"Thank you." She says for the eighth time. We reach the school, no one outside but someone's on the night shift right behind the front doors.

I walk over to the doors and knock. Logan opens a door and twists his head to look behind me. "You have to be kidding."

"I checked the apartments like I said I would. She begged to come here."

"Julia begged?" He opens the door wider, "Come in I guess."

I walk inside, no one follows.

"Julia… you need to leave, we've been over this."

"I get it you hate me, everyone does but please just-"

"It's always the same act. You tell everyone how pathetic you are and expect sympathy, when someone gives you attention in return you steal, trick, and hurt them."

"I'm not like that anymore. I can't live out there on my own."

"You seemed to live out there on your own just fine when you ran away without telling anyone, just to come back when you ran out of food."

"LOGAN, YOU DON'T GET IT."

"No Julia. You don't get it. Listen to me, you hurt us, you hurt Zander and right now he's in a place too terrible to deal with your bullshit."

Logan closes the door on Julia and walks down the hall, so do I. I head to my classroom but then Logan speaks, "You need to stay out of our business."

"I'm sorry, I didn't know she would be there."

"But you did know who she was, and you continued to talk to her then proceeded to bring her back to us.

" You just fell for one of her stupid tricks."

"Will she come back?" I ask.

"Not soon. She fucks around all day, I know that girl has plenty of things to keep herself occupied with."

"Could she have been the one who parked that car in the woods?"

"No. I'm with Eli on this, I think it's her."

"Who, Alexa?"

"Yes, she's still up though, so be quiet."

"Why not kick her out?"

"Eli wouldn't allow it."

"But he's more suspicious of her than anyone else?"

"True, but he obviously wouldn't take Alexa away from Six."

"Why not just let Six stay here but kick out Alexa?"

"If you have an issue you know who to take it up with. He's in your classroom."

Logan walks away and up the stairs. I turn and head back to where I was going, my classroom.

"Nitro," Serafina says. She's holding onto the wall, and standing.

I hurry over to her, "Woah, hold on."

"I'm fine, Alexa is overreacting."

"What do you mean?"

"She told me the bullet was less than an inch away from my stomach lining but she was wrong, I can stand up and move perfectly fine, I'm still sore but I can for sure move."

Eli, who's laying on his mattress with a newspaper over his face says, "As if that's not enough reasoning to her being the car owner."

"Huh?" I say.

"She'd want to slow down Serafina, making Serafina think she's injured badly so Alexa has time to pack her bags and get the fuck out."

I sit down on the end of Eli's mattress. Serafina is pacing the room.

"Julia was here," I say.

"What?" Eli asks, taking the newspaper off his face.

"Julia. She was staying at the apartments, she told me that she wanted to come here badly."

Eli slaps my arm.

"The fuck was that for?"

"It's Julia. You knew about her."

"Yeah, sorry. Logan talked to me about it."

Serafina sits down on the floor in between both mattresses, "What's so bad about Julia?"

"Julia is Zander's ex-girlfriend. When she stayed with us she would run off for several days then come back for supplies. When we stopped giving her stuff she started stealing. She treats everything that has happened as a joke, she thinks it's fun and cool. When she was with Zander she would make really insensitive jokes and was overall a dick."

Maybe the reason Eli is so hesitant with and suspicious of Alexa is because she's doing the same thing Julia did. Or at least it looks like she is.

“Will you tell Zander about Julia?” I ask.

“No, maybe. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re leaving this shithole.” Eli says.

“Wait, are you serious?” Serafina asks.

“Yes, not right now but soon.”

Six comes rushing into the classroom, breathing heavily.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

She stands before me, “I want a gun.”

Eli smirks, “Aren’t you six years old?”

“You don’t even know how to use a gun…” I say.

“Teach me.”

She has this strong determination in her eyes. At a time like this maybe it would be best for her to at least learn.

“Tomorrow,” I say.

She smiles and hands me a toy, “Look what I found.”

It’s a little metal, blue car.

“Where’d you find it?” Serafina asks.

Six turns to Serafina, “Outside, next to the truck.”

Eli looks at me, “Go check.” He knows that I know what he means by ‘Check.’

I walk away, out of the classroom. The flashlight I brought to the apartment is still in my hand. I open the front doors, Logan’s sitting in a camping chair with a book, I ignore him and walk up to the truck. I check the ground, the bed, seats, dashboard, door panels, glovebox, tires. Then I open the gas tank.

“What’re you doing?” Logan asks, sounding annoyed.

“How do you check the gas?”

