Chapter 405: Happy News for Martin
Two days had passed since we took the Golden Nugget Hotel and the State Marina.
For Marlon’s people, it was a huge victory.
For three months, Callighan had kept them trapped on the defensive. His men controlled too much of Atlantic City, showed up wherever they wanted, took supplies, threatened people, and made it impossible for anyone on the Boardwalk to feel like they could relax for even one night. Marlon’s group had spent all that time reacting to whatever Callighan decided to do next.
The attack on the Golden Nugget had been the first time they struck back properly.
And it worked.
There had been losses on Marlon’s side. Three people had died during the fight, and that was not something anyone could just ignore. I had seen some of the survivors sitting outside the hotel afterward, cleaning blood from their hands and weapons while staring at the ground. A victory did not make those people come back.
Still, compared to what Callighan had lost, the difference was huge.
His men had been driven out of the hotel. The Golden Nugget was no longer a place where they could organize attacks, hide weapons, hold prisoners, or keep control over the marina. The State Marina itself was ours now too, along with the boats and the access it gave us to the inlet.
It was not a perfect victory.
Nobody had called it that.
But it was a real one.
I had seen the reaction across the Boardwalk with my own eyes. People were sleeping better. They were talking more freely in the open. Parents had started letting their children play farther from the rooms they lived in instead of keeping them within arm’s reach all the time. The tension had not disappeared completely, but the change was obvious.
Callighan’s men had been forced out of Atlantic City.
They were on the other side of the inlet now.
Brigantine was still close. If somebody stood near the marina, they could look across the dark water and know exactly where the enemy had gone. It was not far enough to make anyone careless, but it was enough that people did not have to expect armed men walking through their streets every day.
After what they had lived through, that alone gave them room to breathe.
Still, the war was not over.
Callighan’s main force was in Brigantine.
The Golden Nugget had only been one important location. Taking it had hurt him, taken away a major advantage, and made it harder for him to operate in Atlantic City, but Callighan still had people. He still had weapons. He still had control over Brigantine.
And Gaspar was there.
That made everything worse.
The Golden Nugget had been difficult enough. We had fought armed men, Hybrids, and people who knew the building better than we did. Brigantine would be a completely different problem. There were more people there, more ground to cover, and more ways for Callighan’s side to trap us before we even got close to where Emily and Mei were being held.
The plan could not be another direct attack.
Not if we wanted anyone to make it out alive.
When I spoke to Marlon about what came next, I expected him to tell me his people needed time. They probably did. Many of them had barely recovered from the Golden Nugget fight, and three deaths were enough to make anybody hesitate before planning another operation.
Instead, he listened.
I told him that eventually we had to turn our attention toward Brigantine. We could not just take the hotel and pretend Callighan would leave us alone afterward. He would regroup. He would get angry. He would strike back once he figured out how much ground he had lost.
Marlon nodded.
He did not make promises about rushing into another battle, but he agreed that Brigantine would have to be dealt with eventually. He asked for my help again too.
That surprised me a little.
After everything that had happened, after the mess with Kunta and Lucy, I had expected more people to start looking at me differently. Some probably still did. But Marlon trusted me enough to involve me in what came next, and that meant a lot.
Brigantine needed more careful planning than the Golden Nugget had.
We would need to know where Callighan kept his people, where he stored weapons, which routes were watched. We needed a way in that would not put them in danger before we reached them. We had boats now, which gave us options, but boats could also turn into a trap if Callighan spotted us crossing the inlet.
Then there was Gaspar.
He was not like Callighan.
Callighan was dangerous because of his people, his control, and the fear he kept spreading. Gaspar was dangerous on his own. He had a Symbiote. I had seen enough of what those things could do to know that a normal fight against him would be a disaster.
Getting Emily and Mei out was my main goal.
Nothing mattered more than that.
Once they were safe, I still wanted Callighan and Gaspar dealt with. The Boardwalk and Margaret’s community deserved to live without constantly waiting for one of them to attack. I did not want anybody else taken from their homes. I did not want another person to get dragged into the mess we had been fighting since Jackson Township.
