Chapter 268: The Last Happy Evening.
The streets of the stray town carried noise the way they hadn’t in years.
Late afternoon light lay thick and gold across the cracked pavement. The park was full—bodies packed shoulder to shoulder around a raised patch of ground where Daphne stood speaking, one hand lifted, voice carrying clean over the murmur. Not the crowd of a celebration. The crowd of people who had decided something together. Arms rose. Voices answered. The air itself felt charged, as if the decision had weight and the weight had spread.
Sherry and Becky stood at the back listening. Daphne had seen them arrive, caught their eyes across the heads, given the smallest nod—quick, private, then gone. But she had her people in front of her and they came first, so the two women waited, the press of the crowd warm at their backs.
"She’s a good orator," Becky said. The words sat low under the noise.
"She is." Sherry watched her, eyes narrowed against the light. "She taught at Hogsby."
"Ah." Becky nodded slowly. The recognition settled. "That explains it. And explains why they listen to her like that. She must be one of the most respected people in this town."
"She is."
Becky kept watching her. She had always believed women could shift things, even in a world as broken as this one. Standing at the back of a crowd of people the walls had discarded, listening to one of them talk them out of accepting a gift, she believed it a little harder. The sunlight caught the edge of Daphne’s hair and turned it almost white for a second.
Becky’s comms vibrated against her hip—sharp, insistent.
She stepped away from the crowd, putting bodies between herself and the sound, and answered.
"Where are you?" Max asked, hearing the noise behind her—the rise and fall of voices, the raw energy of it.
"Outside the capital." Becky moved further from the bodies, the ground uneven under her boots. "I’m looking for Nesto."
"Nesto." The disappointment arrived instantly, flat and complete. "Becky. Today is the day. Today. The day we put the infection inside these walls, and you’re out chasing a nobody."
"He isn’t a nobody, Max." She watched the strays in front of her, arms in the air, shouting agreement at something Daphne had said. A woman near the front was crying and smiling at the same time. "He’s from Goth. He’s one of ours."
"Rebecca." His voice dropped. The line went quieter, more dangerous. "He’s still nothing next to what we came here to do."
Becky looked out across the rally. Hundreds of people who had been handed a promise this morning and were now talking themselves out of it, convincing each other that the government had never once given them anything for free. The light slanted lower. Shadows stretched long between the bodies.
"Max." She kept her voice low. "I’ve been talking to the new director. They have a plan and it isn’t a bad one. They want to connect the walls to the outside. Actually connect them."
"Wow."
"I’m serious." She glanced back and found Sherry scanning the crowd for her, one hand lifted slightly, eyes searching.
"So you believe them now." Not a question. A verdict. The words landed hard.
"Max—"
"It’s too late, Becky." Flat. Final. The kind of final that had already moved past argument. "The specimen is ready. We release her into the capital today. This is the only way it was ever going to work."
He hung up. The line went dead with a soft click that felt louder than it should have.
"Becky." Sherry was beside her, the crowd breaking up around them—people peeling away in small groups, still talking, still charged. "Daphne’s waiting."
They walked toward her together, and Becky’s mind stayed on what was coming through the walls that evening. She’d believed in it for years. It had been the only route she could see to finishing what Goth had started. The certainty of it had been clean.
But standing in this town, watching these people laugh and shout and hold onto a day that had gone better than any day they’d had in years, something in her had started to come loose. A quiet unravelling at the edges.
"Sorry to keep you waiting." Daphne came to meet them, pleased to see them both, the residual heat of the speech still in her face.
"It’s fine." Sherry didn’t make anything of it, and Daphne pulled them each into a small hug—brief, firm, the kind that said more than the words.
The three women walked through the town together toward the mortuary. The streets were electric. Daphne’s speech had done exactly what Abram had asked it to do, and people were moving through the afternoon with the specific energy of a crowd that had decided it held the cards for once. Laughter rose in pockets. Someone was singing, off-key and unbothered. The light had turned the colour of old copper.
Gertrude was in the middle of the road with the same thin man held over her head, both of them laughing, celebrating a defiance that felt, today, like power. Her arms shook with the effort. His feet kicked once in the air. Neither of them cared.
"They seem genuinely happy," Becky said. The observation left her quieter than she expected.
"They are." Daphne looked at them as they passed, a small private smile. "First time in a long time they’ve said no to something and had it mean anything."
They reached the mortuary.
The building sat low and still, the late light flat against its walls. Daphne went in first. The other two slowed at the door, wanting to know and holding back from knowing at the same time. The threshold felt heavier than wood.
"I used to think young people didn’t die," Becky said as they stepped through. The air inside was cooler, carrying the faint chemical tang of the place.
Ahead of them, Daphne had already reached the body. The shape under the sheet was too still.
"Yeah," Sherry said.
Not because she’d ever thought that. Goth had cured her of it early. But because they both needed a second to find something to stand on before they looked at the boy who had grown up watching them. The silence between them stretched, thin and careful.
"There’s something I need to tell you." Becky stopped inside the doorway, voice dropping. The words came out lower than she meant.
"Now?"
"Max is releasing the infection inside the walls tonight."
Sherry turned. The movement was sharp. "What?"
Daphne stood beside the covered body, hands folded, waiting for the two of them to be ready. The sheet lay smooth and white under the overhead light. Outside, the noise of the town continued, bright and unaware.