My People -Finn
Forty
Two weeks.
Two weeks of stagnation, healing, rationing supplies, and pretending these four walls offered any real safety. My shoulder still pulled and burned with wrong movements, but I could move. I could stand, lift, and fight if the situation demanded it.
Which meant one thing:
Time to go.
Breakfast was a granola bar and a fruit pouch that tasted like defeat. Across the room, Fiona had both hands wrapped around a mug. Libby was in the supply corner, repacking items she’d probably already packed twice.
“Alright,” I said, wiping my hands on my jeans. “We can’t stay here much longer.”
Fiona looked up immediately. No argument, no hesitation—just a small nod that told me she’d already come to the same conclusion.
“Yeah,” she said. “I was thinking the same thing.”
“Those men on the bridge had a system,” I continued. “That means they’re still out there, still moving, still working outward from wherever they started. And a vet clinic is exactly the kind of place that ends up on a list.”
Lily was quiet.
I glanced over.
She sat cross-legged on the floor, Doc Fluffbutt cradled against her chest like a newborn, her chin tipped slightly down towards him, engaged in what appeared to be a thorough and completely serious briefing.
“—and you’re going to love it,” she was telling him, with the quiet conviction of someone who had already decided how things would go. “There are probably trees, and birds, and maybe other cats—but you’re obviously the best one, so that’s fine—”
I looked at the cat, then back at her.
“We’re not taking the cat,” I said.
Three heads turned toward me.
Fiona’s mug stopped halfway to her lips. Libby’s hands went still in the supply corner. Even the cat looked up.
“He’s coming,” Lily said, in the tone of someone stating a fact rather than opening a negotiation.
I turned to Fiona for backup.
She lifted both hands slightly. “I’m not arguing with her.”
“Traitor,” I muttered.
Libby had turned away.
“Finn,” she said, her voice steady, “he’s been quiet this whole time. He doesn’t draw attention. And Lily—” she nodded across the room “—is significantly more okay because of him.”
I held her gaze for a second, then exhaled and pressed two fingers to the bridge of my nose.
“So I’m responsible for a cat now,” I said.
Doc Fluffbutt blinked at me from across the room. Slow. Considered. Deeply unimpressed.
“Fantastic.”
“He has a carrier!” Lily announced, producing a small mesh-windowed backpack from behind her with the triumphant energy of someone revealing a solution they’d prepared well in advance.
I looked from the carrier to her.
“You found a cat backpack,” I said flatly.
“It was in the storage room.” She held it up a little higher. “It was meant to be.”
“Nothing about any of this is meant to be,” I said.
She ignored me with the practiced ease of someone who’d already stopped listening and began guiding Doc Fluffbutt into the carrier with surprising efficiency, as if the two of them had rehearsed it.
“You’re going to be safe,” she told him, zipping the front halfway. “We’re a very capable group.”
I snorted. “That’s debatable.”
The cat turned once inside the carrier, arranged himself, and purred with the deep, satisfied resonance of someone who had just secured a significant upgrade in accommodations.
Fiona laughed—so bright and genuine it caught me off guard.
“Come on,” she said. “You’ve handled worse than this.”
“I’ve handled a lot of things,” I said. “None of them required me to keep a cat alive through the end of civilization.”
Libby passed close behind me and bumped her shoulder lightly against mine.
“You’ll manage,” she said.
I looked at her sideways. “Yeah?”
“You’re very adaptable.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “It’s one of your better qualities.”
I huffed out a breath. “I’ll add it to the resume. Navy SEAL. Survival expert. Cat security.”
Lily looked up from adjusting the carrier straps, grinning. “Doc Fluffbutt approves.”
“Doc Fluffbutt has no responsibilities and a private guard,” I said. “Of course he approves.”
The cat blinked again from behind its mesh window. Serene. Sovereign. Completely unbothered by the state of the world outside, or anything else for that matter.
I shook my head and reached for my pack.
