(Iyisha's POV)
The ATV's engine rumbled steady beneath them, the vibration traveling up through Malcolm's arms. Dust billowed behind their trail, curling in the dry air.
Iyisha sat behind him with the folded map balanced in her lap, her grip loose but her shoulders tense. The road stretched out ahead, long and empty.
Her neck wound pulsed with a faint, stinging throb from the old woman's knife, and she shivered at how close it had been.
She turned her face into the wind, letting it cool the heat in her chest. Every bump of the ATV jolted her back into the memory of that kitchen, the knife, Matt's hand in her hair.
For a while, neither of them spoke.
Finally, her voice broke the hum of the engine. "Sorry," she murmured.
Malcolm didn't glance back. His eyes stayed fixed on the path ahead, jaw locked, hands steady on the handlebars.
"I'll… do whatever you say from now on," she continued, her tone edging toward pleading. "I promise. Just… talk to me, please."
Silence.
She swallowed and added, "I mean it, Malcolm. I'll follow your lead, keep my mouth shut when you say so, and I won't question your calls. No wandering off, no trusting strangers, no arguing. You tell me to run, I run. You tell me to hide, I hide. Whatever it takes to make it out here with you."
"Good," he said, the single word rough and final.
She exhaled slowly, hesitating before adding, "That old woman… she wanted me to carry children."
His gaze didn't move from the road. "Women are scarce out here. Especially outside the safe zones and there are things only women can offer."
"You mean sex?" she asked, her voice small.
He didn't answer.
The unspoken truth lodged in her throat. If Malcolm hadn't come for her, who knew what would have happened—becoming a prisoner, forced to bear children again and again until her body gave out.
She'd heard enough stories.
She knew about the Redridge burning a false safe community to the ground after uncovering a sex slave ring. And yet, she'd still been willing to believe the old woman's kindness.
He had saved her... saved her from those vile people. She remembered the hunger in their eyes, the way they looked at her like she was a thing to be owned and used, not a person.
"I won't do it again," she whispered. "Thank you… for not leaving me."
Malcolm said nothing, his silence heavy and unreadable, making her wonder if he was still replaying the scene in his mind or holding back words he didn't trust himself to say.
They drove in silence, passing rusted vehicles pushed up against the road's edges like forgotten barricades, a few walkers drifting aimlessly between them, until the broken span of Carrollton's bridge rose ahead.
Iyisha's breath caught at the sight.
The middle section was gone, concrete jutting upward like jagged teeth. Chunks of debris lay scattered in the river below.
Scorched girders clawed at the sky, their blackened edges still smelling faintly of charred metal, and rusted military signs swayed crookedly in the wind: QUARANTINE LINE – NO ENTRY.
Iyisha, staring at the twisted steel and scorched concrete, finally asked, her voice uneasy, "What happened to the bridge?"
"Military probably did it," Malcolm said, scanning the wreckage with a slow, assessing look, a curse slipping under his breath. "Keep Kansas undead from crossing."
His jaw worked as if grinding down something unsaid, and Iyisha, catching the tension in his voice, wondered what memory or thought had just flashed through his mind to make him mutter like that.
From their vantage point, Carrollton looked like a watercolor washed out by rain—colors dulled, outlines blurred. Roofs sagged under years of neglect, and moss crept over abandoned cars.
Malcolm pulled the map from her hands and opened it across the ATV seat, his gloved fingers smoothing the creases before tracing a deliberate line north. He tapped a point with a short nod.
"Quincy's got a free zone," he said, voice low but certain, as if testing the idea aloud. "Bridge there might still stand. We head to Brunswick, then cut across."
His eyes lingered on the map a beat longer, weighing the risk, before he folded it halfway and glanced toward the horizon.
Iyisha's voice dropped to a whisper. "Isn't a free zone… a lawless place?"
She shuddered, fear threading through her words. She'd heard plenty stories of people killed in broad daylight with no consequences.
Malcolm glanced at her. "Best option we've got," he said. "Quincy's risky, but so is running out of gas in the middle of nowhere." His eyes flicked to the two gallon containers she'd tied to the ATV. "We can't scout the safest route."
Iyisha sighed, looking down at the map in her lap. "It'll add three days just to get into Quincy."
"Yeah," he confirmed.
They both checked their rations. "We need more food," Iyisha said softly. "We can't keep eating these cans."
"You want to check the town?" Malcolm asked.
She looked down. "No." Then, after a pause, "Can you hunt?"
His jaw clenched, and she realized too late how much it sounded like a challenge. "We won't need to but we do need more rations," she added quickly, avoiding his stare.
She couldn't hold it for long—not when he was too damn good-looking, that dangerous kind of handsome that made her chest tighten and her thoughts scatter.
"Okay," he said at last, starting the ATV. "Let's go."
She climbed on, her hands hesitating before resting on his waist.
They turned from the ruined bridge, taking narrow back roads where trees crowded the shoulders.
Sunlight broke through in fractured beams, deer leapt into the undergrowth at their approach, and birds scattered in bursts of wings. In some stretches, the quiet was too complete—no undead, no people, just the faint hum of the ATV.
That was when Malcolm saw it.
Far from the bridge, standing half-hidden in the shadows between trees, a lone figure watched them. Still. Silent.
Malcolm kept the throttle steady, but his grip tightened, his eyes flicking to the rearview mirror more than once as they rode on.