Chapter Text
There’s a knife to Scar’s throat now. Grian watches through the scope of his rifle, finger hovering over the trigger. He waits and begs for a reason to take the shot. But Scar won’t give it to him, Grian knows that much. But the knife kisses the skin of Scar’s neck and Grian’s patience slips through his fingers like blood from a gaping wound.
Grian hears Scar’s laughter, distant and muffled by the calling of birds as they pass overhead. His laughter’s like music, but only Grian knows how nervous he sounds. Only he sees the slight tremble in Scar’s raised hands.
This is the last time Grian trusts Scar with anything.
A sign of good faith, Scar had whispered to him before abandoning his pistol on the table. Grian stares at the metal of it— the four tallies carved into the handle.
***
“Fellas, let’s not get overzealous.” Scar laughs because what else is he meant to do with a knife held to his neck? It’s not the first time he’s found himself in such a compromised position, but he can’t say the familiarity of it brings any comfort. Suddenly he regrets leaving his pistol behind on Grian’s kitchen table. A sign of good faith.
Grian had rolled his eyes and said, Sounds like more a fast pass to a knife wedged in your ribs.
Scar doesn’t think Ren would be quite so merciful. No, the Reds are a troubled group, the type to enjoy dragging these types of affairs out, long and slow so you don’t forget who it is you’ve crossed. Scar would be more afraid if it wasn’t for the fact that Ren isn’t the one holding the knife. No, the feared leader of the loathsome Reds stands behind his small cluster of henchmen, save and revered. The Red King, never at the front of his own deals. Cowardice masquerading as self-preservation— it’s smart.
“You promised the hospital,” Ren says over the heads of his lackeys, all adorned in strips of tattered red fabric over their clothes and smears of reddish mud covering their faces. A bit on-the-nose, Scar can’t help but think.
Regardless, the Reds have been an invaluable addition to the trading Network. A broken thing, the Network. Scar built it from nothing but fragile trust and shoes on eggshells, but it brought plenty of needed supplies in through the harsh beginnings of winter. Weapons, blankets, non-perishables. Anything Scar could barter for to help the Grid and pull his weight.
In return, all the Grid had to do was clear out sections of the city. Valuable stretches of land to ensure security and expansion for remaining civilizations. A fair trade, in Scar’s opinion. Though Grian had been less than thrilled by Scar’s ambitions. But even Grian’s unrelenting pessimism couldn’t deny the plethora of supplies arriving at their front gates.
“There was a horde,” Scar says quickly. “It cut off our men halfway through the area, and we weren’t able to clear out the rest. And to be transparent I never guaranteed all four blocks. I’d say we’d clear what we could, and you accepted those terms.”
Ren’s face twists into something cool but angry, a fire burning just beneath an indestructible surface. “Martyn.”
Martyn, the man with the knife to Scar’s neck, doesn’t waver. The blade presses closer to his neck. Scar’s skin burns with the cool bite of it, the whispered threat. Scar holds his breath. Doesn’t give the blade a reason to bite him.
Ren picks his way through the small cluster of Reds stationed outside of the Grid’s walls. He falls in line with Martyn and leans his chin over his shoulder, smiling at Scar. “I don’t care about your silly guarantees. I care that you sold us short. Three bags of ammunition we gave you, wasn’t it? Do you really think that’s worth a meager half-mile?”
Scar outstretches his empty hands at his sides. “You have a half-mile of beautiful real estate right in the center of the city! Zero infected, zero risks, and protected from the elements by buildings on all sides! Really, it’s the most valuable place you could get. If anything, I should be demanding you pay us more for what we did accomplish.”
“Without the full territory as promised,” Ren says, all but spitting out the last word. “We are forced to short you on supplies. You can get the rest when you secure the hospital. Surely, you understand.”
Scar raises an eyebrow. This isn’t part of the deal. “I understand your suspicion, but tell me how are we supposed to face a horde like that without any firepower?” There are guns in those backs slung over Ren’s back, at his feet. Guns and ammo and fireworks. Things they desperately need if they’re going to keep up this type of business. If they want to protect their home.
“If you want the rest of your area, you can only help ensure we get it by giving the goods as we originally intended. Think of it as an investment.”
“I think we’ve invested enough in you,” Martyn says, narrowing his eyes at Scar. The hand holding the knife close to Scar’s jugular remains steady. Not even the barest falter.
“Are either of you gambling men?” Scar cracks a smile. “You know where I live. You know we’re desperate for weapons and firepower. I’d say your odds at winning big with a small contribution into the betting pot are pretty secure here.”
Ren frowns, and Scar hopes it’s a frown of thoughtfulness rather than murderous intent. He can never tell with Ren. He puts a hand on Martyn’s shoulder, catches his eye. A silent gesture that somehow speaks volumes despite the silence between them.
Eventually, Martyn nods. When Ren turns his gaze back to Scar, there’s a mischievous tilt to his lips. Scar smiles back at him unwaveringly.
“Three days,” Ren finally says. He steps around Martyn, plucks the knife from his grasp, and nearly yanks Scar off his feet by a grip in the front of his shirt. The metal of the blade ghosts over the bridge of Scar’s nose. “You have three days to clear the hospital as promised,” he says, tracing the knife’s point down Scar’s right cheek. “Or I’ll give you something to add to your collection.”
“Seems only fair,” Scar agrees with another uneasy smile. “But not to worry. No blood will be shed over something so silly. Three days? Consider it done.”
Ren’s dark eyes scan Scar’s face, searching for any crack or crease in that smile before he lets Scar go. The bags on his shoulders slump to the ground, and Ren kicks them in Scar’s direction. He turns to Martyn and jerks his chin. “Let’s go.”
Scar knows this won’t be the last time they come back. Three days, Ren’s voice jeers in his head as Scar struggles to kneel to collect the bags of firepower. In all honesty, he’s equal parts surprised and grateful that his persuasion had worked. He deems any deal without a gunshot wound to be successful these days. The winter tends to make even the kindest of people snappy. But these duffle bags are chock-full of everything they’ll need to get them through this horrible winter and then some. Enough to ensure the completion of several deals he’s promised the Network.
Still, it isn’t enough to go toe-to-toe with the Reds, as much as Scar hates to admit it. They have more of everything: weapons, power, and food. The only thing keeping them from war is that the Grid has only one thing the Reds don’t.
“You’re a fool for letting them get too close.”
Scar doesn’t need to turn around to know it’s Grian.
He turns anyway, because he wants a good look at his friend. Dark circles are an old acquaintance beneath his eyes. Grian watches Scar, tired and distant as always, though Scar can’t miss the excited twitch of his mouth when he spots the two duffle bags at Scar’s feet.
“He needed to know I wasn’t a threat,” Scar says, kicking a bag in Grian’s direction with his good leg. “I knew you weren’t going to let him hurt me.”
Surprise crosses Grian’s face, and it’s an endlessly satisfying sight for Scar. Grian glances down at the bag, abashed. “You knew I was watching you.”