“Come here.”

I walk over to him and he hands me the keys, “Go turn it on and look at the little, glowing gas thingy.” As I walk up to the truck, he mentions again, “Be quiet.”

I turn on the truck and look at the gas levels. “It says ‘E’,” I say.

Logan looks up, “That means it’s empty.”

“But it was full before?” I say.

“Weird.”

“No, I’m serious. Someone could be taking the gas from here.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Other than the fact it’s empty. Six found a little toy car over by the truck.”

“I’m really tired dude, can we talk about this tomorrow or something?”

I walk back inside and go to sleep.

***

"Let's go." Is the first thing I hear. Six is pulling my arm so hard it feels like it'll pop out of the socket.

"I'm up, what is it?" I groan.

"Teach me to shoot."

I lift up my arm and it starts tingling then I glance at my watch, 9:42.

"What time did you wake up?" I ask Six, uncontrollably letting my head back down.

"I don't know. Come on." She tugs my arm again.

"Fine, fine. Just wait for me outside."

Six hurries out of the room. It takes me a few minutes to get up, I put on Logan's old jacket and head outside.

Alexa and Eli aren't outside, which means they're on a watch, probably ripping each other's guts out

"Where can we practice?" Six asks.

"Somewhere quiet," I say.

"Like the woods?"

"Yeah, there's some beer bottles by the gas station too."

She runs in front of me. We make our way to the gas station.

I pick up five beer bottles, two of which still having beer in them. I dump one out onto the ground and take a sip out of the other, it tastes really bad and probably has some kind of disease.

"That's not cool." Six says.

"What?" I chuckle.

"People think beer makes them cool. It doesn't make you cool."

"Yeah, I know. How'd you figure that out?"

"School told me."

"Do you miss school?" I ask, setting up the bottles.

"Yes. Do you miss school?"

"I didn't go to school."

"Why, did you leave?"

"No, I just never got the chance." I hand her my gun and stand behind her. She gives the gun back to me and pulls out a small pistol from her pants.

"Six, that's not okay. Did you steal that?"

"No! Alexa always wants me to protect myself. I took it but I didn't tell Alexa, I didn't steal."

"That's dangerous. It's loaded and the safety's off. If it was triggered while you were walking you could've died."

I take the pistol out of her hands. "We can use this," I murmur.

I stand behind Six and give her the gun. I instruct her on how to hold it and help her aim.

"It hurts my fingers, can I use one hand?"

"No, your hands are too small and shaky, you need to stabilize the gun."

She knocks down three bottles and misses two. That's really good for a Six-year-old.

"Good job. Why do you wanna learn how to shoot so badly though?" I ask, squatting down.

"To protect Alexa."

"Alexa doesn't need to be protected."

"Yes, she does."

I thought this was just a little girl wanting to protect her caregiver. I soon realized that wasn't the case when Six spoke again, "She gets hurt and I need to help her because no one else does."

"She gets hurt?"

"I can't tell you anything."

"Yes, you can. Why does Alexa need protection?"

No response. I ask again two more times, Six stays silent.

I really can't get this girl to speak. What would be holding a child this young back from speaking up? Can you even blackmail a Six-year-old? No, whatever I’m thinking is stupid, Six is a loyal kid, she just wants to protect Alexa, probably from zombies. People right now get hurt more than ever.

“You’re already a good shot. We can’t keep practicing though.”

“Because the noise makes zombies come here.” Six says.

“Yeah, exactly,” I reply.

As we walk back to the school I think about how I should ask Alexa if she’s okay without sounding weird. I don’t want to tell anyone about what Six says, they’ll just overreact. I’ll talk to Alexa myself and try to prove that she can trust me.

***

I walk up the stairs and into Alexa's classroom. I accidentally step on a shoe that looks like one of Logan's and kick it across the room and into the wall.

"Shit!" Alexa exclaims from the end of the classroom. She sets down a purple notepad on a desk and walks over to me.

"Let me talk to you," I say.

"Do you have a question to ask me?" She asks.

"I don't know," I reply.

"Do you need anything?" I ask her.

"No, thanks for asking."

"I mean is something wrong, do you need help with anything?"

"I'm fine."

"When we leave where will you go, will you come with us?"

"Probably not. Why should you care where I go after you leave?"

"Because I care about you and Six, I just don't want anything to happen to you."

"I can fend for myself."

"So when do you plan on leaving?" I ask.

"What do you mean?"

"Today, tomorrow, next week?"

She sighs, "I don't know. Please, I'm trying. I'm trying to take care of myself and believe me, I know what I'm doing."

