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I sunk lower in the chair, because he was right. We hadn’t been safe enough at the lakehouse, we weren’t safe here, we would never be safe again.

But then, I supposed, maybe we never were really all that safe to begin with. We are all such fragile things.

The door to the house opened, and Boden came out. The crocheted blanket from our bed was wrapped around his shoulders because he was shirtless.

He smiled groggily down at me. “You’re home. You should’ve woken me up.” He bent down and kissed my temple.

“I wanted to let you rest. I figured you needed it.”

Serg got to his feet. “I think I’m gonna go inside and have a shower before turning in for the night.”

“Thanks for the tea,” I said again before he departed.

“So how was it?” Boden asked, taking Serg’s chair beside me. “Did you have a good hunt?”

“It was fine.” I shrugged and told him the samething I’d told Serg.

And he’d responded the same way that Serg had when I mentioned bringing back the organ meat from the animals I had harvested to feed the zombies: “Well, Nova told you they fed the zombies. Where did you think it came from?”

“I guess maybe I didn’t care before because I wasn’t the one who had hunted their food. The zombies weren’t benefiting from my work done with my own two hands,” I said.

“I suppose I can understand that,” he allowed. “Do you want to do something else instead of hunting?”

I shook my head. “I don’t know what else I’m good at that could be useful around here.”

“I mean, there are plenty of options, if you want to look.”

“Are you happy here?” I asked and looked over at him.

“Um.” Boden was clearly caught off-guard. “Things have been rough and intense since we arrived, but yeah, I do think I could be happy. You aren’t happy here, though, are you?”

“I don’t like it here,” I admitted. “I don’t like how everyone acts like it’s so safe here. But I know that this is where we need to be right now.”

“Did Serg introduce you to Minnie?” he asked.

“Who is Minnie?”

“The goat.”

“Oh, yeah. He said she’s made things better.”

“Well, it’s too early to say that,” Boden corrected me. “But I hope things are better. Stella has seemed so frayed lately, and not like herself. Some sleep might make things right, but… I don’t know.”

“This isn’t home, and she just became a mother. Maybe she doesn’t feel like herself right now.”

“It’s a lot of adjustments for everybody.” He leaned over and put a hand on my knee. “But home iswhere the seven of us are.” The goat bleated loudly then. “Okay,eightof us.”

I smiled and put my hand over his. “You’re right.”

38

Remy

According to Nova, she usually went on hunting trips twice a month. They had other hunters that would go out at other times on a rotating schedule, but they still tried not to go out too frequently to cause a local scarcity.

However, this time of year was different. The Emberwood Fest was one week away, and along with it came an influx of people who came to celebrate, and they were all bringing their appetite. That meant we needed additional meat, and with meat smokers and freezers, we could stock up ahead of time.

While I still wasn’t thrilled about the idea of a festival, it was happening either way, and people would need to eat. I volunteered to go on the hunting trip with Nova and Eden, and I planned to keep my contrarian opinions to myself for a change.