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Five’s legs were burning, every muscle pulled tight, and there was an uncomfortable sharp edge at the bottom of her lungs. They’d been running for so long, away from psychotic wardens and prisoners, to say nothing of the undead. Five wanted nothing more than to get back to Abel, where she didn’t need to be looking over her shoulder and waiting for the next flash of a knife or gun. But Sam’s nervous half-laugh over her headset told her that maybe that safe place didn’t exist for her anymore. The adrenaline rushing in her ears was too loud for Five to listen properly, but she was getting the gist. They hadn’t been out on a supply run at all, but a meaningless fetch quest designed to see which runners were followed by Van Ark’s pet zombies.
“Meaning in our little group that set out from Abel…?” Sarah asked although it was clear she already knew the answer.
“Yeah,” Sam said flatly, voice dragging downwards. “One of you is a traitor.”
Five refused to speak to Sara for the rest of the run home. Sara occasionally chatted to empty air, as she usually did through Five’s silent fits. But she didn’t try to elicit a response from Five or Sam, who was uncharacteristically quiet over the comms.
Five desperately wanted a moment to think. She tugged on the bill of her signature baseball cap as if it could shield her face from the cameras she knew lined their route.
Sara was no more the traitor than Five was, of that Five was certain. Sara betraying Abel to Van Ark was as unlikely as…as Sam declaring he’d hated Marmite all along. Five tried for a wry smile for herself, to prove that maybe things weren’t as bleak as they seemed. But the smile didn’t come, just a wave of cold dread. Five focused on the rhythm of her feet against the earth and tried to sync it up with Sara’s confident step beside her.
When the pair reached Abel’s gates, two guards waited for them instead of the usual one. Five recognized them both from all the times she’d sat up most of the night in the guard towers, peering out into the dark fields around Abel when she couldn’t sleep. What she didn’t recognize was the suspicious gleam in their gaze, the grim set of their jaws as they tried to watch Five and Sara without meeting their eyes. The older and more senior of the two gestured to Five and Sara to separate, ushering them into different bite-check rooms.
There was nobody else around. No runners stretched by the gates, no clinic workers waited for injuries to mend, no rations monitors hovered to take their supply-laden bags.
Five looked at Sara, who nodded solemnly back. They both knew what this was.
Five followed the younger guard meekly, as indicated. Frankly, she was too tired to protest or make an insincere attempt at small talk. She went through the motions—bite check: clean, although there was a new collection of bruises and scrapes that needed rinsing with antiseptic. She handed over her backpack with its meager amount of supplies to the guard, not even bothering to fish out anything for a Runner’s Right. The guard didn’t ask.
Five blinked, and she was plodding after the guard towards the quarantine shacks. Ahead of them, she could see Sarah’s back disappear into one of them, and the older guard from before closing and locking the door behind her.
Abel was putting Sara and Five in quarantine.
Five hated quarantine. More than anything in the whole post-apocalyptic world, Five hated being shut up in one of the four cold, damp, derelict shacks of stacked stone overnight. She hated being alone in there, waiting to see if the panicked tightness in her lungs would develop into a cough that meant her end was nigh. She also hated not being alone in there, when quarantine was precautionary instead of a nervous necessity. Five hated watching Cora or Rowan or Sam sitting against the far wall, trying to make cheerful conversation across the icy iron bars between them. The small cluster of makeshift jail cells was Five’s least favorite part of Abel, and now she didn’t even know how long she’d have to stay there.
It was true, then.
They really thought she might be a traitor.
Even Sam thought it was a possibility. He must, or else he would have said something reassuring during the remaining mile’s run home, or met them at the gates, or stopped by the cell.
Five walked forward into the quarantine cell, not stopping to look back when she heard the gentle clanking of the door being locked behind her. She tucked herself into the furthest corner from the front, sitting on the ground with her knees pulled up to her chest. Five wanted to press backward into the frigid stone wall until nobody could see her from the door. She wanted to be invisible, gone, disposed of, forgotten. If this was what people thought of her, she didn’t want to be thought of at all.
And yet, Five didn’t feel particularly surprised.
For a long time, Five sat curled into a corner and felt numb. Once in a while, she’d hear a curious rustle at the door and glance sideways to meet the wide blue eyes of her guard. He always looked away quickly. Five told herself it was because he felt awkward, confused, annoyed at having to watch over someone who clearly was neither bitten nor a traitor.
Nobody actually thought Five was the traitor, did they? After all the things she’d gone through? Not just for Abel, but for anyone who had asked. Risking her life on a mission to swap supplies with New Canton, satisfy a debt with the Girl Guides, or investigate another dead end rumor of new tech. Another mission where she’d had to sprint away from zombies or get blown up or tortured.
