Mei followed Audrey in silence, keeping a careful step behind her, close enough to show that she wasn’t afraid the bit, far enough to feel like she had some small, meaningless control over the situation. Her eyes moved without her meaning them to, scanning the woman ahead of her.

Audrey was one of the names that carried weight around Brigantine. Not official weight, there were no titles or ranks in a world like this, but the kind of weight that came from people stepping aside when you walked through a room. She stood alongside Gaspar, Williams, and Romero in Callighan’s inner circle, and that alone said enough. Mei had already crossed paths with each of those three and not one of them had left her feeling anything but uneasy. Audrey didn’t break the pattern.

Short brown hair sat close to her skull. She had a build that told you she’d done physical work her whole life, solid, balanced, like a person who had never needed much help carrying things. But it was the scars on her cheeks that caught the eye and held it. Two thin, pale lines, one on each side of her face, the kind that didn’t come from accidents. Knife cuts and clean. Whether she’d put them there herself or someone else had, Mei wasn’t sure she wanted to know.

From what little Mei had pieced together, Audrey had escaped from the women’s section of the same prison that had held Callighan and Williams. Whatever that place had been like before the world ended—whatever it had become after, had clearly left its mark on everyone who walked out of it.

Mei had seen her strike both men and women with a twisted smile. It was indeed not relieving to be together with such a woman.

"Where are you taking me?" Mei asked. She was working hard to keep it that way.

"You need a proper wash," Audrey said without looking back. "Callighan wants you looking presentable."

Mei’s chest tightened. "F...For what?" She asked, doing her best to iron the fear out of the question before it reached the air.

Audrey’s only answer was a short, dry laugh that she didn’t bother to explain.

A few minutes later, the sound of waves reached them before the open shoreline did. The Atlantic lay grey and endless ahead, quiet in that post‑apocalyptic way, where nature had simply stopped competing with human noise and won by default. But at the edge of the beach, someone had erected a rough barrier: panels of scavenged metal sheeting and timber boards, bolted and lashed together in a loose semicircle that blocked the bathing area from the main stretch of shoreline. Crude, improvised, but functional. A small concession to dignity.

Mei had been here once already since they’d brought her in two days ago, so the sight of it wasn’t new. Still, it didn’t make her feel much better.

Women stood on guard around the perimeter—only women, which was at least something.

"There," Audrey said, holding out a small plastic bag. "Wash up and be out in five minutes." She planted herself by the entrance, arms folded, making it clear she wasn’t going anywhere.

Mei took the bag with a flat stare, then ducked inside.

Beyond the barrier, the space opened up just enough to change without feeling like you were on display. More or less. Other women were already there, a handful of them, maybe five or six. They stripped without ceremony, dropped their clothes on the dry sand, and walked bare into the water, talking among themselves like it was the most ordinary thing in the world. Because for them, three months in, it probably was.

Mei looked away quickly, heat rising to her face.

It wasn’t judgement. she knew that. It was survival. Modesty was a luxury and luxuries were among the first things the apocalypse had stripped away. But knowing it didn’t make standing in the middle of it feel any less strange. She was still adjusting.

She’d been alone the first time she’d come here, which was embarrassing enough. This was worse.

She sighed, set the awkwardness aside as best she could, and opened the bag. Soap, still in its wrapper, and a clean towel, simple things that still managed to feel precious. She stepped out of her capris, pulled her top over her head, and stopped there. Her underwear stayed on. She had no intention of removing it. She’d change back in her room once this was over.

She wrapped the towel around herself, tucked it at the top, and slipped off her sandals. The sand was cool beneath her feet as she stepped toward the water, soft and slightly damp from the tide. The waves crept up the shore in slow, indifferent rolls, curling white around her bare ankles.

She looked out at the other women—some in pairs, talking quietly, a few floating alone on their backs with their eyes closed like they were trying to steal something peaceful from the morning. Mei hugged the towel a little tighter and waded in, angling herself away from the others, searching for an unoccupied stretch of shore where she could think.

