The Shape of Goodbye-Kenzie didn't want her to go.
The thought hit her hard and fast, sharp enough to steal her breath before she even realized it was there. Lila's hand was already on the door, fingers curled tight like if she loosened them, she might change her mind.
The Jeep's cabin felt too small for the moment. Too many bodies. Too much grief packed into the same air. Sweat and gasoline and the coppery ghost of the bank clung to them like a second skin. The engine idled in that low, impatient growl—steady, hungry, threatening to become the loudest thing on the block if Ethan lost control for even a second.
"Lila," Kenzie said, her voice small and strained in the tight space of the Jeep. "Please… don't."
Lila turned, eyes glassy, face torn in half by the impossible choice sitting in front of her. For a second, she looked younger—less like someone hardened by blood and running and death, more like the girl Kenzie had met a year and a half ago, standing in a dorm hallway with an armful of laundry and no idea where the dryers were.
Kenzie swallowed and forced herself to keep going.
Because silence was a trap. Because if she stopped talking, she'd start sobbing—and if she started sobbing, she might not be able to breathe.
"I've known Alyssa since freshman year," she said quickly, words tumbling out before fear could stop them. "A year and a half. We lived together, we cried together, we survived finals together. She's been with Aaron for almost a year now. They're solid. They're real. He's from Savannah. He knows this place. He knows where to go, where not to go."
Every sentence felt like a nail hammered into something already splitting. Kenzie could taste the bitterness of it—how she was building a case for her best friend to leave her.
She leaned forward, clutching the edge of the seat.
"They're the only people you really know here," Kenzie said softly. "The only ones who knew you before all of this."
Lila's mouth trembled.
Kenzie felt something ugly and selfish rise up in her chest, and she hated herself for it—but she said it anyway.
Because survival wasn't polite. Survival didn't wait for the right words.
"You don't know us," she continued. "Not really. And I don't blame you. This group—" She glanced around the Jeep. At the exhaustion. The grief. At Tally curled in on herself, silent and hollow. "—this group is breaking. And I don't feel safe anymore. Not like before. Especially not now."
Her eyes flicked, unbidden, to Tally.
She didn't finish the thought.
She didn't need to.
The dead didn't need full sentences either.
Alyssa and Aaron were running toward the Jeep now, breathless, frantic, eyes wild with relief and fear. Alyssa slammed her hands against the window, smiling and crying at the same time when she saw Lila inside.
"Oh my God," Alyssa sobbed. "I thought you were dead."
Lila flung the door open and climbed out before anyone could stop her.
Cold air rushed in, dragging street noise with it—distant alarms, a single gunshot somewhere far off, and that low, wandering chorus that never stopped long enough to feel like quiet.
They crashed into each other in the street, arms tight, shaking, both crying so hard neither of them could speak. It wasn't a reunion so much as proof they were still made of flesh. Still capable of love. Still capable of hurting.
Aaron stood guard beside them, crowbar raised, eyes scanning every shadow, every parked car, every doorway.
His gaze wasn't just protective—it was calculating. Counting angles. Counting seconds. Reading the street like it was a language he'd been born fluent in.
There was no room in the Jeep.
They all knew it.
No one even asked.
But the desperation was still there—written all over Alyssa's face when she looked at the packed vehicle. The way her eyes flicked to the back, to the trunk, to the floorboards, searching for impossible space.
That look—hope trying to squeeze into a place that didn't exist—made Kenzie's stomach twist.
Aaron spoke quickly, voice low but steady. "I've got a plan."
Ethan swore under his breath from the driver's seat. "We don't have time for a TED Talk."
Aaron didn't rise to it. "My family's place is south of here. Old neighborhood. Brick houses. Most of them are fortified. My uncle preps—always has. There's a storage shed with generators, water tanks, supplies. If it's still standing, it's safer than the streets."
The word safer landed like a narcotic.
Not safe. Never safe.
Just safer than teeth and asphalt and the constant math of who trips next.
Caleb's head snapped up.
"South?" he asked. "Near Richmond Hill?"
Aaron nodded once. "Yeah."
Caleb's breath caught. "My wife's family lives there. Or… lived." His jaw clenched hard. "If there's even a chance—"
His voice did something strange on the last word, like it didn't want to be hope because hope had gotten too many people killed already.
