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Yulia said two things as she closed the door behind them.

“We still love you” and “You can’t stay like this forever.”

Hollis didn’t expect the anger he felt at that, but he kept his mouth shut.

They went down Yulia’s stairs and stood in the dark on the sidewalk. The light from her windows was dim with the shadows of his friends watching him walk away.

And you , he whispered into the dark where Walt lived.

Hollis.

Yulia’s house was far from the hollow, and the buses had stopped running, so Hollis took them on foot. Walt stayed quiet, curled in his chest, or warm in his stomach, as they traveled. Didn’t even have the decency to carry Hollis this distance, but Hollis already knew Walt was a coward.

He knew that.

They passed through the living houses filled with people to the abandoned dead ones. Walked down the street they met and down the street where Walt had taken him. Where the dust of Sam’s body was still frozen in between pieces of pavement.

Went from buildings to gravel to trees dark and tall. And Hollis wasn’t afraid in this forest any more than Walt was. When it got too dark to see, Walt took their legs and guided them to where the ground was warm and soft and wanting.