Chapter 3 Avery
three
Avery
I send the travelers away the next day as promised, but at least now I know they’ll be back. I need to be ready for anything, and that’s where Dutch comes in.
I can’t trust him, but I can use him. We’ve spent the last few days turning my settlement into a trap, with Dutch, the man who abandoned us, guiding tactical decisions.
I hate how good he is at this.
I hate even more how much I like working with him.
"Evacuate non-combatants to the caves," I argue during our planning session. We're bent over maps spread across my desk. Close enough that when he shifts, his arm brushes mine and sends a tremble through me.
"That splits your forces. Everyone stays, everyone fights."
"I'm not putting children in danger—"
"Children are already in danger. At least here they're behind walls."
The urge to punch him is strong. Stronger is the urge to grab him and kiss him until we both forget about tactics entirely. "You don't get to make that call."
"Then make it. But make it smart." He looks up from the maps, and our faces are inches apart. I can see the flecks of darker gray in his eyes. See the way his gaze drops to my mouth for half a second before returning to my eyes.
The air between us feels charged. Dangerous.
"We need to focus," I say, but I don't move away.
"I am focused." His voice has dropped lower. Rougher. "Just... not entirely on tactics."
"Dutch."
"I know. There's a battle coming." He forces his attention back to the maps, but I see the tension in his shoulders. Feel the heat still radiating between us. "The non-combatants. What if we create a defended position here, close enough for support but far enough to minimize risk?"
We compromise. Non-combatants evacuate to a protected position nearby that’s close enough to provide support if needed, far enough to avoid the worst of the fighting. Dutch maps trap positions while I assign combat roles.
He works tirelessly. Never complains, never asks for recognition, never tries to earn forgiveness through effort. Just does the job, makes himself useful, accepts whatever contempt I throw at him without flinching.
Except it's not contempt anymore. Hasn't been for days.
It's something far more dangerous.
It would be easier if he made excuses. If he justified or explained or rationalized. Instead he just carries it.
"He's not what I expected," Harry says during a supply check.
"What did you expect?"
"Someone who'd defend himself more. Argue that he made the right call given the information he had." Harry shrugs. "That's what most people do when they make a mistake that kills people."
"Most people haven't spent three years running rescue operations to make up for the people they couldn't save."
"Is that what he's doing?"
I watch Dutch across the compound, demonstrating trap placement to a group of volunteers. Patient, thorough, completely focused on keeping people alive.
"I think that's exactly what he's doing. And I think it's never going to be enough."
"Sounds familiar."
"Shut up, Harry."
He grins and leaves me to my thoughts.
The night before Old Hawk's expected attack, I find Dutch on the wall, staring out at the dark forest. The moonlight catches the hard planes of his face, the tension in his shoulders.
"You should sleep," I say.
"So should you."
"Can't."
"Me neither."
We stand in silence. I should leave. Go check the defenses again, review the evacuation protocols, do anything except stand here with the man who haunts my worst memories.
Instead I ask: "What did you hear? When you listened to my distress call?"
He's quiet for so long I think he won't answer.
Then: "Gunfire. Screaming. Someone calling for help on every frequency.
Begging." His voice is rough. "You said the walls were breached in three places.
Said you had maybe twenty defenders against a herd of fifty-plus zombies and a dozen raiders. Said you were going to die."
"I thought we were."
"It sounded like you were. Every simulation ended with me reaching Clearwater too late to help."
"But you didn't know that."
"No. I didn't." He turns to face me. "I played the odds and I was wrong. The people I went to save didn't need saving. The people I abandoned survived without me. And I've spent three years trying to live with that."
"Has it worked?"
"No. Nothing works. You just keep moving and hope eventually the weight gets easier to carry."
I know that feeling. Know it intimately.
"Lisa was the hardest," I hear myself say. "She'd run back to the medical building for her insulin. If she'd been thirty seconds faster, she'd have made it inside before I gave the order."
"Thirty seconds."
"Thirty seconds. Sometimes I lie awake calculating all the ways she could have lived. If I'd waited longer to seal the gates. If I'd sent someone to find her. If I'd done anything except stand there and watch her die."
"You'd have lost more people if you'd waited."
"Maybe. Probably. But I'd have lost different people. And sometimes—" I stop, breathe, force myself to continue. "Sometimes I think I'd trade all forty of the ones I saved if I could just see Lisa walk through those gates."
"That's not how it works."
"I know. That's what makes it so goddamn hard."
We stand in silence as the moon tracks across the sky. Two people who made impossible choices and have to live with the consequences.
"I don't forgive you," I say finally. "I'm not sure I can."
"I know."
"But I understand. That's different." I look at him. "You made a choice with incomplete information and people died. So did I. We're both still here, trying to do better."
"Is that enough?"
"It has to be. Because the alternative is lying down and dying, and I refuse to give the apocalypse that satisfaction."
"We should get some sleep," he says. "Tomorrow's going to be brutal."
"Yeah."
Neither of us moves. The moment stretches, weighted with everything we've said and everything we haven't.
Then I do something I don't expect. I reach out and touch his hand. Just briefly. Just enough to say I see you.
His fingers curl around mine for a moment. Warm. Strong. Then he lets go.
"Get some rest, Avery."
"You too, Dutch."
I don't sleep. I spend the hours until dawn checking and rechecking our preparations, running scenarios in my head.
When the sun rises, I'm ready.
When Old Hawk's crew hits at dawn, exactly as Dutch predicted, we hit back.