When we reach Sutherland’s room, he’s sitting propped up against some cushions with a bowl of soup on a tray. Elsa jumps up onto the bed and curls up leaning against Sutherland’s legs.

  “Sutherland,” Wing breathes out, and races through the room. She scoots past Nancy, back in her wingback chair, but hovers at Sutherland’s side.

  He places his spoon down on the tray and reaches a hand out to the woman. She clutches on with both of her own.

  “Thank you for coming,” he says to her. Her beaming smile lights the quickly darkening room.

  “Wherever you are,” she says in reply. One day I’d like to hear their story, but I also know that I likely never will. Neither seems the type to share their histories that readily. But I guess relationships form in strange ways, especially during the apocalypse. And speaking of apocalyptic relationships…

  Ryder bursts into the room a moment later, Savannah hot on his heels.

  “Good,” Sutherland says, surveying the room. “We’re all here.”

  I scan the room—it’s my Party, Wing, and Sutherland. And Elsa. What does Sutherland have up his sleeve now?

  “Thank you for coming to my aid this morning,” he begins, looking at all of us in turn. His eyes linger on me. “Any other address meant you wouldn’t have made it in time, and everything turned out exactly how it was supposed to.”

  I smile at him. I had more or less come to that understanding on my own, but it’s nice to hear it confirmed.

  “Speaking of that,” Savannah says, standing behind Ryder and trying to make herself look small.

  “Not now,” Sutherland says. “All your questions will be answered. For now, we have a lot of work to do.”

  “We do?” Ryder asks.

  Sutherland nods. He lifts the tray and moves it beside him so he can lean forward a little. Elsa lets out a little meow at being shifted. “The fence has been started?” he asks, his gaze going to Beaker. The man nods. “And Elsa already told me that the opossums are gone.”

  “They are,” I confirm.

  “Then we’re ready to begin the next step.”

  “And what step is that, exactly?” I ask the man.

  He turns to me, his bald head shiny and reflective in the light of the fireball that Ryder holds. His eyes are dark, deep, and hold knowledge that I don’t understand and can never know. I wonder, not for the first time, what he was doing during the first magic surge to have given him the power he has.

  “Building a home,” he says simply.

  Maybe it is that simple.

  ***

  Time moves on and, for the first time since this all began, I can finally take a step back from leadership. I still have my responsibilities, but Sutherland leads us with a stern hand—and with a tiger at his side.

  I get taken off the fence project. Probably a good thing, since I found it tediously boring—but obviously seriously necessary. Wing, Beaker, and Pete keep working on it and I am placed on a team with my original Party. Ryder, Nancy, and I head back out in the Volvo with a new address every time, finding people in the moments when they need help the most. In one case, we found a woman who had just been pinned down by a broken armoire; in one, we arrive minutes before a goat comes careering through a window and shattering glass everywhere. We give them our pre-prepared speech, have them pack a bag, and bring them back to the neighbourhood.

  We don’t tell people about the Game. We don’t pull their belongings into our inventories. They bring only what we can carry and fit in the trunk of the Volvo. I hate that we don’t do more.

  Being back out on the road, I expect the familiar haze of purple to descend on my map. But it doesn’t. I think about that last big surge we attended, the fight out in the farm field behind the Costco, the way the purple didn’t shrink and darken, the way it didn’t move around, the way the number of monsters that joined the fight just got larger and larger—and, in contrast, I note the way the world around us has continued to drastically evolve. Vines cover more buildings than not, now, and trees seem to have ricocheted into the skies. Sidewalks and roads have been broken by roots.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  And the monsters. They’re everywhere, not engaging us but observing. Living. Doing their own things. When we accidentally come upon a scene where two racoons are fighting, one doubled in size and the other able to create a mirror version of itself, we get attacked. We bring the dead bodies with us into the Volvo, and pull over when the ashing begins.

  At least if there aren’t going to be more surges, there are other ways for us to claim more magic.

  Back in the neighbourhood, those that remained behind and those we bring in get to work on the houses, cleaning up the messes and disposing of what needs to be disposed of. The phrase many hands make light work come to mind, and I’m glad that people have something to do. A few other neighbours had survived, and suddenly our small group starts to feel like a proper community. On our most recent collection, there’s someone walking up the street that I don’t even recognize. Is she some neighbour who revealed herself, or are people finding their way to us on their own now?

  Though as I turn the last corner toward home, I realize there’s another option of who she is. Because it’s been a couple days, and Colton’s red Mustang is once again parked at the curb of my house.