“You always do,” Scar says.
Grian grimaces and leans down to pick up the rest of the baggage that Scar can’t carry. “Only because you’re going to get yourself killed one of these days.” He sounds embarrassed. Good— it’s a rare flash beneath the plating of his armor.
“I’m touched, Grian,” Scar beams as he adjusts one of the bags on his shoulder and readjusts his grip on his cane. The pair of them hobble back through the gates of the Grid. Whoever is on watch— Scar’s still in the tedious process of learning everyone’s names, which proves difficult when he’s attached at Grian’s hip— pulls the gates closed behind them and secures a padlock through the paneling.
“It almost sounds like you’re worried about me,” Scar teases.
“Don’t be silly. What I’m worried about is the angry mob that will show up at our gates when we don’t follow through on deals you made.” Grain says each word as if they’re an insult, readjusting the heavier bag on his shoulder with frustrated groan grit between his teeth.
“The Network is a system built on equal trust and respect,” Scar argues. “I trust they won’t hold it against you all if I die.”
“When you die.”
Scar tries his hardest not to be hurt by that.
Grian pauses to look at Scar, eyes narrowed in a thunderous emotion that Scar hasn’t quite deciphered yet. That’s the interesting thing about Grian. Most people are easy to understand. They all have tells, ways to read their faces like a psychic would claim to read palms before the world went to shit. That understanding is what built the Network from the ground up. Scar knows what people want, what people are afraid of— their humanity.
But Grian? Scar doesn’t even know where to start. He doesn’t know what lies beneath that scrunched brow, the indifferent slant in his mouth. Aside from a rare nervous tick, a chewed fingernail or a creased brow, Scar can’t make sense of Grian through his static.
Scar wonders if Grian does it on purpose.
Grian doesn’t say anything else, and Scar lets him. He turns away and walks in front of Scar towards the Grid’s center.
A small portion of what used to be a college campus in the center of the city makes up the Grid. It’s small but secure enough with its walls constructed of rusted cargo containers stacked one upon the other. At the start of it all, it was the government’s first attempt at a refugee center. The walls had been strong enough, but at the end of the day they were but a trap for everyone inside when those within them began to turn.
How Grian and the others managed to clear the place of the carnage, Scar has no idea. But he supposes, somehow, that’s what Grian does best.
An old administrative building stands in the center of the Grid. It’s where Grian tends to spend most of his time, either split between a dingy old room he’s manufactured into some kind of office (though Scar thinks it looks far more like a mad scientist’s lab more than anything) or on the rooftop. It’s where the pair of them drag the Reds’ duffles of ammunition, Grian shouldering most of the load by the time they reach the roof. Scar’s lungs ache with effort. If Grian hears him wheezing, he doesn’t say anything about it.
Instead Grian crouches beside the bags and rifles through their gains. Ren had promised several handguns, two rusted silencers, countless rounds of ammo, and a few packets of firecrackers. Scar doesn’t know how Ren and the Reds acquired such a massive collection, but it’s never his business as to the how, but rather then when and the what. As long as the deal’s been made and everyone is happy, there’s nothing else to consider.
Scar sinks into a chair and stretches out his bad leg with a quiet wince. The throbbing is deep in the joint and spikes with each heartbeat.
Grian toys with the packet of firecrackers and it’s the most excited Scar’s seen him in weeks. For a moment, he’s content to just watch him, to see the gears turn in his head as he counts the contents of the bags once, and then a second time just for good measure. He watches the methodical yet somewhat chaotic way Grian organizes everything.
“Think that’ll be enough to finish the job?” Scar asks.
Grian leans back on his hands with a soft sigh of relief. “It’s definitely something. If the hordes moved on we should be able to make a dent at the hospital.”
Scar smiles at Grian. “Look at you, Mr. Optimism. Maybe I’m a good influence after all.”
Grian scoffs. “Please, it’s hardly optimistic. It’s a fact. After a few days of planning, I reckon we’d be able to do some serious damage. Then maybe the Reds will finally stop breathing down our neck.”
“Right… About that.” Scar hesitates. He braces himself. “...We may or may not have three days to get this done for the Reds will be coming back to take their stuff back.”
“You’re joking.” Grian stares at him, hard and long and there’s an angry set to his jaw. “Tell me you are joking.”
“I know a good deal when I see one,” Scar says. “It was either that or we get nothing from the Reds and they hate us forever. You know, Grian, negotiating work is hard enough when you don’t have a knife to your throat. I think given the circumstances I made the best out of a crappy situation.”
Grian makes an awful, deep angry sound. Like a growl of an animal that catches in his throat. “Tell that to the Reds when they tear through our gate and kill us all.”
“Here comes the cynicism.” Scar throws his hands over his head. “They’re not going to kill us, Grian.”
“Think they’ll just laugh it off, do you?” Grian snaps back, pulling himself to his feet. He stares down at Scar with that same, enigmatic crease in his expression— like he’s mad at himself or the world and he can’t quite tell the difference. “Tell that to the knife to your neck!”
Scar rubs at his neck with a wince. If he closes his eyes he can still feel the sharp metal pressed to it.
“If we can’t— which I know we can— I’ll just strike another deal with them,” Scar says, unwaveringly calm in the face of Grian’s storm. “They’re reasonable people, Grian.”
“Reasonable,” Grian scoffs. “You really believe that, Scar?”
Scar’s smile falters. The Reds are just like them at the Grid— run ragged, rough around the edges, and a little afraid— but human all the same. They’re not people beyond reason (no one is) and Scar had seen that despite the glint of metal held to his throat.
What is there not to believe?
Scar’s lack of a response is all Grian needs to carry on, it seems. Grian scoffs and shakes his head. He turns away from Scar and busies himself with repackaging the goods. Counting the bullets a second time as he slips them back into their casings. “You’re not the one putting your life in danger to fulfill these deals,” he says, stuffing a handful of firecrackers into his back pocket. “Think about that next time you make blasé promises.”
He knows Grian’s anger is fair. It’s justified. He’s the one putting his life on the line regularly for the safety of the Grid, humoring Scar’s deals within the Network despite how badly Scar knows he doesn’t want to. Why does he do it?— Tack it onto the corkboard of mysteries Scar has yet to solve. He’s starting to run out of space.
“Take me with you, then.”
“What?”
Scar gestures to his leg. “I probably won’t be much help. But I could be one hell of a lookout,” he laughs. “So take me with you and let me help.”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Grian says. “I wasn’t suggesting—” “I don’t want anyone to die for me.” Such an odd sentence to say so lightly, with a smile, like telling Grian as simple as wanting stale taco shells for dinner instead of spaghetti. “I got us into this mess, so let me help get us out.”
Grian regards Scar carefully. That narrowed, analytical stare when Grian encounters a problem he isn’t sure how to start solving. He always gets there eventually though, and Scar will be here waiting for him when he does. “I’ll think about it,” is what Grian ends up saying. With that, he’s gone. He disappears down the staircase from the roof.