The water was cold. Cold enough to be grounding, which maybe was the point.

She worked the soap quickly, rubbing it over her arms and shoulders in short, awkward strokes. Too fast, probably, but she didn’t care. She just wanted it done. The slightly cold water lapping at her legs, the open sky above, the other women nearby, all of it made her skin crawl in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature. She was standing in her underwear in front of strangers, and no amount of telling herself it was practical made it feel any less exposed.

Her room, that locked, bare, miserable little room was somehow the only place here that felt remotely bearable. At least there, nobody watched her.

"Hi."

She flinched, nearly dropping the soap, and spun around.

A woman stood a few feet away in the shallows, the water swirling around her shins. Brown hair, wet at the ends, maybe somewhere around Rachel’s age. She was smiling at her.

Mei stared at her the way she’d learned to stare at everyone here: suspicious and wary.

The woman let out a soft laugh at that. "I’m Caroline," she said, extending her hand. "Nice to meet you."

Mei didn’t move.

Caroline slowly pulled her hand back, unbothered. "You don’t have to be wary of me, you know."

"You’re with this sick community," Mei replied coldly.

Caroline’s smile dimmed a fraction. She glanced sideways, checking, Mei realized, that no one was close enough to hear, then lowered her voice. "Not everyone here is like... those guys from the prison."

"Only sick people would choose to join a group with dangerous criminals," Mei said.

"It wasn’t really a choice." The lightness in Caroline’s tone had faded now, replaced with something more tired. "It was either this or dying out there alone. And honestly, it was Lucy who found me. She’s nothing like the rest of them."

Mei’s eyes shifted slightly at that. Lucy.

Keith had talked about his sister constantly in the short time she’d known him, rambled, really, filling silences with stories about how she was different, how she was kind, how she had nothing to do with the worst of Callighan’s people. Mei had half-listened, assuming it was just a brother being loyal or maybe obsessed with his big sister.

Still. That didn’t make her any less cautious about the rest of them.

"So what kind of group are you from?" Caroline asked, drifting a step closer, genuine curiosity pulling at her expression.

Mei took a step back, water rising to her knee. "Why would I tell you that?"

"I’m just curious," she said, a little sheepishly.

"Nothing like the one you’re in," Mei replied, and left it at that. She turned away, rinsed the last of the soap from her arms, and started moving toward the shore.

"Hey—wait!" Caroline followed, splashing behind her.

She was wearing something close to a swimsuit, practical and worn thin at the edges. Mei ignored her and pushed back through the gap in the metal barrier into the changing area, already reaching for her clothes before the sand was dry on her feet.

"You know," Caroline said, pulling her own things from the ground and beginning to dress, "if you want to get back to your people, your friends, maybe the answer is having them join us." She said it lightly, like it was a reasonable suggestion.

Mei didn’t respond.

Join this group. She almost wanted to laugh. Ryan would last maybe thirty seconds before he threw a fist at Gaspar or Williams, probably both. Sydney would be worse. Rachel, Christopher, Cindy, none of them would stomach it for a moment. This group and her group existed on entirely different sides of a line that couldn’t be crossed.

"And if you’re going to stay here long-term, you should be careful—"

"I’m not staying here," Mei cut in, turning to fix her with a sharp look

She grabbed the plastic bag, tucked her towel under her arm, and walked out.

Audrey was waiting just outside, leaning against the barrier with her arms folded and that same lazy smirk she seemed to wear like a second skin.

"Look at you," she said, eyes running over Mei with faint amusement. "All freshened up."

She pushed off the wall and turned without waiting for a response. Mei followed, keeping pace.

"Where are we going now?" She asked.

Audrey tilted her head slightly, like she was deciding how much to give away. "Hm. If you’re lucky," she said, drawing the words out, "you might be back with your companions today." 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

Mei stopped mid-step widening her eyes.