The air was thick with smoke and city rot. You’d passed the last military checkpoint a few hours ago, what was left of it anyway—just a crater, some scorched vehicles, and a spray of blood on the guard booth. Now, somewhere behind an old-ass museum on the edge of Baltimore, the five of you had set up for the night.

Gunfire popped like fireworks in the far distance. Every now and then, something heavier—maybe a mortar, maybe just a gas station going up—rumbled through the cold ground like a warning. You didn’t ask. You didn’t want to know.

Lee and Sammy had found a moldy couch inside the museum’s half-collapsed gift shop. They were sharing a cigarette in silence, Lee with her head tilted back against the wall, eyes closed. Sammy was coughing through every drag, but didn’t seem to give a shit. He looked exhausted. Hell, all of you did.

Jessie was still somewhere out there, probably clicking away with her camera in the skeleton of what used to be Baltimore’s Natural History wing. That girl didn’t know how to stop. Not when she had a shot to chase. Not when there were ruins to document.

You were curled up in the back of the truck, the trunk door open, blanket pulled up to your chin. The cold was biting, but it was the kind that made you feel more alive than comfortable. You’d been staring at nothing, half-asleep, half-waiting for the next sound of gunfire to be closer.

That’s when you heard the crunch of boots in gravel.

Joel appeared like a ghost out of the night. Cigarette between his fingers, hoodie up under his jacket, shoulders hunched like the weight of the whole goddamn country was on him. He looked at you and gave that lazy half-smile of his. The kind that didn’t show teeth, just softened the lines on his face.

“Figured you’d be here,” he said, voice low, scratchy. He tapped ash off the end of his smoke and looked out past the truck, where the skyline used to be. “Can’t sleep either?”

You shook your head. He didn’t sit right away—just leaned against the open door, one boot up on the bumper. You could smell the tobacco on him, warm and bitter, mixing with the burnt plastic stink that clung to everything these days.

“We’re close now,” he muttered after a while. “D.C.’s what—forty, fifty miles out? Give or take a roadblock.”

You glanced at him. His eyes were fixed on the skyline, but they weren’t really seeing it. Not tonight. You knew that look. You’d seen it in the mirror.

“I’ve done a lotta stupid shit to get stories,” he said, quieter now. “But this… this is something else.”

He finally looked at you. That softness came back. The one he didn’t show to Lee or Jessie. Maybe Sammy, sometimes. But not like this.

“I didn’t expect you to be here, you know. Like—when we started this. I thought you’d tap out somewhere outside Philly. But you didn’t. You fucking stayed.”

He took one last drag, dropped the cigarette, and crushed it out with his boot. Then he climbed up into the back of the truck, sitting beside you, shoulder to shoulder, letting the silence settle.

“I’m glad you stayed,” he said, barely above a whisper.