Scar doesn’t think about following, not when his leg aches and he can still feel the ghost of Martyn’s blade on his neck. He runs his fingers over his pulse point, over an old rough area of scar tissue. An old habit that hasn’t died with the rest of the world. It’s things like this that Scar holds onto: his scars, the way his fingertips run over them out of habit, the fear that drilled through him when Martyn brandished a blade to his neck.
Fear, Scar thinks, an old bitter taste flooding his mouth. Fear twists people into something unrecognizable to themselves, but it also makes them human. Fear existed before the Infected and it’ll exist after. Scar knew fear long before the world ended, yet he never shied away from it. It forged him into who he is now.
Scar glances to the door leading to the empty stairwell and can’t help but wonder if Grain is afraid too.
***
Before the sun rises, a knock on Scar’s door wakes him.
It takes him a moment to find his cane in the dark. He knocks it over, scrabbles for it on the floor, and then finally peels himself from his bed once he’s got the cool wood clutched between his fingers. The winter air creeps in through the draft in his bedroom window. It leaks when it rains too. Scar figures Grian gave him this room on purpose.
Grian’s on the other side of the door when Scar opens it, hair hanging in his tired face. “I’ve thought about it,” he says. He hands Scar a small backpack and a rifle with a worn leather strap. “Don’t make me regret it.”
“I won’t.” He hopes he can keep that promise.
Getting dressed is a slow, clumsy process with Grian waiting outside the door, whistling a low tune Scar recognizes only from hours of sitting in Grian’s idle silences. Once his back is heavy with the weight of the backpack and the rifle, Scar steps out to meet Grian in the hallway.
Grian lifts his eyes. “Ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,” Scar says as he pulls his bedroom door shut with the head of his cane.
The quiet dark of morning acts as their camouflage as they silently pick their way through the Grid towards the eastern wall. The sun is hours from rising and will protect them from prying eyes— living or dead— for at least the first stretch of the journey into the city.
The night’s watch is still working. All members of the Grid are on a rotating schedule, save Scar of course. He’s unsure if it’s lack of trust in Scar’s abilities or loyalties, but Grian wants him off the walls all the same. Scar can’t say he can complain much; it seems awfully boring up there.
He recognizes Pearl and Mumbo on the walls. They pace back and forth, the old metal of shipping containers groaning beneath their weight. The guns, Scar recognizes, are from Ren’s newest shipment.
Grian whistles. Pearl notices first, dropping down into a squat to peer down at Grian and Scar from her place on the wall.
“You sure you don’t want us with you?” Pearl’s frown is dripping with uncertainty.
“I need you all here,” Grian says with a strange sense of finality that seems unfamiliar coming from him. Scar watches him from behind and wonders if this is how Grian feels staring down at Scar through the scope of his sniper. “Keep things locked down tight until I get back. You know the drill.”
Pearl’s brows furrow. She’s skeptical, but she doesn’t dare speak against Grian. None of them would. Instead he steps back to reel back the cables keeping the gate’s door tightly shut. Slowly, the metal creaks and sputters until the doors split open and grant them passage.
Grian pulls his baseball bat free and twirls it idly with one hand as the gate clatters shut behind them. He can never keep still, but Scar likes to watch Grian’s hands move so he doesn’t mind much. Scar trails behind him, quiet and steady, as he watches the alleyways on either side of them and keeps time with the thump of his cane against the pavement.
The city’s been abandoned for years. Though abandoned isn’t the best word to describe it. It may be quiet, worn, and reclaimed by tendrils of the earth yearning for a place to regrow. But it still houses inhabitants. Dangerous ones, rotting and decaying with a hunger for flesh between their teeth. The Infected reclaimed the city as theirs years ago. Little by little, Grian and the rest of the survivors at the Grid have been chipping away at it. The first few miles outside of the Grid’s walls are relatively safe and unoccupied, though it doesn’t spare Scar from the unnerving sights.
Cars still block most of the roads. Desperate attempts to flee the city before Infection numbers rose. Their attempts were in vain. Most of the vehicles were scored. Bombs dropped in attempts to control the numbers. The only positive was there weren’t any bodies left in its wake, only disfigured and molten metal.
Grian climbs over one car’s rusted, scorched hood. Scar turns his gaze away and walks around it.
They walk in silence for ten minutes before Scar says, “Why are we doing this alone, Grian? Pearl and Mumbo would’ve been a huge help. It’s dangerous to be out here alone.”
Grian doesn’t turn around. “You’re the one who offered to help. Are you taking back your promises now? That’s unlike you, Scar.”
“And you’re avoiding my question, which is exactly like you.” Scar hates that Grian is lying to him, trying to hide from him. He hates how transparent it is yet how heavy it weighs on his chest. “Tell me the truth.”
Scar’s demands are met with silence. He’s forced to stare at the worn fabric of Grian’s red sweater as they walk in tight tandem, Grian’s eyes on everything and everywhere other than Scar. Scar stares at the side of his face, the crease in his brow, the restless tapping of his fingers on the smooth metal of his bat. Then he understands.
“What, you’re afraid the Reds are going to show up at the Grid?” It feels little more than a guess. But Grian tenses and Scar knows he’s right. “There’s no other reason you’d leave all the guns and manpower behind.”
“I don’t trust them.” Grian drags the baseball bat along the asphalt, the metal leaving an awful scraping sound in the air. A technique to lure out any Infected lurking in dark corners. As if their voices aren’t noisy enough.
“Trust me, then. This is risky and stupid, Grian. And if I’m the one saying that you know you’re in trouble,” Scar says. But he knows it’s the wrong thing to say, because Grian turns to Scar in an instant and clutches the bat so tightly that Scar’s afraid his fingers are gonna break.
Grian’s mouth opens, then closes, and opens again. A palpable search for words he can’t find. He wants to say something but can’t. He can’t so he swallows it down with a deep breath.
“I can’t risk it,” is what he ends up saying, and the words feel fake coming from Grian. Stubborn, temperamental, hot-headed Grian. “At least if you’re with me I can make sure you won’t cause any more trouble with your Network nonsense.”
“Hey! I resent that.”
“Resent it all you want,” Grian laughs. “It’s the truth.”
“It’s still dangerous,” Scar says. “You can’t clear out that hospital all on your own. I’m as good as useless with this leg. What if the horde comes back?”
“I need you to trust me, Scar,” Grian says with a glance over his shoulder. He turns and rests the cool metal of his bat against Scar’s shoulder. A monarch and the peasant he’s knighting. “It goes both ways, yeah? I’ve got a plan.”
The worst thing about Grian is Scar can never tell when he’s lying. But it’s hard not to believe that rare smile, that musical laugh— impossible to think it may be fake— so he believes.
