Chapter 16: The Quiet Ones Die First
They stayed by the fire longer than they should have. The embers pulsed like a slowing heartbeat, light flickering across the rock walls in irregular rhythms. Selene didn't sleep. She kept her vigil at the ridge's edge, rifle balanced across her knees, eyes scanning the black treeline for movement that hadn't come — yet. Her silhouette blended into the dark, indistinguishable from the jagged spines of the surrounding hills.
Mae sat curled near the glowing coals, arms wrapped tight around herself like her own body was trying to disappear. Her eyes didn't blink often. She wasn't looking at the fire; she was looking through it. Her shadow danced against the rocks behind her, thin and frayed, like even the light had given up trying to find all of her.
Aria watched her. The girl's presence still felt fragile, like something that might blow away if anyone breathed too loudly. She passed her a blanket, careful not to move too fast, like approaching a bird with a broken wing. "You don't have to tell us," she said.
Mae stared deeper into the coals, face lit in rust-red hues. "I want to," she whispered. "But I don't know how much of it was real. That's the worst part. It all felt like a dream when I was in it. And now it feels like I imagined the whole thing."
Aria didn't push. She just sat beside her, knees touching slightly, grounding her.
Mae's voice was brittle. "The station was called Redhill. Northern watchpoint. It wasn't on maps — maybe it used to be, but they scrubbed it. Said it was for 'containment and control.' That's what the signs said. Steel placards bolted to fences, painted letters peeling from rain and smoke."
Aria stayed quiet. Mae needed the space more than she needed questions.
"There were only about forty of us left when they stopped the shipments. No food. No medicine. Just water that tasted like rust and watched us back through the walls." Mae paused, her eyes flicking upward. "They left the cameras on. Even when the power cut in other places, the cameras stayed on. You could hear the soft whir sometimes — just enough to know you were still being seen."
Selene turned slightly from her post. She hadn't moved until now, but her attention had been hooked for some time.
"Then the trucks came," Mae said. "Black, sealed up like coffins on wheels. Not with supplies — never supplies. Soldiers stepped out. Quiet ones. Not wearing the old Safe Zone gear. No badges, no insignias. Just matte armor and helmets that didn't reflect anything. Even their boots made no sound."
Her fingers were twitching, like her muscles remembered something her brain didn't want to say.
"They started taking people. Two at a time. Always just two. Called it relocation. Said it was voluntary. But we all knew that was a lie. None of them came back."
Aria felt the pit of her stomach go cold. "How did you get out?"
Mae laughed, but it was empty. "There was a boy — Ezra. He was younger than me, but sharper. He told me once the fences weren't real. Said the real trap was the silence. That if we didn't break it, it would eat us one by one. He mapped patrol cycles, tracked guard rotations, even found a busted floodgate near the filtration system."
She blinked, rapidly now, and Aria knew the rest before she said it.
"He pushed me through the opening and slammed the hatch shut. Held it closed from the other side while I ran. I heard shouting. Then gunfire. I didn't look back."
Aria reached out and put a hand gently on Mae's shoulder. She flinched, then relaxed into it.
Selene approached the fire again. She handed Mae a battered metal flask — water, filtered and cold. "Redhill's real," she said, voice flat. "I've heard of it. One of the old black sites. Started before the outbreak ever peaked. Off - grid behavioral labs. They were testing psych thresholds, social collapse rates, how long people stayed compliant under isolation."
Mae's head snapped up. "You knew?"
"I knew places like it existed," Selene said. "I didn't know any survivors."
Mae's hands curled into fists around the blanket. "They didn't survive," she said. "They just stopped being people."
Selene met her eyes. "But you got out."
Aria watched the exchange. There was something threading through it — a recognition, or maybe a reckoning. She felt it build in her chest, hot and sharp, some combination of grief and ignition.
Selene pulled a second map from inside her jacket and spread it on the crate, pressing the corners down with spent shell casings. The firelight trembled across the creases. The paper was old, water - stained and thin as skin.
"This line here," she said, pointing with a gloved finger, "is the canyon wall that runs behind the southern tech corridor. See this curve? That's an old stormwater tunnel system. Most of it collapsed decades ago, but there's a stretch that still runs underground."
Mae leaned in closer. "Are we going through that?"
"It's not patrolled. But that doesn't mean it's empty."
Aria furrowed her brow. "What's in it?"
Selene didn't answer immediately. Her eyes flicked toward the darkness beyond the ridge.
"People who never made it out of the zones," she said. "Some of them sane. Some not. The ones too broken to fight, or too angry to be broken."
Mae stared at the map. "Why go through?"
Selene looked up. The wind had picked up again, pulling strands of hair across her cheek like black thread. "Because no one will follow us there. No patrols. No cameras. No broadcast drones. Just ghosts. And they only come for you if you run."
They packed slowly. The fire had burned down to a low orange flicker, and the coals hissed in the breeze like something breathing its last.
The silence between them wasn't empty now. It felt full. Not of fear, but of something heavier — something earned.
Mae pulled on a borrowed coat and tightened the straps of the pack Aria handed her. It was slightly too big, but she didn't complain. She accepted the knife without question, tested its weight, and nodded once.
Selene gave the rifle a final inspection, checked the mag, and slung it across her shoulder. She glanced toward the treeline — still nothing.
"Get what sleep you can," she said. "We move at four."
Mae looked at her. "You trust me now?"
Selene's mouth pulled into something that might've been a smile, but didn't quite make it there. "No. But I believe in second chances."
Aria lay back, blanket wrapped tight, the ground cold against her spine. She watched the stars blink overhead — old, flickering, unreliable. Not unlike the satellites above them, long past their prime, their signals now just static and regret.
Beside her, Mae was already drifting off, curled small beneath the blanket like someone trying to disappear into the dirt.
Selene returned to the edge of the ridge, silent as ever.
The canyon beyond waited. A yawning black maw carved through the land like a scar that never healed.
They would walk into it.
Not because they had no choice — but because the system that created it still lived, still hunted in the open.
And because Mae wasn't the only one who needed to be free.