Chapter 26: Everything We Can Carry
3:27 a.m.
They didn't say it out loud, but they knew they weren't sleeping tonight. The air had that feeling again — thick, stretched, and just slightly wrong. Like time had been twisted into something unreliable. Like if they stopped moving, the world would start unraveling again.
So they kept going. Through hollow streets and trashed storefronts, lit only by the flickering remains of streetlamps and the thin glow of an old lantern they passed between them. No drama. No panic. Just that quiet, electric urgency. The kind born of instinct and exhaustion and the kind of grief you can't name out loud.
Aria didn't ask where they were going. Not because she didn't want to know — because she didn't need to. Selene moved like she had a map tattooed behind her eyes, and Aria trusted that. Trusted her. Not blindly. Not because of some past life. But because in a world that no longer explained itself, Selene was one of the only things that made sense.
They scavenged like a team that had done this a thousand times. Never rushing. Never doubling back. Selene pointed, Aria moved. Aria gestured, Selene nodded. No words needed. No space wasted. They weren't surviving — they were preparing.
Weapons came first. Always quiet ones. Knives with knuckle grips, short axes, even a few throwing stars tucked into the lining of a supply vest. Selene handed her a blade — no ceremony, no speech, just offering. Like it was obvious she'd need it. Like anything else was just delay.
Aria took it, turned it in her hand. It gleamed unnaturally sharp in the lantern light. She frowned.
"This feels weird."
Selene stepped in behind her, her hand guiding Aria's grip with a precision that sent a jolt straight through her chest. Her voice was low, near her ear. "It's not supposed to feel natural. It's supposed to feel necessary."
Aria adjusted her stance, tried again.
"Not like you're slicing cake," Selene murmured. "More like it's part of your arm."
"Okay," Aria said, biting her lip. "Weirdly poetic for a murder lesson."
"You're the one who used to call it dancing."
Aria paused. "Wait. I did?"
Selene didn't answer. Just stepped back.
By the time the sky started to bleed light, they had supplies piled into crates: food, clean water, medical gear, spare batteries, extra phone chargers even though service was gone. Aria packed everything into Zero, her pocket dimension, with ease that both thrilled and unsettled her. It kept growing. Evolving. Responding. And somewhere deep inside her, she knew that was the point.
They found gear hidden behind a crumbled yoga studio — binoculars, solar blankets, even a taser gun duct - taped inside a hollow Buddha statue. Behind an old fire station, Selene located a stash of gas masks and emergency radios, still wrapped in plastic. Underneath the ruins of a shopping mall, they broke into a flooded security bunker, thigh - deep in water that smelled like rust and time. Selene moved like she'd been there before, even if she hadn't.
"I think I'm dreaming," Aria whispered, stepping over a submerged desk. "Except I don't think dreams ache like this."
"You used to say the ache was proof you weren't dead," Selene replied. "Even when you wanted to be."
Aria blinked. "That's depressing as hell."
"You were dramatic."
"Were?"
Selene gave the faintest smile and hauled herself out of the water.
By mid - morning, they reached a broken - down farmers market. The walls were still covered in sunflowers painted by someone who clearly believed the world would recover. "Grow What Matters" was scrawled in fading paint above the mural, the color bleeding in the rain.
Selene stared at it for a long time, too long.
Aria dropped a box of ration packs with a grunt. "What is it?"
"I hate this place," Selene said softly.
"Why?"
"I don't remember."
Aria didn't press.
An hour later, they stumbled across the RV.
It sat half - crushed under a rusted billboard that still promised Clean Air, Cleaner Commutes. The lie was almost funny. The windshield was intact, the doors unjammed, the tires still full. Selene checked the visor. The keys were there.
"I feel like this thing's haunted," Aria said.
"Everything is," Selene muttered and turned the key.
The RV shuddered, choked once, then came alive like it had been holding its breath. The engine settled into a quiet hum.
"Should we really be driving this?" Aria asked, brushing dust off the dashboard.