Five felt a wave of fury crash through her. She had never been so insulted in her life. There was nothing—nothing—more important to Five than loyalty. Following through on what she had promised to do. And she had sworn to protect Abel every time she’d slipped into her running shoes. The idea that anyone could even suspect she’d sell them out or do anything to help the creep that had chained her to a truck and toyed with her as bait was unthinkable.
Five balled her hands into fists on top of her knees, but it wasn’t enough. She tried to leap to her feet and nearly fell over—she hadn’t stretched after over two hours of running, and every muscle in her legs cried out in protest. Five felt like screaming back. She wanted to take a swing at the cold stone walls, but she could hear the guard shift to peer at the sudden movement. So Five restrained herself to pacing back and forth, six steps one way and six back to the start. How dare they? How absolutely dare they?
Any flame that burns hot will exhaust the air around it before long. Five’s mental tirades against anyone and everyone she could think of at Abel wore thin and wore her out.
After all, Five wasn’t surprised.
It always came down to this, she’d realized a long time ago. Bridges burned just before she hopped across them. Even before the apocalypse, Five had moved around a lot—it didn’t really matter that most people wound up fed up with her eventually. Of course, they rarely said so but seemed happy enough to let her go and fade into obscurity. It felt like people either didn’t like her from the beginning or came around to reality eventually. If that was the case, did it really matter if she was a traitor or not? The result was the same; it would be better if she left. Found a new place to live. But wouldn’t the same thing happen again?
There was a concept in some cultures, Five vaguely remembered, of a certain number of refusals before accepting a gift being the polite thing to do. She didn’t know where she’d picked it up or internalized it. One offer for help, an inquiry about if she was sleeping well—Five always rebuffed them all. She wasn’t a liability to be patched over for the good of the township. Ever since she’d realized she was staying at Abel, Five was driven by a need to be useful and be a valuable asset to Abel. She couldn’t be those things if she always needed other peoples’ help. And rarely did anybody ask twice.
Except for Sam.
That was a pain too blindingly dark for Five to look at directly. She sat down again, the chill of the wall at her back matching that in her hands and feet. She took off her cap, setting it carefully down on the dirt floor. It was dark enough in the cell without shading her eyes.
Sam hadn’t denied it. He hadn’t spoken up for her, reassured Five he knew she wasn’t the traitor. He hadn’t said anything about Sara, either, but that didn’t really make Five feel better.
Did he believe it? Even a little?
Five buried her face in her arms, crossed on top of her knees. Everything was cold, and she was so tired. Everything hurt, inside and out. She felt betrayed, and not just by the actual traitor. But she also saw the logic in it. Now she was tossed away where nobody would see or have to think about her.
There was nothing to do now but wait.
Outside, Sam Yao had paced for nearly half an hour. The guard had watched him suspiciously for a while, arms crossed, uncomfortably aware of the weight of his pistol holstered on one hip. The guard had his orders from Ms. De Luca, and he was much more afraid of her than Sam. Luckily for them both, Sam was too conflicted even to attempt to cajole the guard into letting him talk to Five. Sam moved back and forth between the cells where Sara and Five were being held, a dozen soft steps each way. He’d run a hand through his hair in agitation so many times it had become as wild as his eyes.
It couldn’t possibly be Five. Sam didn’t believe it for a second.
But if there was even the slightest doubt…they couldn’t afford to take that chance.
There was too much at stake here, but everything was still going so wrong. It had to be Sam’s fault. One of his runners was a traitor—and who should have been best able to figure that out? Who spent more time with each Abel runner than the voice in their ear every single mission? Sam.
But he’d missed it. He’d missed it all, and he had no idea who could be the traitor. Sam had vague suspicions, of course, a series of half-formed theories built on grasped straws. But he hadn’t seen it happening. His focus had been elsewhere.
His focus had been on Five. Janine had pointed it out before. Sam ignored it at the time, but now he could see her point. It had become a liability, paying too much attention to a single runner. And yet here he still was, pacing half the night in her general proximity.
It wasn’t Five’s fault. It was Sam’s. She wasn’t the traitor, and he should have been able to clear her name. But Five was in there, sitting alone in the cold dark, paying the price.
Sam knew how much Five hated quarantine. But he couldn’t afford to stay here and do something about it. Not when there was a traitor to catch.
Sam turned on his heel and left. The guard relaxed at his post. Inside, Five buried her face deeper in her folded arms, burning up with the certainty that she was both forgotten and despised.