He had a family," she said softly.
"They all did, in one way or another," Marcus replied. "Ash lost his younger sister—she was all the family he had left after their parents died in the early days. Damien lost his fiancée and his business partner. As for me…" He shrugged. "I lost my whole unit. I was military, special forces. My team was my family, and I watched every single one of them die."
Maya stared at him, seeing him with new eyes. The easy smile, the casual confidence—it was all armor, just like Kane's stoicism and Ash's sharp tongue and Damien's perfect composure.
"What about you?" Marcus asked gently. "Who did you lose?"
The question she'd been dreading, the one she'd been avoiding even in her own thoughts. But something about Marcus's openness, his willingness to share his own pain, made it easier to speak.
"My brother," she said quietly. "David. He was… he was everything to me after our parents died. We made it through the first year together, but then…" She swallowed hard. "He got sick. The fever that comes before the Blight takes you. I tried to take care of him, but I wasn't strong enough. I wasn't smart enough. And one morning I woke up and he was just… gone."
Marcus was quiet for a moment, and when he spoke, his voice was gentle. "You know it wasn't your fault, right?"
Maya had heard those words before, from other survivors, from the voice in her own head that occasionally tried to be rational. But hearing them from Marcus, who understood loss in a way that most people couldn't, made them feel different. Not true, exactly, but possible.
"Some days I can almost believe that," she said.
"That's a start."
They walked in comfortable silence for a while, and Maya found herself grateful for his easy presence. There was something about Marcus that made the world feel less sharp, less dangerous. Not because he wasn't capable—she could see the strength in him, the competence that had kept him alive this long—but because he'd somehow managed to hold onto his humanity in the process.
"Can I ask you something?" she said eventually.
"Shoot."
"How do you do it? All of you, I mean. How do you trust each other enough to live like this?"
Marcus considered the question seriously. "I think," he said slowly, "it's because we all understand that being alone is its own kind of death. We've all been there—isolated, suspicious of everyone, convinced that other people are just liabilities waiting to get you killed. But humans aren't meant to be alone. We're pack animals, social creatures. We need connection, community, love."
"Even at the end of the world?"
"Especially at the end of the world."
His words stayed with her as they made their way back to the common area for dinner. The space was warm and inviting, lit by solar-powered lamps and heated by a wood-burning stove that filled the air with the comforting scent of burning oak.
Kane was already there, sitting at a wooden table that looked handmade. He'd changed out of his tactical gear into civilian clothes—dark jeans and a gray henley that showed off his lean build. He looked up as they entered, his green eyes moving from Marcus to Maya and back again.