He believes and trusts in Grian blindly as he leads them through the bones of the city towards the hospital. Just on the opposite side are the Red Lands, named for the rich red clay that colors the mud like spilt blood, swept in by the flood that devastated the southern end of the city in the midst of the other chaos. It’s a large stretch of land, several branching streets, side alleys, and shopping centers long abandoned and looted, only a portion of which had been promised to Ren and his Reds in the initial deal.
The borders had to be drawn somewhere. Just enough land to make the Reds happy, but enough distance to keep the Reds and the Grid from stepping on each other’s toes. A happy medium, a perfect compromise. It’s what Scar specialized in best.
You’re bringing an enemy to our doorstep, Grian had said, which Scar still doesn’t understand completely. Ren was labile and a bit unpredictable, yes, but ultimately has less people and raw power. He acts bigger than himself to compensate for their shabby homestead on the muddy foundation of the Red Lands, hiding behind fancy firearms. Scar knows this. So why doesn’t Grian? Or if he does know it, why doesn’t he take advantage of it?
Scar’s reminded of the one, nervous question in the back of his mind. Is Grian just as afraid as everyone else?
“Up ahead.” Grian’s whisper nearly startles Scar. He gestures to a side street approaching on their left. They turn the corner, and Scar nearly turns away to choke down the burning gag that crawls up the back of his throat.
Bodies litter the street. Decomposing corpses with skulls collapsed inward and rot that had chewed away their fragile bones. Some have been dead for years, their bodies nothing more than fixtures returning to the earth with lilacs and poppies sprouting from their ribcage. Some, on the other hand, had been downed only for a week at most. Their stench is putrid, fresh. Cooked from days spent in the cold yet unforgiving winter sun.
Grian kneels by one of the older bodies, examines the red flower blooming in their chest. Then he turns to scan and hands him a bandana. “Tie this around your face,” he says as he does the same with his own. “It’ll help.”
It blocks some— not all— of the stench. Enough that Scar can carefully step through the street of carnage without losing whatever meager scraps he managed to eat before bed last night. Scar focuses on breathing and putting one foot in front of the other; on keeping his cane out of the gorey scene beneath him. The further they go, the bodies only keep appearing, piled in makeshift burning pyres that never got lit. It isn’t until then that Scar understands where they are.
This is where Grian and the others had been, the path they carved from the gates of the Grid to the territory the Reds wanted to claim. Half of these downed Infected— maybe most of them— had fallen at the hands of Grian and his people. There’s something impressive about it, something morbidly brilliant. The same sort of excitement when Scar finds beauty in the vicious destruction of a forest fire. That same brilliance shines somewhere in Grian; where, exactly, Scar has yet to find, but he knows it’s there. But for now he swallows that knowledge down and lets it rot somewhere within him.
“Where did the horde come from?” Scar asks.
Grian has yet to talk about it. The horde. The way Grian, Pearl, Mumbo, and Impulse came rushing back with heaving lungs and tattered clothes. How Scar worried at his fingernails for hours as the morning sun turned in for the night and they had yet to hear a word from them. Scar never pushed for it; he knows (or hopes) Grian will talk about it if he needs to.
Grian’s strong— more so than any of them.
Grian doesn’t stop to answer. Instead, as they pass through a large four-way intersection, Grian points to the left. “East,” he says. “They’re running out of food in the suburbs and are starting to come through the city. Areas we had already cleared are starting to fill up again.”
Scar tries not to consider the consequences of this. Surely the Infected have migration patterns like all living things (or at the very least resembling living) do. Surely the Grid will stand even if the Infection numbers in the city rise, but every day the deads’ numbers grow and the livings’ dwindle. Scar’s never been a man of numbers, but he’s not willing to bet their odds on these dice.
“There were hundreds,” Grian says, eyes wide and far-away even as he monitors his surroundings. “Came out of nowhere and completely blocked us in, so we had no choice but to retreat.”
“But you got out,” Scar says, if not only to remind himself of that fact. To remind himself of the relief that floodied through him upon seeing Grian at those gates. Bloodied but okay.
“Sometimes I still wonder how.” The admission is quiet and hushed, like Scar isn’t meant to hear it.
They continue on. The rot of bodies and buzzing of flies is difficult to ignore, but soon the sun is starting to rise and paints the sky in gradients of blue and gold. Scar struggles not to lean back on his heels and admire it. Sunrises are most beautiful back at the walls of the Grid, usually with Grian sitting beside him. Maybe they’ll be able to admire it tomorrow morning.
It isn’t long before they reach the road that leads to the hospital. The final stretch of territory they had already secured for the Red Lands. Past this was a dead zone. There aren’t many Infected on the street yet, but Scar eyes a few stragglers a block away, idly pacing and shuffling their way across the asphalt. Grian crouches low behind an abandoned car and Scar does the same.
“Looks like the horde moved on,” Grian says, peering over the hood to take another look. The hospital is just up ahead, a block north. It’s been overrun since the start of it all. The undead reclaimed it from the start, a hub of Infection that spread from the core of the city outward. No amount of medicine or medical supplies justified the risk it took to take the challenge on. At least, it hadn’t been until the Reds demanded it for themselves and then offered enough gunpowder and firearms to get the Grid through the next three winters.
Of course, Grian had no choice but to say yes. No matter how dangerous.
“What’s the play?” Scar asks hesitantly. He isn’t sure how Grian intends for the two of them (really one and a half with Scar’s busted leg) to clear out the hospital. But he tries not to make a habit out of distrusting Grian.
“We head back.” Grian peers at Scar from the corner of his eye.
Scar blinks at him. “What? Go back? We came all the way out here to finish Ren’s job! Don’t tell me you’re getting cold feet now.”
“If you really thought I would take on this job alone with only you—“ Grian snickers, “—as my backup, you really are an idiot.”
“Hey! I take offense to that! I’m strong. I’m intimidating.” Heat floods Scar’s face and he suddenly finds the chipping rust of the car hood incredibly interesting to watch.
“Whatever you need to say to make yourself feel better,” Grian teases.
“I did not get up at the crack of dawn just for you to make fun of me.”
Glints of laughter color Grian’s eyes, something stunning in the rising, overcast morning. For a moment everything feels almost normal; like he and Grian are living another life in another time, some place familiar and kind and human.
Grian opens his mouth to speak and —
An explosion rocks the ground beneath them. It’s distant but powerful, and the sound cracks the silent morning like a meteor striking the earth. Grian cries out in alarm and Scar immediately grabs onto his arm to steady him. The rumbling lasts for what feels like lifetimes before it finally settles “Grian?” “Something’s wrong,” Grian whispers. He scans the horizon frantically, searching for the source of the sound. Scar does the same. There’s nothing but a thin pillar of smoke a few blocks away, behind Scar’s shoulder.
“Scar.” There’s a new urgency to Grian’s voice. He grabs Scar’s wrist; Scar can feel the rapid thumping of his pulse through the pads of his fingers. “Scar, we have to leave. Now.”
A subtle shuffle hits the asphalt somewhere behind them.
Someone just rang the dinner bell.