"So what exactly are you doing?"

"Don't tell anyone so I don't get kicked out before I have the chance to leave." She pauses. "John, my sister's old friend. John and I, we've been dating on and off for a while. He's older and can be aggressive. Sometimes he does scare me, I don't want a scary man around this little girl who I care about more than myself. He can get angry and violent with me but it's only out of fear, he doesn't want me to get hurt. So Six and I will live with him, or Six and I will live in the same place as him. He'll keep us safe, I know that. I trust him, he gives me things Six and I need and he'll take us to a very safe town I've heard a lot of good things about."

"That car, was it his?"

"Yes."

"Good luck," I say, exiting the classroom.

I can't stop Alexa from leaving. I don't care about her that much anyway, I almost left her to die the day I saw her for the first time. I'll just hope she and Six stay safe.

I walk down the hallway and Serafina approaches me. "Alexa?"

"She's." I stop myself and sigh. I can't tell anyone, I told Alexa I wouldn't.

"She's what?"

"Nothing, she was just a little worried about Six."

"About Six learning to use a gun, really?

"Mhm."

"I guess I get that. You wanna come with me?"

"Where? You shouldn't be going outside the school in that condition."

"First of all, my condition isn't that bad. And I was just going to ask if you'd come to the gym with me. I wanna move around."

"Yeah, sure."

I’ll change the bandage tomorrow.”

Someone else knocks on the door, Logan walks in, “Nitro, you’re coming with me.”

“Why? Where?” I ask.

“Searching for stuff like weapons and shelter. We have shifts and you three are the only ones who haven’t heard about them. Today will now be considered day one, Nitro and I will go searching during the day then Sophie and Zander will keep watch at the front doors during the night. On day two it switches, Sophie and Zander will go out during the day and we’ll watch at night. Day three, Eli and Alexa. Day four, Serafina and Ally. Day five Ria and me. Serafina will be replaced by Ally while she can’t perform her tasks. If you have an issue with the schedule, fight with Eli, not me.”

“Alright, where are we going?” I ask.

“There’s a map in the truck right?” Logan asks as we walk out of the classroom.

“Should be.”

“We’ll cover the northern areas, where the gas station is.”

“Do you have a plan for leaving?”

“We need a plan in case we get attacked and have to flee, but at the moment we’re doing pretty well, so why go.”

“You’re just going to stay in one spot until you die?”

“No, I’d rather take life as it comes than to have a plan for every situation, that’s the fun in it.”

“Fun in fearing that you may die every day?”

“You sound like Sophie. Routines make life boring, our search and night watch routines aren’t mandatory but they’re useful, at least they switch up every day and it’s not the same two people every watch.”

I open the driver’s side door and take out the map, it’s a map of four towns, Clearway, Concord, Belltown, and Rhines.

"Where are you headed?" Logan asks.

"South, near Kansas."

"So we should work on getting you to downtown New Hampshire for now, shouldn't be that far."

"Really?"

"Yeah, I knew a kid that went here and lived near the Vermont border. If you keep pushing it'll only take about a day on foot at least, to reach South Vermont. From then you can rest then travel for a few weeks until you get to New York. "

"I don't really know where the states are," I say as we walk down the road.

"There's definitely a map in the school. We used to take these tests to see how fast you could memorize where they all were."

"Zombie," I say.

Logan walks up to the zombie on our left slowly and stabs it.

"Stupid Ria," Logan says.

"Will you help us?" I ask.

"I don't like you, I don't trust you. I wouldn't get anything out of helping you, but I have nothing to do and I bet the others would find fun in shifting through states. Just know I'm not doing whatever I'm doing to help you out of the kindness of my own heart."

Logan turns around, "Behind you."

I turn and kick the zombie directly behind me causing it to fall, and stab it.

"You see that?" Logan asks.

"The red thing?" I ask.

"Mhm."

There's a red object behind a tree in the woods.

"C’mon," Logan says, holding his gun tightly.

We scan the area then I pull a few branches back, it's a car, looks new like someone was hiding it.

"This can't be serious," I say.

Logan whispers, "Look around and be quiet."

After a minute or two of pacing back and forth we make our way back to the school without speaking, both confused.

***

We're standing in the hallway beneath the staircase, Logan and Ria are arguing, she thinks he's lying about the car.

"I swear I'm not fucking with you, Ria."

"Why didn't you search it then rather waiting?"

"Someone could've been hiding."

Ria sighs, "Fine, I'll get Eli and come with you."