For now, though, I was heading toward the Whitesun Hotel.
It felt awkward.
Two days earlier, I had told everyone I would not stay around much after Kunta was discovered. I had tried to put the blame on myself, told them I understood if they did not trust me anymore, and said I would leave once Callighan stopped being a threat.
I still did not know if my words had actually helped.
Rachel had told me that I handled it well. She said the tension had gone down afterward and that people were not as angry as they had been at the start.
I wanted to believe her.
Part of me wondered if she only said it because she knew how much I was already blaming myself.
As I walked closer to the hotel, people noticed me.
A few conversations lowered. Some people gave me short nods before looking away. Others watched me without saying anything. I recognized most of them. I had eaten with some of them, helped bring supplies in, stood beside them when things went wrong.
That was what made it feel worse.
I had lied to them.
I could keep telling myself that I did it to protect them, and maybe that was true. The thought of everybody panicking over Kunta, Lucy, Callighan, and everything else had made me want to keep the problems away from this place as long as possible.
But I had still made the choice for them.
I had hidden Kunta in one of the hotel rooms instead of explaining the situation. At the time, I thought it was the best option. She was young, scared, and alone. Rachel had been right when she said we could not just lock her away in some isolated place and pretend that was fine.
Keeping her in the hotel had also changed things.
Up on the upper floor, Rachel, Cindy, Sydney, Christopher, and I had visited her whenever we could. At first, Kunta barely spoke. She watched every movement around her and kept her distance, as if she expected us to decide we had made a mistake and throw her out.
That gradually changed.
She started answering questions without looking ready to run. She listened when Rachel spoke to her. She even started talking to Daisy and Rebecca when they came around.
Somehow, those two had become friends with her.
I reached the entrance of the Whitesun Hotel and pushed the door open.
The lobby looked mostly the same as it always did. People sat around the tables near the walls, a few children moved between the chairs while their parents kept an eye on them, and someone near the back was sorting through boxes of canned food that had been brought in earlier that morning.
The difference was the way people noticed me.
Several heads turned when I stepped inside.
For a second, I expected the same uncomfortable looks from before. The kind that made me wonder whether everybody was thinking about Kunta, Lucy, and everything I had hidden.
Then someone smiled at me.
"Ryan."
A few others greeted me too, their voices carrying that familiar warmth I had been worried might be gone.
"Morning, guys," I said.
They nodded back. One of the older men gave me a small wave from where he sat near the window, while a woman I recognized from the third floor told me to take care of myself after the fight at the Golden Nugget.
It was relieving.
More than I wanted to admit.
"Ryan, you finally came to see us?"
I knew that voice.
I turned around with a smile.
"Linda."
She stood a few steps away with her hands resting near her stomach, looking amused as usual. Martin stood beside her, and the two of them had that same comfortable look they always had when they were together. Even after everything the world had put them through, they somehow still found reasons to joke around.
"Here I thought you’d already forgotten about us and started a whole new life on the Boardwalk," Linda said.
"How could I forget you guys?" I replied.
Linda raised her eyebrows.
"Well, you did make it sound like you were leaving forever that night."
The smile faded from my face a little.
"I’m sorry about that. It was my fault—"
"Gosh, stop blaming yourself."
Linda cut me off before I could keep going.
She stepped closer and looked up at me with a serious expression.
"No one here hates you, Ryan. Except those three idiots, maybe." She said. "Everyone knows what you’ve done for us. Everyone knows what you’re still trying to do."
I did not answer right away.
"It’s not like you hid a teenage alien girl because you wanted to get us all killed," Linda continued. "You did it because you thought she needed help. People can argue about whether you should’ve told everyone sooner, sure. But nobody with a brain is questioning your loyalty because of it."
"But I still lied," I said.
"For our sake."
Linda did not hesitate.
"And I know you well enough to know you wouldn’t willingly put any of us in danger."
"You think too highly of me, Linda."
"Not highly enough," she replied, shaking her head.
