Chapter 6
six
Hazel
We're two days out of Old Pines, heading toward Hope Tower, when the panic hits.
I've been riding with Travis since we left, his crew accepting me without question.
Jess has already started teaching me their medical protocols.
Ken and Patricia treat me like I've always been part of the group.
Eric asks endless questions about my old routes, taking notes like he's building a map in his head.
It should feel right. I chose this. I chose them.
So why does my chest feel like it's caving in?
It starts with small things. The way Travis checks the horizon, scanning for threats the same way Reggy used to. The rhythm of the ATV beneath me, so similar to the convoy I lost. Jess's laugh—not the same as Susan's, but close enough to make something twist in my gut.
Then the memories hit harder. Tommy's surprised exhale. Susan's scream cut short. The weight of Reggy going limp in my arms.
I'm gripping Travis's waist so hard my fingers ache, but I can't make myself let go.
"Hazel?" His voice cuts through the noise in my head. "You okay?"
"Fine." The lie comes automatically.
But I'm not fine. I'm spiraling, and I don't know how to stop it.
Travis must sense something because he signals the convoy to stop at a river crossing. "Water refill," he announces, but his eyes are on me.
When the others scatter to their tasks, he finds me sitting on a rock at the water's edge, staring at nothing. My hands won't stop shaking.
"Talk to me," he says, settling beside me.
"I made a mistake." The words tumble out before I can stop them. "Leaving Old Pines. Joining your crew. I should've stayed where it was safe, where I knew people, where I couldn't—" My voice breaks. "Where I couldn't get more people killed."
"Hazel."
"What if the raiders come back? What if they target this convoy like they did mine? What if Jess or Eric or Ken—" I can't finish. Can't say it out loud. "I told Maria I was choosing to live instead of hide, but what if I'm just choosing to watch more people die?"
Travis is quiet for a moment. Then: "Is that what you really think? That you're cursed or something? That everyone around you dies?"
"The evidence suggests it."
"The evidence suggests you survived a professional ambush that would've killed most people." His voice is firm but not unkind. "And now you're catastrophizing because you're scared of caring again."
"I'm not—" I start to protest, but he cuts me off.
"Yes, you are. And that's okay. That's normal." He turns to face me fully. "You think I wasn't terrified when I asked you to join the crew? You think I don't lie awake wondering if I'm making the same mistakes that got that Alaska settlement killed?"
I look at him, really look at him. There are shadows under his eyes I didn't notice before.
"But here's the thing," he continues. "If I let that fear control me, I'd never help anyone. I'd never build anything. I'd just exist, and that's not living."
"But what if—"
"What if raiders attack? What if someone dies?" He doesn't flinch from it. "Then we deal with it. Together. Same as we would if you'd stayed in Old Pines and raiders hit there. Same as we would anywhere. The danger doesn't go away just because you hide from it."
"That's not—I'm not hiding."
"Aren't you?" He's gentle about it, but the question lands. "You're sitting here convincing yourself you made the wrong choice, that you should go back to Old Pines where it's 'safe.' That's hiding, Hazel. That's your fear talking."
The truth of it stings.
"I don't know how to do this," I whisper. "How to care about people knowing they might die. Knowing I might lose you the way I lost them."
"You do it scared." He takes my shaking hands in his. "You do it knowing it might end badly, and you do it anyway. Because the alternative—shutting everyone out, surviving alone—that's not better. That's just dying slowly."
"Is that what you did? After Alaska?"
"No." His jaw tightens. "After Alaska, I shut down for months. Stayed professional with everyone, kept my distance, convinced myself that caring made me weak. And you know what? I was miserable. Effective, maybe, but miserable."
"What changed?"
"You." He says it simply. "Finding you on that road, watching you refuse to give up even when your body was failing. You reminded me what courage looks like. Not the absence of fear—the decision to keep going despite it."
I want to believe him. Want to believe I'm brave instead of just terrified.
"I keep seeing them," I admit. "Every time I close my eyes. Tommy's face. Susan's blood. The sound Reggy made when—" My throat closes.
"I know." His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. "After Alaska, I saw those thirty faces for months. Still do sometimes. But Hazel—" He waits until I meet his eyes. "They're dead. We're alive. And we get to choose what we do with that."
"Choose what?"
"Whether we honor them by building something worth their sacrifice, or dishonor them by letting fear make us useless.
" He pulls me closer. "Your crew died protecting supplies for the network.
They died believing connection beats isolation.
You want to honor them? Then stop trying to run back to the safe option.
Stop letting guilt convince you that you don't deserve to live. "
He's right. Some part of me thinks I don't deserve this—doesn't deserve Travis or his crew or a future or anything good. Some part of me thinks I should suffer forever because I survived when they didn't.
"That's fucked up," I say out loud.
"Extremely fucked up." He almost smiles. "But also pretty normal for someone dealing with survivor's guilt. Doesn't mean you have to live there."