  Ryder leans between the front seats. “Hey, that’s Colton’s car!” he says, having realized the same thing I did.

  “I wasn’t totally sure we’d see him again,” Nancy says.

  “Who’s Colton?” the pre-teen boy sitting in the back asks.

  “Ohmigod, he’s so cool,” Ryder says, turning back and giving the other boy the full backstory. I’m happy that there’s someone close to Ryder’s age, but considering I still haven’t heard more than two words in a row come out of this boy’s mouth, I’m unsure of what, exactly, the friendship will have to grow from.

  “I want to believe that he wouldn’t have told Gigi he’d be back if he wasn’t planning on being back,” I say to Nancy as Ryder tells his story.

  “Yeah, but things happen,” Nancy says ominously.

  I glance at her quickly before turning into our driveway. “Did something happen with him? Is everything okay?”

  “Oh, it’s fine,” she urges, grabbing onto the seatbelt across her chest. “I just get… a weird vibe. That’s all. We should be careful.”

  “He’s harmless,” I say, shifting the car into park.

  Nancy shakes her head. “He won’t tell us what his magic is. I don’t trust that.”

  “Let’s get him in the Game,” I suggest. “It’ll tell us.”

  Nancy frowns. “I don’t know if I want him in our Party.”

  I turn the car off. “Future-us problems,” I hedge. “Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it.”

  We bring the boy to Portia for housing assignment—especially with a minor, it’s important to make sure he has somewhere to live with an adult who can keep an eye on him. And then I head back to Sutherland’s to give him a summary of events. And get my next assignment.

  But for the first time, I argue against the address he gives me. For a church.

  “We’ve met these people,” I tell Sutherland, leaning forward on the chair I sit at, at the kitchen table in the house that’s become his. He’s set up his headquarters in their kitchen, surrounded by oversized, overflowing planters and cushions covered in sunflowers. I feel anything but sunny when I give him the brief overview of what happened after the fight at the Tim Horton’s. A little girl, dead. A woman’s hysterics. Teenagers arguing over who was responsible. A man with a gun. “They won’t want anything to do with us—we’re part of the reason that little girl died.”

  Sutherland shakes his head, comfortable in his chair, his hands folded in front of him. “We need them,” he says. “They need us. They’ll come.”

  “Please don’t make me do this, Sutherland. Please don’t make me go back to those people.” I hate begging. I hate feeling like I have no choice. And I hate feeling like it’ll all be for naught.

  “Jane,” he says, my name an admonishment, leaning forward in his kitchen chair for the first time. “Have any of my leads failed us yet?”

  I sigh, because he’s right about that part, at least. I slump back. “Can you at least tell me what it’ll be like? What I’ll be walking into?”

  He gives a shake of his head, leaning back into his chair. “You know it doesn’t work like that.”

  “Yeah, but it’ll make me feel better.”

  “Take the evening to think about it,” Sutherland says. “You don’t need to go until tomorrow, so take tonight to sit with the thought of it. Talk about it with Nancy and Ryder. And if you’re still adamant about not going tomorrow…” He shrugs. “We’ll see.”

  I know that there’s no we’ll see-ing with him, but I take the olive branch for what it is. I’m at the door when Sutherland says, “You’re integral in all of this, Jane.” I pause with my hand on the doorknob. “Every failure. Every success. It all happens because of you.”

  “I need that extra pressure,” I mutter to myself, but Sutherland chuckles like he heard me anyway.

  But I don’t go to find my Party. Not too long later, I find myself sitting on the steps toward my front door with Elsa the cat. The soft fur beneath my fingers is the comfort I need.

  “Where’s Mazy?” I ask after a moment. We see the tiger around, but she’s often off doing her own thing—including, I’m sure, feeding herself. I wonder if eating a monster allows the same intake of magic as the ashing.

  I’m not sure I want to know.

  The cat cuts me a stink eye as my scratches behind her ear stop. “Out, I’m sure,” she says. I don’t know if it’s just typical cat, but somehow she always sounds both insulted and insulting. It’s an art.

  I sigh, go back to my scratching, and a moment later a hiss sounds from the cat. I look down sharply, but she didn’t hiss at me; her attention is on two people crossing the street.

  “Hey,” I scold. “Don’t hiss at my grandmother.” But even as I say that, I already know the truth.

  “It’s not her I’m wary of,” the cat says. “There’s something off about the other one.”

  And that’s when Colton lifts a hand to give me a wave.