“Ten minutes,” I said. “Everyone ready to move?”
* * *
I ran a final check on my weapon near the back door, then rolled my shoulder. The burn was still there, manageable enough to ignore.
“Where are we at, guys?” I said, glancing up.
Libby came in from the hallway carrying what could only be described as organized chaos.
“Food, water, batteries, basic tools,” she said, setting everything down with a soft thud and straightening up. “I prioritized caloric density over taste.”
“Taste is overrated anyway,” I said.
She gave me a look that showed she disagreed. “Speak for yourself. I, for one, happen to appreciate a little flavor.”
“You’ve had granola bars for two weeks.”
“Luxury,” she deadpanned, and went back to tightening a strap.
Fiona emerged from the storage room, and I took one look at what she was carrying and had to do a double take.
“Jesus,” I said. “Are you planning to open a practice?”
She didn’t blink, shifting the weight of the medical supplies. “Sutures, antibiotics, painkillers. Everything we don’t have and won’t find out there.” Her look didn’t invite debate. “So either you help me carry this, or I’ll follow you out that door and resent you the entire time.”
“Give it to me.”
She smirked. “I do enjoy the rare occasions you agree with me.”
“Don’t let it go to your head,” I said. “It won’t become a habit.”
Lily came in last.
Doc Fluffbutt occupied his mesh-windowed backpack carrier with the regal composure of someone who had requested first class and received it. His broad orange face pressed against the window with mild curiosity, taking in his surroundings like a passenger reviewing the departure gate.
“I’ve got his food,” Lily announced, holding up a separate bag with evident pride.
I stared at it. “How much food does a cat need for the apocalypse?”
“Enough,” she said firmly. Then she reached into the bag and produced a small felt mouse on a string. “And I found some toys in the storage room.”
A long silence settled over the room.
“Toys,” I said.
“He needs enrichment, Finn.” She met my stare without blinking. “Mental stimulation is important for his well-being.”
I looked at the cat.
The cat looked at me.
Doc Fluffbutt let out a short, imperious meow that landed somewhere between agreement and mild threat.
“See?” Lily said.
“He’s running this operation,” I said, half to myself. “I want it on record that the cat is running this shit show.”
Lily made a sound that she converted, not entirely successfully, into a cough.
I rubbed the back of my neck and let the humor drain out of my voice.
“Hey,” I said. “Look at me for a second.”
She met my eyes, her expression shifting into something more serious.
“You keep him close and you keep that carrier on your back,” I said. “If we have to move fast—and chances are we will—you don’t stop. Not for anything dropped, not for any sound, and not for him. You move with the group. You understand?”
Something flickered across her face. Not fear exactly—more like the acknowledgment that the real world had just stepped back into the room.
She nodded. “I understand.”
“Good.” I held her gaze one more beat. She may be almost seventeen, but she was still a kid.
Fiona adjusted the box in her arms. “Back roads or going back to the highway?”
“We’re taking back roads for as long as possible,” I said. “And we are avoiding all bridges.”
“No argument here,” Libby said.
I took one last look around the clinic. The makeshift beds, the reorganized shelves. The place had kept us alive and bought us two weeks we’d badly needed.
But we’d stripped it of everything useful, and there was nothing left to stay for.
I pushed the back door open a few inches and scanned the alley. Still. Quiet. The morning light sat flat and gray over the empty road beyond.
“Alright,” I said. “Let’s move.”
We filed out one by one—Libby, then Fiona with her medical arsenal, then Lily, with Doc Fluffbutt surveying the alley through his mesh window like a naturalist observing new terrain.
I came out last, pulling the door shut behind me.
And then, against my better judgment, I glanced at the cat.
Doc Fluffbutt blinked at me once—slow, deliberate, the blink of a creature with absolutely nothing to answer for.
I held my fingers up in a shushing motion.
He blinked again.
“Lord help me,” I muttered, and followed my people down the alley.