“Down!” Grian grabs Scar’s shoulder and pulls him down. Scar loses his footing, loses his grip on his cane, and comes tumbling forward. His knees scrape against the asphalt and the gun is an incredible weight in his back. Grain steps over him with just enough time to grab the Infected that had been reaching for Scar’s shoulder.
Shoving it back with his arm, Grian grits his teeth and uses the old car as leverage to push the creature back. It snarls and staggers, blood leaking from the split skin across his forehead. He pushes it back until it staggers. Grian follows it down and puts one of the small knives he always keeps strapped to his upper arm between the thing’s eyes. It falls still and silent in a heartbeat.
Scar’s heart hammers fiercely in his chest. He struggles to catch his breath, hand tangled in the front of his shirt as he watches Grian peel himself off of the corpse. His knife pulls free with a small spurt of blood that Grian wipes off on his pants.
Breathless, Grian turns to him. “Are you okay?”
Scar nods. He finds he can’t speak just yet.
Grian pulls him to his feet. Scar feels him stiffen, and he doesn’t need to lift his head to find out why. He hears them— the soft but resonant groans that drone down the street like a siren. Suddenly it’s like the world’s ending all over again. The Infected peel themselves from shadows, from corners Scar and Grian never knew existed, and all at once there’s hundreds of them. Hungry and gorey and clambering. Grian never lets go of Scar’s hand, not when an Infected gets too close and Grian shoots its brains out from beneath its chin. Not when they’re suddenly surrounded and the only place to go is up.
“Go!” Grian shoves Scar ahead of him, towards a three-story office building directly behind them. The glass doors are shattered.
Scar abandons caution and clambers inside, using his cane to shove away any Infected that snap their jaws too close. As soon as he’s inside another appears from the darkness of the belly of the building. It reaches for Scar when his back is turned and sinks its fingers into his shoulder. Scar turns and tries to push it away, but its dead fingers are locked on his shirt and refuse to let go. “Grian!” He screams over his shoulder, because suddenly he can’t see Grian anymore. The sounds of the Infected swarm in his ears like flies and Grian isn’t there— Grian is dead, he’s gone, he’s—
The butt of a rifle comes down on the Infected’s head. Blood and flesh splatter on Scar’s face. Grian’s suddenly there, hair damp with blood and eyes wicked and wide and terrified. Scar latches onto him, a lifeline, a breath of relief through the stench of rot (even if Grian is covered in it).
As a unit they press further into the building. The Infected follow, desperate and hungry, and Scar struggles to understand how these things were once human. For a moment, he sees flashes of his own face— of Grian’s— in their rotting ones. Nausea boils in his stomach. They find a stairwell, Grian pushes Scar ahead of him and shuts the door with a massive thud behind them.
Up, up, up. Escape. They climb the stairs to the second floor and shut that door too. The second floor is empty, nothing but vacant cubicles and dusty computer screens to keep them company. It takes Scar several moments to catch his breath, knees puddy beneath his weight. He slumps against the wall. At least the groans are a distant hum here; at least he can think without feeling like the Infection is running through his own veins. Suddenly the drying blood on his face feels like it’s burning him.
Grian. Scar lifts his head. Grian’s pacing madly between the cubicles, forcing open desk drawers and upturning their contents onto the carpet. Scar knows that desperate glint in his eye— the way he mutters under his breath and breathes like he’s missing a lung. It’s the maddening pace of a man with an idea, but one that Grian can’t keep up for long. Scar watches, helpless, as Grian uses the tip of his knife to pry open the side of a computer and pull its wires and fixtures free.
The thing about Grian’s little traps is this: they don’t always work. Scar can’t fault him; hell, he can’t even make sense of the mess of wires and shotgun shells Grian fashions together into makeshift weapons and tripwires. If anything he admires Grian’s dedication to it. Failure after failure, he keeps trying. He learns from his mistakes. And the way his face ignites when a spark finally catches— it’s priceless.
But they’re stranded here, and Scar doesn’t know if this trap will be any different. If when Grian throws it out the shattered window, it will clutter to the ground, nothing more than a sad synapse of stripped wires and crooked screws, or if it will explode and take a store-full of Infected (and maybe even them) along with it.
It doesn’t seem like Grian knows either. His hands tremble when he strips the insulation off another set of wires and coils their copper ends around the metal caps of the batteries from an old calculator. He drops it once, twice, and the third time he curses under his breath.
Scar crosses the room to him, kneels in front of Grian’s frantic science experiment and grabs the man’s wrist. Grian tenses, immediately tries to tug himself free, but Scar’s grip is iron-strong.
“Grian,” Scar says firmly. “Take a breath.”
Eyes wide, Grian stares at him. He’s angry, he’s scared. He’s an enigmatic concoction of everything he tries so desperately to hide from Scar, boiling beneath the surface and unable to stay contained.
“You can do this.” Scarred fingers brush against the smooth skin of Grian’s inner wrist, feeling the way his pulse leaps from his veins as if its trying to escape his body.
Grian glares at him, an wounded animal in a snare ready to chew its own leg off to escape. “We’re cornered, Scar, and I don’t have the materials I need! Backup won’t come for another several hours once they realize we’ve been gone too long and— God, this is so stupid. Why did I ever think this was a good idea, this is my fault—”
“Grian.” Scar slips his hand from Grian’s wrist and holds his face in his hands instead. He frames Grian’s face and brushes his thumbs along the crests of Grian’s cheeks to clear away some of the grime.
“Grian, focus on me. You can do this. You always pull out some brilliant idea at the last second because you always do. That’s who you are,” Scar says because he believes it. Because he’d trust Grian with a knife to his throat if it came down to it. “But you won’t be able to if you freak out, so take a breath. Figure out what you want to do.”
Talking. Scar’s greatest strength. The only reason the Network exists. He had struggled imagining it working on Grian; it never had in the past. But now, Grian sucks in a sharp breath and looks Scar in the eye.
In the damp dark of the abandoned office, Scar can’t help but notice the color of them, and how difficult they are to place. Even beneath a setting sun he’s never been able to quite figure out what color they are; he refuses to die before he figures it out.
Grian stares back at Scar, grappling with whatever resolve he’s got left and piecing it together like stripped screws and exposed wires.
Grian’s always been good at that: taking nothing and, somehow, building it into something amazing. Scar never tires of watching him do it.
The device— the bomb— is finished in minutes. The horde’s close now, closer than before. Nothing but a dingy door, rusty on its hinges and padlock thinning, stands between them and the mass of Infected. Scar can’t say he’s imagined his death often, but it’s never been like this: cornered and terrified. The only thing that feels right is that Grian’s with him.
Not like this, he tells himself as he watches Grian move towards a broken window overlooking the street. Scar hobbles to his feet to follow him. The Infected pool on the pavement like flies swarming a corpse. There’s hundreds of them, clogged together at the entrance of the building and scrambling at one another for a chance at eating something fresh.
Grian clutches the explosive between his hands. He whispers, “Please work,” under his breath before he pulls a wire free and throws the device through a hole in the glass.