"It's safer than staying in one place."
"You really think someone's still coming?"
Selene's eyes darkened. "They always come. Especially when they think they've won."
Aria swallowed. "The Council?"
Selene didn't answer. But her grip on the wheel tightened like she wanted to crush it.
They drove in silence for a long time. The streets looked like graveyards. Trees had grown wild through sidewalk cracks. Billboard frames hung empty. A traffic light blinked red into an intersection with no cars left to stop.
Then, just before dusk, they saw the yacht.
It floated at the end of a private pier, immaculate. Wrong, even. Like it had been preserved by something that didn't want it to decay. It shone under the gray sky like an echo of wealth in a world that had stopped pretending it needed money.
Aria stayed on the dock while Selene boarded first, moving with that precise awareness she always had — clearing rooms, checking shadows, scanning for anything left behind.
"This feels like a trap," Aria said.
"It probably is."
"Great."
Selene popped her head out after a few minutes. "It's clear."
"You sure?"
"No, but I want you off the dock."
They loaded a few more crates into Zero before night fully set in. The lake was still, too still, like it was waiting. The moon slid out from behind clouds, tinged orange-red.
"We can't save everyone," Selene said quietly, staring at the water.
"I know."
Aria hesitated. "But I don't want to be someone who only saves herself."
"You weren't," Selene said.
Aria turned, blinking. "What?"
Selene just shook her head. "Nothing."
They returned to the RV after checking the yacht's generator, which miraculously still worked. The moon followed them back like it didn't trust them.
They packed everything in the dark, moving with quiet urgency. Aria pulled open the dimensional storage and it widened instantly. Like it had missed her. She knelt beside it, arms deep, and began stacking in gasoline tanks, first - aid kits, rolls of tarp, and two water filters. Her arms trembled as the pressure inside her grew — each item making the dimension heavier, denser, deeper.
Selene kept watch as Aria worked. She could see the strain in Aria's face. Not just physical. Something else. Something shifting.
"You okay?" she asked, crouching beside her.
"It's heavier than before."
"That's because it's becoming part of you."
"It already feels like me."
Selene stared at her a moment. "Then you're getting stronger."
"Is that a compliment?"
Selene smirked. "You tell me."
Aria flushed. She didn't look away.
Then she tripped slightly over the edge of the RV step, and Selene reached instinctively — her hand hovering at Aria's arm. Close. So close.
She didn't touch her.
Aria felt it anyway.
They drove again. Past the edge of anything familiar. Past road signs too weather - worn to read. Past the last glow of working streetlamps, until even the gas stations looked like old bones.
They pulled behind one station swallowed in vines. A single pump still blinked a faint green, oblivious to the apocalypse.
No lights. No people. No sounds but the wind scraping over broken signs.
Inside the RV, Aria collapsed onto the back bench, wrapping herself in a blanket that smelled like burnt cedar and someone else's old perfume. Her eyes didn't close. She just stared.
Selene stayed awake, perched at the window like a gargoyle made of discipline and grief. One boot braced against the wall. One arm slung over her knee. Her breath fogged the window. The silence was total.
She looked over her shoulder.
Aria was curled tight, trying not to unravel.
Selene's jaw clenched.
She hated this part. The waiting. The quiet before the next burn. She hated how easily the world broke girls like Aria. How easily it had broken her before. She wouldn't let it happen again.
Not this time.
She pressed her fingers to the side of her boot, grounding herself.
She would give her everything.
Even if that meant giving her the whole truth.
Even if that truth tore Selene apart first.
She watched the moon shift again. A shadow moved across it, blotting out half the glow like a closed eye. The wind changed direction. A hum started somewhere low, deep in the power grid — alive again, but not right.
Aria stirred in her sleep.
Selene didn't move.
She didn't pray. Didn't breathe too loudly. She just sat there, a blade across her lap, eyes locked on a night that had stopped pretending to be safe.
And waited for what came next.