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Renee yawned as she stood on top of a crushed car and leaned against the utility pole the car was wrapped around. She was not thrilled with her new group, but what choice did she have? Humans that traveled alone were an easy target for zombies and humans alike. The undead would eat her, and the humans… well, it largely depended on who found her. But she’d learned early on what happened to people traveling alone who were unable to defend themselves.

She shivered from the memories of witnessing people die. The world was a harsh, horrific, never-ending cycle of death. Renee sighed and pushed her long, brown ponytail behind her. Had to stay focused. Her only job tonight was to stay awake and watch for threats. Mark said she wasn’t useful for anything else. Mark was a tool.

Iris told Renee she slept better when Renee was on watch because Renee caught things others didn’t. Renee scrunched up her face. She understood they weren’t friends, but she wanted them to be. She wanted someone to like her.

I like you Renny, her brother said beside her.

Renee stiffened and wouldn’t allow herself to look in his direction. If she did, he’d fade away, and she was feeling pretty lonely again.

I think you have to, Liam. You’re my brother, she replied in her mind because she knew he’d hear her since that’s where he lived.

Untrue. A lot of brothers, especially ones like me, who are a lot older, don’t like their little sisters. But they’re jerks and I’m the best, he laughed because that’s what she always told him, but he never believed it.

You are, but I can’t get distracted. I have to make sure nothing sneaks up on us. We’re too close to the city now, and if I make one more mistake, Mark said I was out. How was I supposed to know he was going to let those scavengers join us? Renee grumbled and scanned the area again.

Even if you didn’t, you probably shouldn’t have charged into camp screaming that you were being attacked. His tone was gentle, but his words still stung.

Well, any other time, that’s what it would have meant! She snapped and frowned. Typically, if you were already in a group and another gang of similar size approached, it rarely meant they wanted to team up. It meant they wanted your stuff. Some groups were willing to trade or help each other, but many would fight to get what they wanted.

She took a deep breath and peered into the darkness. Tuning everything out, returning herself to the childhood state when she leaned on her abilities to perceive things with her senses of sight, touch, taste, and smell, to tell her if something was wrong. There was a chill in the air that left her skin feeling damp. The light breeze carried an odd mixture of scents to her nostrils. Pavement, decaying foliage, mold, people that needed to bathe, a musty fragrance she couldn’t place, and a trace of something fresh that reminded her of sunshine.

Citrus? She blinked and squinted her eyes when she saw what appeared to be glowing stars in the sky, only they were too close to the ground. Renee leaned closer and tried to keep her heart rate down. There were so many small glowing orbs that her mind couldn’t register the sight. Fear lanced through her and made her limbs lock into place.

She’d heard stories over the years talking about the zombies once they started to group together. She suspected the stories were nonsense. It was said right before the undead attacked, people on watch would sometimes peer into the darkness and witness a sea of lights too close to the ground to be stars. It was almost beautiful in an eerie sort of way. Just the idea of a glittering mass of stars made her think of her books. Only in those stories, it wouldn’t be a sign of danger. Instead, the two romantic leads would have an important scene, the stars, a magical backdrop, and the characters might even kiss.

She shook her head. Not sure what the connection was between the sea of lights and the horde of undead, but it was clear enough from the stories, if someone witnessed it, they were slated to die.

No escape from death. There was never a way to avoid it.

With shaking limbs, she eased down off the side of the car as quietly as she could. She pulled her lips into her mouth to hold in any sounds that might escape and tiptoed back to camp. John, from the militant group traveling with them for weeks, and Jules, who had arrived with the scavengers, were still awake.

“Where’s Mark?” Renee whispered. They leaned forward, and Renee reminded herself to speak up, repeating the question.

John pointed to a dark sport utility vehicle. “Why?”

Renee resisted the urge to touch her transmitter. No voice sounded exactly “right” when someone spoke to her. At least from what she’d been told. Since she hadn’t been able to hear before her implants, except for extremely loud noises, Renee didn’t know how voices should sound. Human speech, to her, always seemed what she imagined something robotic or mechanical would sound like. Certain types of voices didn’t get picked up as well as others, and she’d rely on her early acquired skill of lip reading. John’s voice sounded strange, but she couldn’t adjust her remaining implant to pick up on his voice better; due to minor damage accumulated over the years to her transmitter and speech processor, which prevented her from adjusting the volume.

Ignoring the fact she might have missed some words, she hurried to the SUV. “Something’s… wrong. We need to move.” Renee said, not waiting for their responses. The residual fear of being ostracized by another group of humans made her pause, but she took a breath and straightened her spine. She wouldn’t fail this group like she had all the others. She knocked her knuckles against the vehicle’s glass window.

Mark’s face popped into view. No one, except maybe those in the fabled safe zones, slept soundly anymore. Any tiny noise would wake them. It was the only way to survive. His expression shifted into disapproval before he opened the door.

“What?” Although alert, his voice sounded groggy, the dark circles under his eyes further showed his exhaustion.

“We have to move… there are… zombies. I think,” she mumbled the last words, hoping he wouldn’t catch her lack of confidence.

Mark stared at her for a moment, and Renee wondered if he wouldn’t listen to her.

“Is this like the last time?”

She shook her head. “No. That was different.”

“You’re not using this as an excuse because you screwed up finding what we needed? This isn’t some childish distraction?”

