The ranger station shrank behind them into the morning mist, then was gone.
Snow crunched underfoot as they moved through thinning woods. Ethan kept close to Ellie and Joel and said nothing unless he had to. He didn't offer directions. He didn't lead — not with Hale and Carrow walking a few paces behind them, trading quiet military shorthand.
He had no intention of showing strangers what he could do. So he walked in Joel's shadow and let the snow do the talking.
Joel scanned the slope ahead. "Ridgeline's too exposed. We take the lower tree cover. Circle south."
"Safer," Ethan said.
Hale raised an eyebrow at him. "You've got something to add, kid?"
Ethan didn't answer.
Joel glanced back. "You want input, talk to me."
That shut Hale up. For now.
The basin below them was frozen mud and tangled root under a skin of snow, every dip a possible broken ankle. They moved quiet until Carrow's voice cut through it.
"Still think we're alone out here?"
"No," Joel said. "But we're not walking into an ambush blind, either."
Ethan watched the shadows between the trees and kept his mouth shut. The wind had died since dawn, and the stillness had a charge to it — every snapped twig, every cut-short birdcall landing like a warning.
By noon they were picking their way past the skeleton of a burned-out radio tower when Joel raised his fist and dropped to one knee.
"Motion. Far ridge. Three figures."
Hale's rifle came up an inch. "Not infected. That spread — scouts."
Joel had his scope out. "Wardens. Ex-FEDRA squad types, sweeping."
"They'll spot us if we keep this line," Hale said. "We draw them into the ravine, flank them—"
"Too loud," Joel cut in. "Too open."
Hale's jaw tightened. "Got a better plan?"
Joel looked at Ethan. "You see anything?"
Ethan hesitated. His eyes traced the ground behind the tower — a gully, an old logging cut, running away from the patrol's line of sight. "There's a gully behind the tower. It'll split their approach without exposing us."
Joel nodded once. "That'll do."
Carrow's eyes stayed on Ethan a beat longer than the plan needed. He felt the weight of the look and gave her nothing back.
They took it. Half an hour of slow, snow-laden work later, boots crunched up ahead — closer than expected. Joel's hand came up and they sank behind a fallen log as two Warden shadows detached from the trees, scanning.
Ellie's fingers found Ethan's sleeve.
Ethan eased a rock out of the snow, rubbed it clean in his glove, and tossed it in a high arc over the thicket to their left. It landed with a soft, unnatural thud.
Both patrolmen froze. One lifted a flashlight and swung it toward the sound, and they crept that way, slow and careful.
Joel signaled. The group slipped through the brush on the far side and didn't breathe properly until the bootsteps faded behind them.
"Twice in a day," Ellie whispered.
"Too close," Joel said.
Ethan watched the tree line. "They're tightening the net. They know someone's here."
They didn't talk again until the bunker rose out of the snow ahead — a squat concrete lip with a rusted hatch, half-buried.
Inside, the air smelled of oil and old cold, and their breath fogged the flashlight beams. Joel went down the hatch first, Ethan second, and they found the terminal in the back room, its screen stuttering on corrupted boot. Carrow crouched over it, working the keys, getting nowhere.
Ethan hung back until she swore under her breath. Then he knelt beside her. "Try the manual bypass."
She blinked at him. "You know this model?"
"Sort of."
He tapped in a sequence. The screen flickered, steadied, and spilled fragmented logs across the glass — Greyreach logistics, encrypted route maps, half-corrupted supply ledgers. Hale watched the entrance while Joel and Ellie swept the walls.
One line caught Ethan's eye:
Escort lost contact near Echo Ridge.
"A day southwest," he said quietly. "Maybe where they lost my parents."
Ellie came to his shoulder. "You want to go there?"
He nodded.
Joel was watching them. "If there's even a chance your folks connect to what makes you immune — it's worth checking. Tommy can wait a day."
"And if the Wardens are circling this place too," Ellie added, "better to know what's out there than walk into it blind."
Joel's head came up. "More patrols. We move."
Ethan's eyes found the rear of the room. "Back tunnel loops north. Let's go."
They came up through the underground shaft into a snow-dusted gulch as the light died, and made camp in the lee of a rock wall without a word between them.
Ethan sat by the fire. After a while, Ellie came and sat beside him.
"You ever think maybe some answers aren't meant to be found?" she asked softly.
"Then why does it feel like someone left them where I'd trip over them?" He poked at the coals. "I'm careful around them. Around Hale and Carrow."
"Good," she said. "Keep it that way."
They watched the fire a while. Then she said, quieter, "You ever miss it? Before?"
"Before what?"
"Before all this. Before the infected, the hiding. Blood."
Ethan thought about it. "I don't remember much. Pieces. Static and warmth." He paused. "Warm air through a window. A highway humming somewhere far off at night. Light coming through blinds in stripes. I can't tell if any of it's real." He shrugged. "I don't think I had a normal life, even back then."
"Yeah?" Her voice was small. "I used to think I'd grow up, get a job. Join the army, maybe. Or be a vet. Now I just hope I live through next week."
"You still could," he said. "Be anything, I mean."
She smiled, weak but real. "Could say the same to you."
She nudged his shoulder with hers, light. He nudged back.
A beat of quiet. Then: "Still. I'm glad I met you. Even if this world's gone to shit."
Ethan looked at her — firelight on her face, snow settling in her hair. "Same," he said.
The fire sank low between them, and neither of them moved to feed it.