"Yeah, not nearly enough."
Martin’s voice came from beside her. He laughed, leaned over, and kissed Linda on the cheek before looking at me.
"You really are still beating yourself up over this?" he asked. "You should’ve seen Brad’s face after you finished talking that night. He was standing there with his mouth open like he had swallowed a bug."
I could not help smiling a little.
"I don’t know if that’s supposed to reassure me."
"It should," Martin said. "You gave a pretty good performance. He had plenty to say before you started talking, but once you put everything on yourself, he suddenly couldn’t come up with anything useful."
"I wasn’t trying to perform," I replied.
"I know," Martin said. "That’s why it worked."
Linda nodded.
"People saw you taking responsibility. Most of them understand why you did what you did."
I looked around the lobby again.
A couple of people had gone back to their conversations. Nobody was staring at me now. Nobody was whispering. The tight feeling in my chest did not disappear completely, but it loosened enough that I could breathe easier.
Martin stepped toward me and put a hand on my shoulder.
"Come on. You were lying about leaving, right?"
I looked at him.
"There’s no way you’re missing the birth of my child."
"No, I wouldn’t—"
The words stopped in my throat.
I stared at Martin.
He was grinning.
Then I looked at Linda.
She placed both hands over her stomach, smiling so widely that there was no way I had misunderstood.
"W-Wait," I said. "Seriously? You’re pregnant?"
"Yes, I am," Linda replied, giving a small giggle.
For a second, I just stood there looking at them.
Then the exhaustion, the tension, all the stupid worries that had been following me around since I entered the hotel got pushed aside by how happy I felt for them.
"Oh, fuck." I laughed, catching myself. "I mean—yeah. Yeah, I’m so happy for you guys."
Linda and Martin had wanted a child for a long time.
They had tried before the world ended. They had tried after. At some point, after enough disappointments, they had stopped talking about it as much. They had accepted that it might only ever be the two of them.
They had still treated each other like family.
Like they had enough.
But now they were going to have a child.
A real new life in the middle of all this mess.
I stepped forward and pulled Martin into a hug.
"Congratulations," I told him.
Martin hugged me back hard, laughing near my shoulder.
"Thanks, man."
When I pulled away, I hugged Linda too, more carefully.
"You both deserve this more than anyone."
"Now that’s touching," Linda said, wrapping her arms around me.
"Rare to see Ryan this emotional too," Martin added.
"Come on, I’m genuinely glad for both of you," I said as I stepped back. "Finally, huh?"
"Finally," Linda agreed.
Her smile stayed, though it grew a little smaller when she looked down at her stomach.
"The timing could’ve been better, though."
I understood what she meant.
The world was still ruined. Callighan was still across the inlet with his people. Gaspar was still out there. The Golden Nugget victory had made things better, but it had not made the area safe enough for someone to bring a baby into the world without fear.
And more important it was a world ruled by Infected.
I looked at Linda and then at Martin.
"Don’t worry," I said. "We have nine months, right?"
Linda nodded.
"By then, we’ll turn this whole place into a stronghold. Your kid is going to grow up somewhere safe."
Martin looked at me, amused.
"That’s a huge statement."
"It is," Linda agreed. "So I’m guessing you’re not running away until then?"
I smiled.
"Definitely not. I’ll be here."
Linda’s face brightened again.
"That’s good to hear."
Martin gave my shoulder a firm tap.
"Good. You better keep that promise."
"I will."
They started walking away together after that, heading toward the hallway leading deeper into the hotel. Martin kept close to Linda’s side without making a big deal of it, and Linda reached for his hand as they moved through the lobby.
I watched them go with a smile still on my face.
For the first time since the argument over Kunta, being back in the Whitesun did not feel like walking into a place where I no longer belonged.
It still hurt knowing I had disappointed people.
It still bothered me that Brad, Billy, and Kyle probably had not changed their minds at all.
But Linda and Martin trusting me mattered.
So did the thought of their child being born here someday, in a place that was supposed to be safer than the world outside.