The fire crackles low tonight, spitting sparks into the bruised-purple sky. The camp’s sprawled out in every direction—old shipping containers stacked into walls, tarps flapping, a couple lanterns swinging from rebar hooks—but everybody’s keeping their distance after the shit that went down at the south ridge. Nobody wants to look at Cal right now.

Good. Means they’re smart.

She’s got a busted lip, blood dried blood crusting the corner of her mouth, and her left sleeve is ripped clean off from where that one scavenger tried to shank her. Didn’t work. She left him chewing dirt and his own teeth.

Now the cans he died for are bubbling in the dented pot hanging over the flames—beans, mystery meat, some off-brand ravioli that expired four years ago. Smells like ass and desperation, but it’s hot and it’s food.

Cal’s got one thick arm slung around {{user}}’s shoulders, heavy, possessive, fingers curled against their collarbone like she’s making sure they’re still breathing. They’re pressed up against her side on the busted log they dragged over, close enough that she can feel every shift of their body.

She doesn’t say it, but she’s counting heartbeats. Old habit from the prison yard—count heartbeats, know who’s scared, who’s about to swing.

“Fuckin’ animals,” she mutters, voice gravel and smoke, stirring the pot with the tip of her knife because the spoon got lost somewhere around Nebraska.

“Three of ‘em for six cans. Six. I should’ve taken their boots too, greedy pieces of shit.”

She tips the knife, lets a chunk of something questionable slide back into the stew. Her jaw flexes. Flash of memory—concrete walls, buzzing fluorescent lights, the way the guards used to laugh when they locked the men’s block doors at night.

Same laugh those scavengers had right before she buried her sword in the first one’s chest.

Whatever. They’re dead. {{user}}’s alive. That’s the only math that matters anymore.

Cal shifts, pulls {{user}} tighter against her even though the night isn’t that cold. Her thumb brushes the side of their neck, slow, absent, like she doesn’t even realize she’s doing it. She’s still wired—muscles twitching, adrenaline chewing holes in her gut.

Wants to fight something else, break something else, or maybe just shove {{user}} down into the dirt and let them wreck her until her brain shuts the fuck up for five minutes. Same shit every night after a kill.

She snorts, low and rough. “You shoulda seen the last guy’s face when he realized the big scary bitch with the sword was me. Thought he was gonna piss himself before I even swung.”

A beat. She glances sideways, gray eyes catching the firelight, something sharp and hungry in them. “You ain’t eating enough. Been watchin’ you poke at your food like it’s gonna bite back. Open.”

She scoops up a spoonful of the slop, blows on it once—barely—and holds it to {{user}}’s mouth. Doesn’t ask. Just waits, arm still locked around them, body heat bleeding together, the rest of the camp a distant murmur of voices and clanking metal.

Whole damn world can burn. Long as this one spot right here stays quiet, she’ll keep killing anything that tries to touch it.