A soft thunk. It strikes the pavement outside. Scar doesn’t dare look. He stares at Grian, at the concentration etched into his face like a contemplative statue carved of stone. He tries to commit the sight to memory, tries to study it the same way he’s sure critics studied ancient art pieces in museums before. Scar’s no curator, nor does he have a taste for finer things. But he has a taste for Grian— for equal parts chaos and peace.
And Scar wants to remember this feeling, this pretty aching, just in case it’s the last time he gets to feel it.
The building shakes as the bomb explodes and the air along with it, shattering the remaining glass and sweeping away the crowd of Infected beneath them.
***
The peak of summer is unforgiving when Scar first discovers the Grid. The heat clings to the nape of Scar’s neck. Sweat beads and his shirt clings to his back. He can hardly breathe, the air is so thick. He doesn’t know how long he’s been walking when he sees the collection of brightly colored shipping containers standing like a lighthouse in a sea of the dead.
His cane broke long ago. Maybe it was at the farmhouse. Or no, the hospital. Scar’s lost track of time. He now measures days by dull hunger pangs and the shake in his leg. He thinks he remembers hearing the government broadcasts early on throughout the chaos. The town center, they had said. A wall constructed of cargo containers. Medicine, food, protection— all advertised and promised. Refuge. Respite. Salvation. Sinners flocking to a church on judgment day.
Scar’d never been the faithful sort.
For a palace meant for solace, it’s barren and drab. It’s a ghost town now. Maybe it always has been. There’s not a sign of life as Scar approaches the sealed gates. He cranes his neck back to stare at the top of the wall, searching for any sign of a patrol, guards, watchers, anything. He sees nothing. For a moment, he wonders if the trek here was truly wasted effort.
“Hands where I can see them.”
Then, the brush of cool metal against his neck. It cools his burning skin, spikes adrenaline through his veins. He doesn’t dare move. His hands float above his head, calloused and scarred and trembling. He’s so tired. But Infected don’t wield guns, and Scar can’t stop the ridiculous smile from splitting across his face. He isn’t alone anymore.
“Pleasure to meet you,” Scar says, voice hoarse from days without water. “I’m unarmed.”
The voice behind him scoffs. The barrel of the gun digs harder into the back of Scar’s head. “On your knees.” Scar obeys, even when his bad leg twinges in protest.
Footsteps circle him. One set, from what Scar can tell. Then, a person, aiming the barrel of his gun in the space between Scar’s eyes. His sweater is bright red, but his eyes are the first thing Scar notices: green and narrowed and intense. There’s a strength in them, just like there’s strength in the thin slant of his mouth and the slope of his shoulders.
Scar’s not a faithful man. But it feels right somehow, on his knees, a heathen for a twisted deity.
“Who are you?”
“Call me Scar,” he says. “I was passing through, looking for a place to spend the night. Maybe some water if I got super lucky. But I’ve found you instead.”
The man lifts an eyebrow. “Unlucky for you.”
“Is it?” Scar clears his throat and smiles. He likes to see the way the man’s face twists in confusion at the sight; the way his fingers twitch around the trigger.
The man scowls. “You have a death wish or something, Scar?”
“Maybe. You’re the first person I’ve seen in… God, I don’t even know how long. Even if you did put a bullet in my brain, I’d just be glad it wasn’t an Infected that finished me off. But you’re not going to do that.”
“Oh? And why is that?”
Scar smiles. “You run this place, don’t you? It’s big. You have other survivors to look after. Supplies, weapons, whatever else you might need, I can help you get it.” “I’m supposed to just take you for your word?”
“Let me prove it to you.” Scar’s smile turns wicked, dangerous, excited, because it’s never been so close before. The sun streams in rays behind the stranger’s head and filters around him, a halo. Devil or angel, Scar doesn’t care. He’s Scar’s only chance.
“What do you want in return for your kindness, Scar? What’s the catch?”
The absence of a bullet in the brain for one, Scar wants to say but swallows it down. “Protection,” he says instead. “A roof over my head. I think you’ll find I’ll be more than capable of pulling my own weight.”
The devil’s fingers graze over the trigger of his rifle. He strokes it like one would stroke a cat, carefully and waiting to be bit. “And if you aren’t?”
Then I’ll be out of your hair.” Scar’s eyes go to the gun across the devil’s lap. “One way or another.”
The devil considers it. His face is impassive, level, clean. Difficult to read. It strikes Scar as odd, especially with the way he stares at Scar in what appears to be equal parts disdain and frightening curiosity. He’s not sure he’s bothered by being the object of this devil’s curiosity.
“Very well.” He extends a hand. “Scar.” Scar accepts it. The devil’s hand is warm, soft. Human. There’s a painful jolt deep in Scar’s chest, tender like a fresh bruise.
“And your name?”
Grian,” the devil says, and the name is as sharp as it is beautiful.
***
The sun is setting by the time they make it home. Scar’s out of breath and the handkerchief covering his face is saturated with sweat and grime. Grian’s behind him, pistol drawn and breath ragged as he makes sure they aren’t being followed.
Pearl lets them in the gates. The others are gathered at the entrance, worry spelled on their faces as they pat Scar and Grian over for injuries. Scar’s ears are ringing; they have been since the bomb went off. He hears someone shouting Grian’s name.
“Grian?” He can’t hear himself talk, but he knows he calls for him. Scar turns to find Grian slumped to the ground, shoulders shaking and hair hung in his eyes. Mumbo kneels in front of him, hands hovering over a particularly bloody patch on his sweater sleeve.
“Hey,” he says firmly as he reaches to grasp his shoulder. “Grian, mate. Were you bit?”
Scar holds his breath. How had he not noticed? The blood on Grian’s sleeve is thick and wet and Scar hadn’t even thought to look back when they were running. He hadn’t thought to help Grian, because Grian always knows what to do. Because Grian has his back no matter what and nothing can ever happen to him.
Grian hesitates. Too long. Scar’s heart seizes in his chest and he suddenly can’t breathe. He wants to move to Grian’s side, to prove it isn’t real, but his legs refuse to listen. His bad leg screams in agony when he so much as pitches his weight forward. They’d run for what felt like hours.
Eventually, Grian jerks his head. “No,” he says, breathless and fragile. “No, I’m not bit. It’s not my blood.” Grian pulls his sleeve up to expose his bare wrists.
Mumbo’s sigh of relief cools Scar’s blood, but his heart refuses to cease pounding in his ears. The adrenaline has yet to drain, he guesses. His skin’s alight with it.
“Get them inside,” Mumbo says to the others who listen without an ounce of hesitation. Scar lets himself be led inside, two arms under his own to support his weight.
“I can walk on my own,” Grian snaps when Pearl moves to help him up, stepping away from her and wrapping his arms around himself.