Renee clenched her teeth. Okay, she’d made some mistakes, but this bastard held them over her head like a guillotine, ready to drop the blade at a moment’s notice. For someone who had been shy most of her life, after the eighth group of people who had died due to her inability to conquer her fear, she’d made a choice. She would speak up more often, be more aggressive if people weren’t heeding her warnings.

It didn’t say much, having survived the multiple groups she’d traveled with. They were all dead because of her - her dumb panic attacks left her incapable of doing anything other than curling into a ball. But Mark didn’t know any of that. He only knew that she was more outspoken, an annoyance who questioned his ideas. Perhaps she didn’t have his military background or skill set, but she’d survived just as long - and often by herself.

It took all of her self-control not to snap at him. She had never given any of them a reason to think she’d lie about something so important. Why the hell did he even want her on watch if he wouldn’t believe her?

“No. I saw the sea of stars.” As the words tumbled from her mouth, they sounded dumb, and she wished she had phrased it differently.

He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth before he answered. “You woke me up for this?”

Couldn’t he sense something wasn’t right? She hadn’t detected it before when she was by herself, but there was a weight to the air, it seemed to press down on all sides and caused her stomach to knot. Renee had felt it before… right before they encountered zombies.

“I get you don’t like me, but I’m telling you I know they’re nearby. If we don’t move-”

Mark put up his hand. “Then why hasn’t anyone else reported the same?”

“Because… I was the only one to the south.”

His face bunched in irritation before he breathed out and relaxed it. “Look, I’m glad you’re… paying better attention, but the horde Ty spotted earlier in the week was massive. Larger than most of us have seen, even those from out west. It was thousands, Renee.”

“I know that.” She mumbled.

“If it was that massive horde, everyone would report in. It could just be shamblers. Did you get visual confirmation?”

Damn it, I don’t need visual confirmation, she thought sourly. After so many people had died who had been traveling with her, she recognized when the zombies were close. Many humans had developed an uncanny ability to sense when zombies were near, but Renee’s was remarkably accurate. Renee pulled her shoulders back. She refused to let this group die like the others, even if she had to fight Mark to save the rest.

“We shouldn’t go into the city. I swear, that’s where they’re headed.” She sounded confident, even with him eyeing her. When Ty saw the horde earlier, he said it looked like they were also headed for Baltimore. Even if Mark didn’t believe her, he’d believe Ty, right?

“That’s not as much of a risk anymore. There’s always undead in the cities, but they’re just one-offs. Hordes that big don’t go into cities. Why would they? Unless humans try to settle somewhere, they wander around looking for food.”

“But Ty-”

Mark put his palm up to stop her. “I know what he said. That’s why we avoided the horde he saw and let them pass us, but I doubt they’ll enter the city.” He adjusted in the bench seat.

“You saw them?” Iris asked, sidling up next to Renee.

Damn it, she moved quietly. Renee didn’t hear her coming. Of course, it was on her bad side. Plus, what most people didn’t understand was that cochlear implants’ primary purpose was to process speech, not environmental sounds. While they did pick up on most sounds, the processor interpreted those sounds, sending them to the brain’s appropriate auditory channels. Those channels were set up for speech, not ambient sounds. So sometimes she’d miss things or misinterpret noises.

Iris was tall, around five foot eleven inches, and muscular. Before the world ended, she was a police officer. A few weeks ago, she showed Renee her badge. She’d kept it all these years because it still meant something to her. She even told Renee she still believed her mission was to protect and serve.

“She didn’t see anything.” Mark waved his hand dismissively. “If she had, others would have too, or worst-case scenario, we’d be in the thick of it right now.”

“But-” Renee took a step toward the vehicle.

“Don’t.” Mark’s tone switched to the short, nasty one he mainly used when he spoke to her. “You almost got us killed when the scavengers joined us, you didn’t find the medicine like you promised you would, you dropped days’ worth of rations because you ran, you’re a shit cook, and you can’t even hear out of your right ear. The only thing you seem capable of is being on night watch so the useful people can rest.”

Renee’s lips trembled. What an asshole! It wasn’t her fault that most of the medicines were gone now. For the first few years of this mess, she’d been an expert at finding all kinds of pharmaceutical medications. Mainly because she always needed to stock up on batteries for her implants, so she was always searching around in drug stores and abandoned urgent care buildings.

She couldn’t refute the part about the rations because that happened exactly as he said it did. A smaller horde of zombies closed in on them, she panicked as usual and ran. In her rush, the bag slipped off her shoulder and she was too scared to go back for it. By the time things had calmed and she found it, everything was ruined.

Before the apocalypse, Renee had no reason to learn to cook, her parents had taken care of her and her brother. Now constantly on the run, everything had to be cooked over a fire, which was totally different from what she’d seen her parents do. She could have made cupcakes from scratch, if there had been a working oven, that had been a hobby of hers in high school.

It was a low blow to mention her hearing, but Mark didn’t see the point in holding back. It infuriated her, but also shut her down. As furious as she was, the word stupid kept repeating in her head so loudly that she couldn’t organize her thoughts.

“She is alert at night, Mark. Don’t be a dick. She was the one who told us about the wandering group of undead three weeks ago that saved our hides. Renee was also the one who realized a pack of coyotes were tracking us.” Iris crossed her arms and shifted her face into the don’t fuck with me look only Iris could pull off with Mark.

Mark leaned forward and locked his gaze on Renee, but still spoke to Iris. “I told you before, Hernandez, she’s your problem. You decided she should stick around after fucking up - so deal with her.” He backed into the SUV and closed the door in their faces.