"I'm going," Caleb said suddenly, before anyone could argue. "I can't keep wandering. I need somewhere to go that isn't just running until I die."
Ethan slammed his palm against the steering wheel. "We are burning daylight."
His eyes darted to the street again. He shifted in his seat, tense, restless. "I see movement. I don't know if it's real or if I'm losing my damn mind, but we are not staying parked."
The Jeep felt like a heartbeat holding still. A predator's pause before it bolts.
Lila turned back to the Jeep.
Her eyes landed on Kenzie.
Kenzie climbed out slowly, legs shaking, heart pounding so hard it hurt.
The pavement felt unstable under her, like the world could tilt again at any second.
"You don't have to explain," Kenzie said quietly. "I get it."
Lila shook her head. "No. I don't want to leave you like this."
Kenzie laughed weakly. "We already lost Justin. We're already fractured. This isn't betrayal. This is… survival."
She heard Justin's name and felt it hit the group like a gust through a cracked window—everybody flinched in their own way. Mari's face went tight and blank. Dot's arms tightened around Tally like she was holding a wound shut with her body. Ethan didn't look at anyone; he just stared past them, jaw clenched like it was the only way to keep from falling apart.
She hesitated.
Then she did something she hadn't planned.
She stepped closer to Tally.
Tally didn't look up.
She hadn't said a word since the gas station.
Her silence felt heavier than screaming.
Kenzie swallowed hard. "You probably hate me," she said softly. "You always did."
Tally's head lifted just slightly, eyes rimmed red, hollow and unfocused.
Kenzie kept going, because she would never get another chance.
Because once they drove away, the road would swallow this moment the way it swallowed everything else.
"I know you thought I followed you because you were loud, or pretty, or took up space. Like I wanted to steal attention or be seen." Her voice cracked. "But that's not why."
She wrapped her arms around herself.
"You were the only one who ever made me feel like I belonged. Like I wasn't invisible. You talked to me. You stood next to me. You let me hide behind you when things got too much." Tears slid down her face. "You were my only real friend here."
The words hung in the air.
Tally flinched like she'd been struck.
It wasn't dramatic.
It was small and violent—like a bruise touched too hard.
Kenzie wiped her face angrily. "I stayed under you because you made the world less scary. Not because I wanted anything you had."
She took a step back. "And I'm sorry if I never said that before."
Tally's mouth opened.
Nothing came out.
The silence felt unbearable.
It felt like the moment in a hospital when a monitor goes flat and everyone still pretends there's time—hands moving anyway, voices loud anyway, because if you stop, it becomes real.
Lila stepped closer to Kenzie, hands trembling. "Come with me," she said suddenly. "Please. You don't owe them anything. They're not your family either."
Kenzie's heart shattered.
Not because the offer was wrong.
Because it was right enough to be tempting.
For one terrible, tempting second, she wanted to say yes.
She wanted to run.
To leave the tension, the fear, the way Tally looked at her like everyone always blamed her for everything—even when she hadn't done anything at all.
She wanted to take Lila's hand and disappear into the promise of somewhere safer.
But then she looked at the Jeep.
At Dot. At Marcus. At Renee. At Mari, hollow-eyed and wrecked. At Ethan, carrying the weight of leadership he hadn't asked for. At Tally, breaking apart in silence, convinced she was alone in the world now.
Kenzie shook her head, sobbing. "I can't."
The word came out like something torn free. Like the end of an IV being ripped out because someone yanked too hard.
Lila let out a broken sound.
They hugged hard—desperate, clinging, the kind of hug meant to imprint memory because you know it's the last one.
Kenzie felt Lila's fingers dig into her jacket like she was trying to hold onto a timeline where the world hadn't collapsed. Kenzie pressed her face into Lila's shoulder and inhaled that familiar scent—soap, sweat, smoke—trying to memorize it like a dying thing.
"I love you," Lila whispered.
Kenzie nodded. "I love you too."
Ethan shouted, "NOW!"
A growl rolled through the street behind them.
Low. Close.
Not the distant chorus.
A single throat close enough to hear the wetness in it.
Aaron spun, crowbar raised.
A shape lunged from between two cars—too fast, too close.
Someone screamed.
The world snapped back into motion.
And whatever choice Kenzie had made, whatever goodbye had just happened—
the dead didn't care.
They were already coming.