He’s upset. Scar can tell that much. He knows the way Grian retreats within himself, a feral animal licking its wounds and shying away from contact. It pains Scar, knowing there’s nothing he can do to help. Grian trails behind the group as they usher within the Grid walls. Scar loses him in the madness of their return. He turns to the rest of the crowd, mind buzzing with their worried whisperings and frantic hovering. There’s a face missing in the crowd.
“Where’s Impulse?”
“He took a trip to the pharmacy,” Pearl says, steadying Scar with an arm under his shoulders. Scar allows himself to lean his weight onto her. His leg’s numb with pain. “He’ll be back soon, don’t worry.”
Pearl insists on checking Scar out once the crowd starts to thin. She takes him to a private room in the infirmary and has him sit on a stool. His leg aches something terrible, but she assesses him with a calm disconnect, turning his arms over to look for scratches and bites.
“I already said I wasn’t bit,” Scar says through a frown. “I wouldn’t come back if I was.”
“I don’t think you would on purpose.” Pearl doesn’t look up from where she’s investigating his fingers. “Adrenaline is a powerful thing. Can’t trust you weren’t bit and just aren’t feeling it yet. Now sit still and let me look you over.” “I thought that was stuff only from movies,” Scar chuckles. It’s weak and brittle, but he’s just glad to be home finally. There’s only one thing missing.
Pearl sighs and drops his hand. She sits back, watching Scar through narrowed eyes. Scar suddenly feels Grian’s absence greatly, like a missing lung. He wonders where he’s gone: holed up in his perch on the roof, perhaps. Grian likes to think no one would think to look for him there, but it’s always the first place Scar looks. Somehow Grian’s surprised every time.
“What happened out there, Scar?”
“You should’ve seen it…” Scar sighs. “I haven’t seen that many Infected in a long time. One second everything was fine and the next we were surrounded. Some kind of explosion set them off.”
“We heard it too,” Pearl says, her tone dark and nervous. She wrings her hands together, angry and worried all at once. Scar can see why Grian likes her so much. “Two explosions actually. We worried you set it off. You showed up just as we were gearing up to look for you.”
Scar frowns. “The second one was us. Grian did what he could to get us out.”
“What about the deal with the Reds?”
“Grian told you about that?” “He tells me lots of things.” Pearl shrugs, but her expression is knowing. And Scar finds that incredibly frustrating. “He also told me you made a huge mistake.”
Scar runs his fingers through his hair. He can’t remember the last time he showered, “Don’t worry,” he says with a small smile that he can only hope is reassuring. “I can still make it right. I’m sure I’ll think of something. We have two more days left.”
If Pearl believes in him, her expression doesn’t show it. It’s exhausting, the doubt palpable on everyone’s faces, the nerves in their voice. He doesn’t understand how he can prove himself to them; prove himself to Grian.
“Why does Grian trust you so much?” Scar capitalizes on the silence. He stares at his palms as if the creases in his skin will make sense of any of this, as if the lines will point him in the right direction— in the direction of Grian.
“You think he doesn’t trust you?” “I know he doesn’t,” Scar says. “He tells me so every chance he gets. I don’t… really blame him, either. All I’ve ever wanted to do was help.”
Pearl hums in understanding, but she doesn’t offer any advice or empty words. Scar appreciates this silence, because he’s not sure he’d believe anything she had to say.
“I think you should talk to him,” she says eventually. “You may have messed up, but I don’t think it’s as bad as you might think.”
Scar lifts his head to look at Pearl. She smiles at him, and Scar finds comfort in that, even if it’s fragile. Even if that comfort will fade away come the morning when Grian goes back to offering Scar nothing but thorns with the barest glimpses of something warm— of something more.
Any day could be their last. There’s two days left to make the Reds happy.
He needs to talk to Grian first.
***
It’s cold on top of the building. Winter is rapidly approaching, unforgiving and uncaring of the body huddled beneath its mercy. Scar frowns at the sight of Grian, curled up on himself with his back to Scar, shoulders trembling as the cool wind brushes over him. He’s hiding, as he always does.
“Grian?” Scar lets his cane thunk heavily, giving Grian time to tell him to stop. To tell him no, to tell him not to come any closer.
But Grian says nothing. He curls in tighter on himself and hisses under his breath. Scar realizes it isn’t the cold Grian’s cowering away from. He steps around Grian, eyes wide at the sight of bloody bandages and his pale, twisted expression.
Grian’s digging his fingers into a wound on his arm, thick and deep, and even in the dim twilight Scar can make out the glint of glass and slick blood in the wound. “Grian!” Scar snatches his wrist, kneels down close and holds his breath. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I already said I’m not bit!” Grian snaps. “Leave me alone.”
“That’s not what I’m concerned about,” Scar says quietly. He pulls on Grian’s arm, turns his wrist over to investigate the gash in his skin. Glass glistens with fresh blood. “When did this happen?”
“The—” Grian winces and flinches when Scar prods at the edge of the wound. “Stop that. The.. When the bomb went off. The glass caught me.”
“So you thought you’d come up here and dig it out with your fingers? And to think you call me crazy!”
Grian’s silence says more than any words can. Scar stares at him a moment, stares at the blood beading down his arm and soaking his sleeve. He doesn’t know how he ever saw Grian as any sort of devil, angel, or God alike. Everything about him is human: his eyes wide and teary with pain, his fingers calloused from years of tinkering, the pulse hidden at the junction of his wrist. Scar savors all of these details.
“Come on,” he says, pulling Grian to his feet. “I’m not letting you lick your wounds by yourself. If you’re not going to come to the infirmary at least let me patch you up downstairs.”
To Scar’s surprise, Grian doesn’t protest. Instead he hangs his head and grabs his sleeve in a white-knuckled grip. Carefully Scar maneuvers both Grian and himself downstairs, away from the frigid air, into his bedroom. A single lamp illuminates the space, just enough so that Scar can investigate the wound from where Grian sits on the edge of his bed.
“Pearl and the others heard that explosion from here,” Scar says as he pulls free a sparsely stocked first-aid kit from beneath his cot. “Any ideas as to what that could have been?”
Grian’s brow furrows. He stares daggers into the floor, shoulders tightly curled up. Everything about his posture screams, do not touch, but that’s all Scar craves to do. “Things don’t exactly combust on their own nowadays, do they?” Grian muses out loud.
Scar frowns as he turns Grian’s arm this way and that to search for remaining fragments of glass. “Who would set up an explosion by the hospital?”
“Someone who didn’t want us to make it back.” Grian peers at Scar through his fringe.
“You don’t think Ren did this.” Scar refuses to believe it. They had a deal. “That doesn’t make any sense.”
“Maybe not Ren. Guy’s not got much of a spine—” Grian winces as Scar takes a pair of tweezers to a shard of glass still embedded in torn skin. “But Martyn? Wouldn’t put it past him.”
“We’re doing what they asked. Why would they try to trap us like that?” Scar still can’t comprehend what Grian might be suggesting. Three days, Ren had negotiated. It would be plenty of time. There are still two days left for them to come up with another plan. Why would the Reds sabotage their efforts at fulfilling their deal?
