Aaron never meant to leave him.
He just needed Daniel loud.
And Daniel was always loud.
The second Aaron spotted the city medical transport bus half a block down — angled crooked against the curb, hazard lights blinking weak and orange — he knew it was their only real chance.
It was big enough.
Wide aisle.
Dual side doors.
Rear loading ramp.
Heavy frame.
Built to carry stretchers.
Built to survive impact.
And more importantly — built to get out fast.
The problem wasn't the vehicle.
The problem was the dead.
They clustered thick around it — drawn to the flashing lights, to the faint hum still coming from somewhere inside. A loose semi-circle of corpses circled the bus like moths that couldn't quite understand fire.
Aaron counted at least nine.
Too many to fight quietly.
Too many to outrun if they boxed them in.
He'd needed movement.
Noise.
A shift in direction.
And Daniel, God help him, had delivered.
The argument hadn't been part of the plan.
But Aaron had let it happen.
He'd seen Daniel winding up — seen the frustration bubbling under his skin since they left the group. Daniel carried anger like oxygen. It fueled him. Drove him. Made him brave.
Made him stupid.
"You treat everything human like a threat," Daniel had snapped.
Aaron hadn't argued because he didn't have time to explain nuance.
Everything human was a threat now.
That was the part Daniel couldn't accept.
Aaron saw it clearly: Daniel would get his family killed trying to save someone else. Trying to prove he wasn't cold. Trying to prove he was still a good man.
Good men died fast in collapsing cities.
So Aaron shoved back.
Hard.
Loud enough.
And when Daniel shoved him into the van door, metal ringing down the block, Aaron didn't fight to lower it.
He let the noise spread.
Watched heads turn.
Watched the cluster around the bus shift slightly.
Daniel was predictable.
Hot blood. Quick reaction.
Aaron had known Daniel wouldn't willingly volunteer as bait.
But he also knew Daniel wouldn't back down from a fight once it started.
That was the difference between them.
Aaron calculated.
Daniel reacted.
And sometimes reacting was louder.
When Daniel went down in the alley, Aaron had stopped.
That moment would haunt him later — the split second when he weighed outcomes.
Daniel injured.
More bodies converging.
The bus still reachable.
If he stayed and fought beside Daniel, they both died.
If he pulled the dead farther down the block, he could break the cluster.
Get the bus.
Circle back.
It was brutal math.
Aaron had never been afraid of math.
He backed up on purpose.
"Find your own vehicle," he'd snapped.
Not because he meant it.
But because Daniel needed to believe it.
Anger moved faster than fear.
Daniel's rage would keep him fighting long enough for Aaron to do what needed to be done.
When Aaron turned and ran, he didn't feel heroic.
He felt like he'd just thrown a man into a fire and hoped he could pull him out before he burned.
The dead followed.
Good.
That was the point.
Aaron cut right instead of left, vaulting over a chain barrier and slamming into a row of trash cans. The crash echoed. More heads turned toward him now.
He sprinted past the medical bus without stopping, making sure the cluster broke formation.
Two corpses peeled away from the vehicle immediately.
Then three more.
Perfect.
Aaron ran hard down the block, lungs burning, boots slapping pavement. He didn't look back until he felt the numbers thinning.
Seven chasing him.
Maybe eight.
Enough.
He veered sharply between parked cars and doubled back through a narrow walkway between buildings. He'd clocked the layout earlier without meaning to — emergency exits, stairwells, access points. His brain cataloged structure automatically.
He looped wide.
When he returned to the bus from the opposite side, only two corpses remained near it.
Manageable.
Aaron grabbed a tire iron from the back of a pickup truck and moved fast.
The first corpse turned too slowly. The iron came down hard — skull splitting with a wet crunch that splattered across the bus door.
The second lunged.
Aaron sidestepped and drove the iron through its temple, feeling resistance give with a shudder through his arm.
He didn't stop to breathe.
He checked the bus door.
Unlocked.
Thank you, God.
Inside, the driver's seat was empty — keys dangling in the ignition.
Aaron didn't question it.
He climbed in, heart hammering.
The engine turned over on the second try.
The rumble felt like salvation.
And then he saw the alley mouth.
Daniel was still out there.
Still alive.
Barely.
From the driver's seat, Aaron had a clear line of sight down the street.
Daniel stood in the open — brick in hand, surrounded by movement.
More were closing in.
Too many.
Aaron swore and slammed the bus into drive.
The engine roared.
Headlights cut through smoke.
He didn't slow.
Corpses turned toward the sound.
Daniel turned too.
For a split second their eyes met through the haze.
Aaron saw it all on Daniel's face —
Anger.
Betrayal.
Exhaustion.
The certainty that this was how he died.
Aaron gunned it.
The bus plowed through the first corpse, metal shuddering as bone crumpled beneath the grille. Another slammed against the windshield and rolled off the side, leaving a smear that streaked across the glass.
Daniel froze in the middle of the street.
"MOVE!" Aaron shouted through the open window.
Daniel staggered forward as Aaron swung the bus sideways, blocking the oncoming horde just long enough to create a gap.
The rear doors swung open automatically when Aaron hit the release.
"Get in!" he yelled.
Daniel didn't hesitate this time.
He threw himself inside as hands clawed at the bus exterior.
Aaron slammed the accelerator.
The bus surged forward, bodies bouncing off the sides, one corpse dragged beneath the undercarriage with a sickening grinding noise before disappearing under the wheels.
They didn't look back.
Inside the moving bus, Daniel lay on the metal floor, chest heaving.
He looked up slowly.
At Aaron.
"You came back," he rasped.
Aaron didn't answer right away.
"I never left," he said finally.
Daniel stared at him.
Understanding moved across his face slowly.
"You used me," Daniel said.
"Yes."
The honesty hung heavy.
"You could've told me," Daniel snapped weakly.
"No," Aaron said flatly. "You would've argued."
Silence.
The bus roared through an intersection, clipping a mailbox.
Daniel laughed once — harsh and humorless.
"You think I'm going to get my family killed."
Aaron didn't sugarcoat it.
"If you don't control that temper? Yes."
Daniel looked away.
He hated that the words felt true.
Hated that the last thirty minutes had proven it.
He had nearly died over pride.
Nearly left Rebecca a widow because he needed to be right.
The realization cut deeper than any wound.
"You don't get to save everyone," Aaron added quietly. "You save who matters. And you don't apologize for it."
Daniel swallowed.
He thought about the teenager in the parking lot.
The couple in the street.
The woman behind the dumpster.
He thought about Lucas asking if they were safe.
He thought about Sofia's tiny hands.
Something shifted inside him.
Not softer.
Harder.
Colder.
"You're right," Daniel said.
The words tasted like rust.
Aaron glanced at him sharply.
Daniel met his eyes.
"I don't save everyone anymore."
He pushed himself upright, limping toward the passenger seat.
"I save my family."
The way he said it wasn't angry.
It was final.
Aaron nodded once.
The bus roared through smoke and firelight toward the building where the others waited.
Behind them, the horde regrouped.
But something else had regrouped too.
Daniel wasn't the same man who had stepped out of that bank.
The anger was still there.
But now it had direction.
And direction was more dangerous than rage.