your own mind."

He didn’t respond to that, which was its own kind of answer.

The streets inside the Boardwalk perimeter had a particular atmosphere at night, not dark exactly, but low-lit, the kind of sparse lamplight that was carefully rationed to the stretches where people still needed to move around rather than wasted on empty corners. Weak yellow pools of it appeared at long intervals down the road, far enough apart that the spaces between them went properly dark, but close enough that navigating by them was at least possible. In another hour or two they’d probably cut most of those too, keeping the power only for the barricades and the night watch positions.

I was still taking in the quiet of it when I heard my name.

"Ryan!"

They were sitting on a bench just off the main path, Cindy and Daisy both, a shared cover draped over their shoulders and laps.

Cindy was already on her feet before I’d fully registered her. She crossed the distance between us fast and went straight into me, and I caught her without thinking, arms coming up around her as she pressed her face into my shoulder.

For a second she just stayed there.

"What were you doing all this time?!" Her voice came out muffled and furious. She pulled back enough to look up at me, and the expression on her face was the combination of upset and overwhelmingly glad to see me fine. "We were sick with worry, Ryan. Sick."

"I know," I said. "I’m sorry. I had the woman and I didn’t want to, I needed to make sure she was stable before I moved her anywhere near people."

"Are you alright?" Daisy’s voice came from behind Cindy. She’d stood from the bench too, her cover still wrapped around her shoulders, her eyes moving over me also concerned.

"I’m fine," I said. "Everyone’s fine. I caught her, she’s at our place now with the others keeping watch. It’s handled."

"You went all the way there and came back without even sending word that you were alive," Cindy said. She hadn’t fully let go of me yet. "You couldn’t find thirty seconds to—"

"I am sorry Cindy," I cut her off apologizing again.

"Maribel went looking for you," Daisy saidthen.

I blinked. "What?"

"She went out after you," Cindy confirmed, some of the sharpness in her voice smoothing over into something that was mostly just tired now. "Spent a few hours searching. She got back maybe an hour ago."

I stood there for a second, caught off guard by that.

The guilt that had been sitting at a manageable level ticked up a few notches.

"I didn’t know she’d do that," I said quietly.

"Well, now you do," Cindy said, and she finally stepped back, pulling the cover tighter around herself. "You better thank her and apologize to her."

"Alright, come on," I said, glancing between them. "I’m walking you both back. I’ll fill you in on the way."

Cindy gave me a look that landed somewhere between accepting and reluctant. "You’re really eager to get rid of us, aren’t you."

"I’m eager to make sure you’re not sitting on a bench outside in the cold all night," I said. "There’s a difference."

"Are you that reluctant to see Sydney again already?" I added, and I let the teasing come through in my voice.

That broke through. Cindy laughed and shook her head. "Of course I am!"

Theo groaned audibly when I told him I needed back out again barely ten minutes after he’d let me in. He didn’t say anything particularly colorful about it, just exhaled heavily through his nose and worked the door open again.

"Thanks," I said.

He didn’t respond.

The three of us walked through the quiet dark of the streets outside and I kept my voice low as I laid it out, Penny, the confrontation, the chase, what had led me to Callighan’s door and what had happened when I got there. By the time I finished, both of them had gone quiet.

Then Daisy looked up at me, and the smile that broke across her face was bright and unguarded and completely uncontained.

"So! Mei’s actually coming back?" She asked. "Tomorrow? For real?"

"For real," I said. "We hand over Lucy, we get Mei. It’s a clean exchange if everything holds." I paused. "It’s already a massive weight off. I didn’t want her in that place any longer than necessary."

"She’s going to be insufferable about it too," Cindy said, and she was already smiling as she said it. "You know how she is. She probably spent half the time in there giving people sharp remarks they didn’t ask for."

"Exactly what worries me," I admitted. "Mei has never once in her life decided that a dangerous situation was a good reason to keep her mouth shut."

Cindy nodded vigorously. "She really has no filter. None. Zero."

"So tomorrow, it’ll be me, you, Rachel, Christopher and Sydney," I said. "I want to keep the group tight. I’m going to ask Marlon tonight if he can spare a few people to hold position nearby, just far enough back to not spook anyone but close enough to matter if something goes wrong."