“You know what your issue is, Scar? You’re too trusting. People aren’t rational anymore. The Reds will do anything it takes to survive, and if they thought for a second that we wouldn’t hold up our end of the bargain, they wouldn’t hesitate to take us out— ow, careful!”
“Sorry, sorry,” Scar hisses as he pulls another piece of glass free. “I just… Your cynicism is unwavering as always, Grian, but I don’t understand why the Reds would try to kill us, especially after giving us all that gear. What’d be the point?”
At this, Grian shrugs, for which Scar tries not to feel too triumphant. “False sense of security? Catch us off guard?” He chuckles, dry as winter air. “Hell, maybe they just changed their minds. I won’t pretend to understand them.”
Scar plucks the last of the glass (at least that he can find) from Grian’s wound and sets the bloodied tweezers aside. He tries to ignore the warmth of Grian’s blood on his fingers. “We still have two days,” Scar argues. “We can’t prove it was sabotage or not. All we can do is fulfill our promise and they’ll have no choice but to trust us.”
Grian eyes Scar wearily as he pulls a dingy roll of bandages free from his first-aid kit. “And how do you propose we do that? The place is infested now. Plus, they might try something again. Even with those guns, we might not be enough.”
It’s a rare insecurity, coming from Grian. He’s always been cautious, calculated, but never one to shy away from challenges either. He’s the one leaping into the fray with a bloodied baseball bat and spite as his armor. But this Grian is beaten, battered, backed into a corner. Scar hasn’t had the opportunity to know this Grian yet. Though he’d like to.
Scar coils the bandage around Grian’s wound as he thinks. It’d be easy to roll over and wait for whatever the Reds have in store for them once the three days are up, but it’d be hard to fortify and anticipate their attack. It’s more difficult to pull all reinforcements from the Grid to go on this suicide mission. To get everyone’s approval will be difficult, even with Grian manning the helm.
He wracks his brain. Scar’s never been one to settle. There’s always a better deal. Always a loophole. All you have to do is prod for it, dig and turn stones over until you find it. A relentless but rewarding burden.
“You’re right. We might not be enough,” Scar says to the cold air. He feels Grian’s gaze shift to him. “I have a plan.”
Grain raises an eyebrow, dubious as he probably should be. “Whatever you’re thinking, Scar, I’m not sure it’s a good—“
“Listen to me. Please?” Scar tucks the last of the bandage in one of the folds he made and holds Grian’s arm just a second longer. “There’s no reason you should have to do all the heavy lifting all the time.”
Scar doesn’t look at Grian’s face when he says it, because Scar’s accepted a long time ago that he can’t read Grian nearly as well as he’d like to, and he needs to say the words before he loses his nerves. “I don’t mind it.” Grian’s voice is quiet as he reaches for Scar’s bedside table. He grabs the old pistol there and turns it over in his hands, running his thumb over the four tally marks etched into the butt of the gun, like reacquainting himself with an old friend. Or maybe an enemy.
“I want to help,” he continues. “I may have gotten us into this situation, but I can get us out. The Network extends beyond just the Reds, you know. I can enlist help. Someone sharp, someone dangerous.”
Grian’s hand relaxes in Scar’s. Finally he looks up to Grian’s face, taken aback by the unguarded exhaustion spelled out across his face, clear as a mirror. “Help with what, exactly? Clearing the area or fighting off the Reds?”
Scar runs his thumb over the fresh bandages and tries to ignore the way Grian’s skin jumps at the touch. “I trust you’ll make the right choice, Grian. We don’t have to fight them. They’re people. Just like us.”
***
Summer starts to dry into modest autumn. Leaves start to brown on their trees, and Scar counts the days he’s spent in the Grid as tallies in a small notepad he found in the desk drawer in his bedroom. He’s starting to understand the hierarchy here: Grian is respected, beloved and maybe even a little bit feared. He isn’t afraid to get difficult things done. Scar respects him for it; but he also fears for him.
Grian drifts in and out of the Grid like a ghost. Most days Scar doesn’t seem him save for a faint silhouette drifting across rooftops. It’s like the Grid is ruled by a shadow of Grian rather than the real man himself. Which is a pity, in Scar’s opinion, because Grian’s actual self has been an object of his rather keen interest for some time now.
Trust starts with a warning. Grian’s name a cry on Scar’s lips when an Infected creeps too close, almost grabs him by the back of the neck. Grian downs it with ease, but Scar thinks perhaps he sees gratitude in those eyes and Scar finds he’d do anything to get that back again. That he’d grasp thorns with bare hands just to give it something to puncture and bleed.
Trust grows with late nights sitting on the rooftop. Grian keeps his distance, and that’s okay. Scar fills night-time silence with stories, most of them half-baked truths fashioned out of a man Scar used to want to become, used to dream of. He tells Grian tales of the Network, his vision of restoring humanity and finding a way to reduce tensions across territory lines.
“It seems like your naivety will get you burned,” Grian says at that. First of many times.
“Maybe,” Scar remembers replying. “But you’ll never know if you don’t try. Even if it’s risky.”
Grain looks at him, and something changes that night. Scar doesn’t know what— not right away. But Grian leans in when he talks, he points out enemy lines when Scar lingers during a council meeting (which isn’t so much of a council as it is Grian mindlessly talking to whoever might be in earshot). And most importantly, Grian doesn’t scoff quite so loudly when Scar suggests making a deal with a nomadic group that’s been orbiting the Grid the last month.
The start of the Network. Scar’s lying through his teeth the entire time, but it works, and Grian’s face lights up and Scar wants to memorize that sight for the rest of his life.
It only flourishes from there. Scar’s making deals once a week, strangers at the gateway of the Grid and lined up in Grian’s scope. One wrong move and they get a bullet between their teeth. It’d been Grian’s idea, but Scar’d be lying if he said he didn’t feel safer with Grian at his back.
Trust builds with a pistol. Grian hands it to him one night. It’s cool and heavy in Scar’s calloused hands. He likes to imagine he can still feel the ghostly heat of Grian’s hands through the metal, but maybe the air is just thinner up here on the rooftop than Scar thought. “What is this?”
“A gift, I guess.” Grian seems unsure; he won’t look at Scar. Scar wishes he would. “You’ve got to defend yourself somehow. I won’t always be around to protect you.”
“Won’t you?” Scar turns the pistol over in his hands. There are four tallie marks etched into the metal of the handle. He runs his fingers over the etching with a frown. “What are these?”
Grian doesn’t respond for a long while, and Scar lets him simmer in that silence. It’s painful and tormenting and there’s suddenly miles wedged between them when all Scar’s ever wanted is to know Grian and know him painfully.
“Ancient history,” is what Grian eventually gives him. It isn’t the answer Scar wants, and he’s suspicious that it isn’t the answer Grian wants to give. But he’s hiding that razor-sharp tongue and for a selfish moment, Scar lets him. Because there’s a certain type of peace to this.
***