Dorran kept one arm around her as he took bandages out of the kit. The pain subsided to a steady ache as he covered the cuts then gently tugged the torn sweater back into place.
“Okay.” Feeling boneless and shaky, she spoke with more conviction than she felt. “Onwards we go.”
“Not just yet.” He ran his fingers over her neck. “We need to eat. Let’s take advantage of the fire to enjoy some warm food.”
The day was chilly, the car was missing its heater, and Clare couldn’t object to sitting in the warmth of the fire. Dorran tipped out the boiled water and used the saucepan to heat their food. They had stew again, but he also brought out a tin of peaches, which he cooked until their juice had thickened into syrup and the fruits were on the edge of falling apart.
They each had a spoon but ate out of the same saucepan perched carefully between them. The cuts still ached, but Clare was starting to feel more peaceful. The area was quiet—almost eerily so. No insects bothered them, though she knew the long grass must have been full of them before the snows. The sky was a deep, hazy shade of grey, and visibility wasn’t good. She could see the mountains in the horizon but none of their definition.
“Do you think it will snow again?” she asked Dorran.
He sat with his legs out ahead of himself, one arm propped behind her back. “Most likely. Before the world changed, I would have said the snow would be light, though. But now? I really cannot predict it.”
“Do you know where we are on the map?”
Dorran didn’t answer immediately, and Clare felt a twinge of panic that they might actually be lost. But then he said, “Not exactly. As far as I can tell, we went off its edge after passing the river, but I have been holding our course northwest to pull us back towards our original path.”
“That’s good.” She scooped up more of the warm peaches. “I should be able to place us if we can see a street sign.”
Dorran fussed over her as he got her back into the car; fastening her seat belt, wrapping the spare blanket around her legs, and refusing to let her help pack up. He stomped their fire out and returned their supplies to the car’s back seat. The stop hadn’t been long, but Clare was grateful for it. To be out of the car, to be able to stretch and breathe fresh air, was a luxury she wouldn’t have expected to miss.
The idea of having a caravan like the one they had stayed in at the holiday park was sweetly tempting. A real bed. A kitchen. Room to stand, walk, and stretch without being vulnerable.
And a massive liability. Hitching a caravan behind their car would chew through fuel and make them too slow for any kind of rapid escape. Clare had to grudgingly admit that the luxury wasn’t worth it.
As Dorran drove, the open plains began to return to hills. A road intersected with the path they were on, and Dorran slowed as they neared it. An old, weather-beaten sign told them they were driving along Murray Road. Clare shook the map out with one hand and scanned it.
“Here!” She grinned as an almost-painful relief crashed through her. Not only were they back on the map, but they were closer to Beth’s than she’d dared let herself hope. “If we turn left, we can get onto the freeway. It would only take twenty minutes to reach Beth’s from there.”
“Dangerous,” Dorran murmured.
“You’re right. Let’s go straight, instead. That keeps us on the rural roads.” Clare traced the path, lips twitching as she calculated the time. “It’s not much farther… probably no more than an hour. We should be able to get there before it’s dark, right?”
“I’ll follow your directions.” Dorran smiled, but he didn’t look as happy as Clare had expected.
She frowned at him, trying to understand what was making him tense. Beth’s house is in a suburb. Is he worried about getting past the hollows?
“We’ll have the masks,” Clare said. “If we park right out the front of Beth’s house, we can get to the bunker and back in less than a minute. That should be quick enough to slip past the hollows before they get too pushy.”
He nodded, but his expression didn’t change. The awful guardedness was back in place, a careful construct of serenity.
Clare pursed her lips. That wasn’t the problem. What else, then?
She realised the answer quickly, and with it came a rush of uneasiness. He wasn’t worried about getting to the bunker; he was worried about what was inside. He expected Beth to be dead. And he was probably right.
Clare tried to imagine what they would find. Beth, suffocated, dead, lying on her bunker floor. Maybe nothing at all. Perhaps a splash of blood on the front step. She didn’t know which would be worse, but those were the only possibilities that seemed likely. The idea of knocking on the door and hearing Beth’s answer was more akin to wild fantasy than true hope. And Dorran was afraid of what the loss would do to her. With good reason too. She’d fallen apart at Marnie’s house.
Clare tightened her hands into fists on top of the map. She wouldn’t put him through anything like that again. She knew what the bunker likely held; she’d been preparing herself for it ever since leaving Winterbourne. Then again, she’d expected Marnie to be dead, and it hadn’t made that encounter any easier.
As long as they were still driving towards Beth’s, there was hope. It was small, but it still existed, and it held the grief at bay like a crumbling dam. She could tell herself Beth was gone, but until she saw it with her own eyes, it didn’t feel like reality.
But she’s gone. Almost certainly. Almost guaranteed. Gone like the rest of them.
“Let
