(Iris)
Elias sleeps like he's already halfway gone.
I don't mean peacefully. I mean carefully—on his side, knees drawn in, arms tucked close like he's trying to reduce surface area. His breathing is shallow, measured. He never exhales fully. Keeps warmth inside his chest like it might leak out if he's careless.
I've seen that before.
People who plan to live longer than their bodies want to.
Rowan snores softly on the other end of the trailer, one arm flung over his face. He burns calories even in sleep. Always has. Some people are built like fires. Bright. Wasteful. Beautiful until the fuel's gone.
Elias is built like an ember.
I keep my back to the wall, knife resting across my thigh, eyes on the narrow window. The glass is frosted over, but I've scraped a small circle clear with my glove. Enough to watch movement. Enough to let the moonlight in.
I count.
Not seconds. Shapes.
Tree line. Snowdrift. Trailer shadow. Repeat.
It's how I stay sane.
Elias shifts slightly, a faint sound catching in his throat before he stills again. Nightmare, maybe. Or just pain. Cold does that—it crawls into old injuries and makes them speak.
I wonder what his was.
He didn't ask us questions. That's what gave him away. People who still believe in a future ask questions. They imagine answers matter.
He watches instead.
I noticed his hair earlier, dark and long enough to brush his jaw, the ends stiff with frost when we came in. He hasn't cut it in a while. Not out of vanity. Out of calculation. Hair holds heat. So does familiarity. He hasn't let go of either.
I don't know why that bothers me.
The dead man I killed earlier flashes in my mind—the way his jaw gave under the blade, the dull resistance before the crack. He'd been infected for a while. Cold-adapted. He didn't rush me. Didn't snarl. He thought waiting would work.
It almost did.
Elias didn't look at the body after. Rowan did—too long. He always looks too long. That's another kind of hunger.
The wind rattles the trailer, metal ticking as the temperature drops again. I adjust my scarf and roll my shoulders, forcing blood back into my arms. I should wake one of them to switch watch.
I don't.
Instead, I keep looking at Elias.
He has that look people get when they've already decided how they're going to die, even if they don't admit it to themselves. Not today. Not tomorrow. Just… eventually. Like a debt.
I hate that look.
I almost lost it myself once. After the second winter. After the counting stopped working.
I shift closer to him, careful not to wake him, and adjust the blanket over his shoulders by an inch. No more. Too much warmth makes people stupid. But too little makes them disappear.
Balance is everything.
Rowan mumbles something in his sleep. A name, maybe. I don't recognize it. I don't want to.
The trailer creaks again, louder this time.
I freeze.
Listen.
There it is—footsteps. Slow. Measured. Not circling yet. Testing distance.
Controllers don't rush.
I raise my knife and wait.
The footsteps stop.
I don't relax.
Minutes pass. My thighs burn from holding still. My breath fogs faintly in the cold air. Elias stirs again, brow furrowing, lips parting like he's about to speak.
I lean closer, hand hovering near his shoulder.
"If you wake," I whisper, barely sound at all, "you move."
He doesn't wake.
Good.
The footsteps retreat, swallowed by wind and snow. A patrol, maybe. Or bait. Either way, they didn't find what they wanted.
Not yet.
I sit back, heart pounding, and exhale slowly.
This is how it always goes. Small mercies stacked on borrowed time.
I think about the grain depot I told them about. It's real. Mostly. There's food there, or was last winter. But it's also open ground. No places to hide. No places to wait.
Movement saves you.
Until it doesn't.
Elias opens his eyes suddenly.
I don't flinch. That would be weakness.
"How long was I out?" he asks quietly.
"Long enough," I say.
He nods, accepting that like it's a complete answer. His eyes flick to the window, then to my knife, then to Rowan. He puts the picture together without speaking.
"You didn't wake us," he says.
"I didn't need to."
A pause.
"Thank you," he adds.
The words are rough, unused.
I study his face in the low light—the lines already carved too deep for his age, the hollow beneath his cheekbones. Twenty-three, Rowan said earlier. He looks older. Not from years. From winters.
"Don't thank me yet," I reply. "You still have to walk."
He almost smiles at that.
Almost.
"Why are you really heading south?" he asks.
I consider lying.
"I don't stay anywhere long enough to get buried," I say instead.
He nods again. That's his tell. Acceptance without agreement.
"People freeze faster when they stop believing in each other," he says quietly. "Even if they don't say it out loud."
I look at him then, really look.
That ember again. Steady. Dangerous.
"You sound like someone who's watched it happen," I say.
"I sound like someone who didn't stop it."
That answer settles heavy in my chest.
Outside, the wind rises, howling low and constant. Snow scrapes against the trailer like fingers testing for weakness.
I make a decision then.
If Elias freezes, I'll make him move.
If he stops, I'll push.
If he decides waiting is safer, I'll be the one to break that illusion—even if it costs someone else their life.
I don't know why I choose him.
Maybe because people like Rowan burn too bright to last.
Maybe because embers need watching.
Or maybe because I'm tired of surviving alone and calling it strength.
"Get some rest," I tell him. "I'll wake you before dawn."
He watches me for a second longer, like he wants to say something else.
He doesn't.
He closes his eyes.
I turn back to the window and resume counting shapes, the cold biting deeper now, sharper than before.
Winter tightens.
And somewhere out there, waiting is already choosing its next victim.