"We are staying back then?" Daisy asked a bit dejected but understanding.

"You stay back," I nodded. "I need you and Rebecca to keep an eye on Kunta. Make sure she’s alright, that she has what she needs. She responds well to people who treat her normally, you’re good at that."

She gave a small nod.

Good.

I walked them as far as our place, made sure they were through the door and accounted for, and then turned back toward the Boardwalk.

The walk felt longer the second time, the way walks do when your body has started quietly lobbying for a horizontal surface. By the time I got back inside the perimeter it was properly dark, the lamplight sparse and low and doing just enough to keep the street from being completely swallowed.

Maribel was waiting inside.

She had her arms crossed over her chest and was giving me a look that had been clearly prepared and held in reserve for whenever I showed up.

"Finally," she said.

"You’re still awake," I said.

"Apparently I’ve taken up babysitting as a hobby," she replied flatly. "Wasn’t given much choice."

"I heard you went looking for me," I said a bit grateful. "For hours. I’m sorry for that, and I mean that. Thank you."

Something flickered across her face. She adjusted her arms slightly, shifting her weight.

"I didn’t spend hours looking for you," she said, and the speed at which she said it was its own kind of answer. "I had things to do on that side of things anyway. Figured I’d check while I was out there. That’s all." She lifted one shoulder in a shrug that was working very hard to seem casual.

"Yeah," I said. I let a small smile come through but didn’t push it. "Sure."

She was a good person.

She shrugged again.

"Come on," she said, already turning. "I’ll show you where you’re sleeping."

I thought briefly about finding Marlon tonight, there was still the matter of tomorrow and the backup I wanted in place but it was late and that conversation would go better in the morning when everyone was fresh. I’d catch him early.

I fell into step behind her.

"So," she said as we walked, not looking back. "What happened with the woman? The one who came after you."

"Caught her," I said. "She’s at our place now. Secured."

Maribel glanced back at me briefly. "You caught her and then brought her back to your place."

"She was being controlled by Gaspar," I said. "Manipulated. He sent her after me, she wasn’t doing it of her own free will. She needed somewhere safe and monitored, not a ditch."

"So now you have two of Callighan’s people as hostages," Maribel said, a bit impressed.. "Two." She was quiet for a step or two. "I suppose you weren’t exaggerating when you said you’d be useful against Callighan."

"You saw me fight Rico," I said. "And before that you saw what I could do. You even called me a superhero—"

"S...Stop bringing that up anymore! I swear to God!"

I pressed my mouth together and looked ahead with an expression of complete innocence.

She made a short, indistinct sound and kept walking with an embarrassed face.

I’d expected a hotel room, or at least something that resembled one — but where she brought me was different. A small shop, the kind that used to sell things people didn’t worry about anymore. The glass front door was still intact, which was something. She pushed it open and stepped aside so I could see inside.

Someone had moved a bed in. The space around it had been cleared and cleaned, not immaculate, but tidy, better than I’d expected. It was small. It was private. It was, I noticed, separate from the main building where everyone else was sleeping.

"It’s a bit isolated," I said.

"Until people here get to know you a bit better, this seemed like the sensible option," she said, leaning against the doorframe with her arms still crossed. "Some of them know about the Symbiote. Some of them aren’t entirely sure what that means at two in the morning with you sleeping two doors down."

"You think I’m going to go on a rampage in the night?" I asked.

"I think they*don’t know that you won’t," she said. "And you showing up and behaving like a normal person for a few days will do more than anything I could say about you."

I looked at the little room. The bed. The glass door with the dark street visible beyond it.

I nodded then. "Fine."

I stepped inside, and she leaned in just far enough to give it one last look over, checking something, maybe, or just making sure it was what she’d left it as.

Then she straightened up.

"Then see you tomorrow," she said.

"Yeah, good night," I said.

She turned and walked back up the street, her footsteps fading out into the quiet. I stood in the small space of my temporary room, the glass door still open for another moment, listening to the city settle around me.

Then I let it close and sat down on the edge of the bed.

Tomorrow was going to be a long day and hopefully everything goes well.