"How do I stop?"
"You start by staying present. By being here, with me, with this crew.
By doing the work instead of spiraling about worst-case scenarios.
" He cups my face. "You're not on watch anymore, Hazel.
You're not alone. You don't have to see every threat coming or protect everyone or carry all the responsibility. That's what a crew is for."
"What if I panic again?"
"Then we deal with it." He kisses my forehead. "You're allowed to be scared. You're allowed to grieve. You're just not allowed to run away because of it."
"That seems like a lot of rules."
"One rule. Stay." He says it firmly. "Everything else we can figure out."
I take a breath. The memories are still there—probably always will be. But Travis is here too, solid and real, refusing to let me collapse under the weight of what I've lost.
"Okay," I say. "I'll stay."
"Good." He stands, pulling me up with him. "Because Jess has been planning to teach you our supply inventory system, and if I have to listen to her complain about my organization skills one more time, I'm going to lose it."
I laugh, surprised. "Your organization is terrible."
"See? You're already fitting in."
The rest of the day passes in a blur of motion and tasks. Jess does indeed have opinions about supply organization—strong ones—and spends two hours walking me through their system while we ride. It's actually pretty good, color-coded by urgency and cross-referenced with settlement needs.
"Travis thinks this is overkill," Jess says, gesturing to her clipboard. "But when you need a specific antibiotic at three in the morning because someone's going septic, you don't want to be digging through unlabeled bags."
"Makes sense to me."
"Thank god. A woman of culture." She grins. "He's been outvoted. Democracy wins."
Eric pulls up alongside us during a water break, asking questions about my old convoy routes. He's building a mental map, he explains, tracking which paths are safer during different seasons.
"The northern pass closes October through April," I tell him. "Snow drifts too deep for ATVs. But the southern route stays clear if you stick to the valley floor."
He scribbles notes, nodding. "Travis mentioned you knew this territory better than most."
"My crew ran these routes for two years." The words still hurt, but less like a knife and more like a bruise. Painful, but survivable.
Ken and Patricia include me in their evening camp setup routine without asking—just hand me tasks like I've always been there. Check the perimeter alarms. Gather firewood. Help with the cooking pot.
It's strange how quickly normal can reassert itself. How easily I slip into the rhythm of a new crew.
But that night, lying in my bedroll, the fear creeps back.
What if I'm getting too comfortable? What if I'm forgetting them—Reggy, Susan, Tommy? What if moving on means leaving them behind?
I must make some sound because Travis appears at my tent entrance.
"Can't sleep?" he asks quietly.
"Trying not to spiral again."
"Want company?"
I nod, and he crawls in, settling beside me in the narrow space. His presence is warm and solid, anchoring.
"What are you spiraling about this time?"
"Moving on. Forgetting them." I stare at the tent ceiling. "It's only been a week since the ambush, and I'm already laughing at Jess's jokes and learning supply systems and acting like everything's normal."
"And that feels wrong."
"Doesn't it? Like I should be more... I don't know. Devastated. Broken. Something other than functional."
Travis is quiet for a moment. "After Alaska, I didn't laugh for three months. Didn't make jokes, didn't relax, barely slept. Just worked and planned and tried to make myself useful enough to justify still being alive."
"Did it help?"
"No. It just made me exhausted and miserable." He shifts to face me. "The thing nobody tells you about grief is that it doesn't look how you think it should. Some days you can barely breathe. Other days you forget for hours at a time that anything bad happened. Both are normal."
"It doesn't feel normal."
"Because you think you owe them constant suffering.
Like being happy dishonors their memory.
" His voice is gentle but firm. "But they didn't die so you could be miserable forever, Hazel.
They died trying to do important work. The best way to honor that is to keep doing the work.
Even when it means laughing at stupid jokes or learning boring supply systems." Travis takes my hand.
"You don't have to choose between honoring them and living your life. You can do both."
"How?"
"By being present when you're here. By doing good work when you're working. By letting yourself laugh when something's funny." He squeezes my fingers. "And by letting yourself feel like shit when the grief hits. You don't have to perform either way."
"You say that like it's simple."
"It is simple. Not easy, but simple." He pulls me closer. "You show up. You do what you can. You lean on people when you need to. Repeat until it gets bearable."
We lie there in silence for a while. Outside, I hear Ken's voice doing his perimeter check. Patricia's answering laugh. The normal sounds of a convoy at rest.
"Thank you," I finally say. "For coming over. For not making me feel crazy."
"You're not crazy. You're grieving." He presses a kiss to my forehead. "There's a difference."
"Will you stay? Just until I fall asleep?"
"Yeah. I can do that."
He settles in beside me, his arm around my shoulders, and I let myself relax into his warmth. The fear is still there—probably always will be. But it's not alone anymore.
Maybe that's what survival looks like. Not forgetting the dead or the guilt or the fear.
Just learning to carry it while still moving forward.