"You already drank from it."
"I can wash it."
"How practical."
"How annoying."
Yan finally laughed, and Bai's mouth twitched into a smile before she
could stop it. Their easy teasing made the corridor feel almost normal.
For a few moments, there was no apocalypse, no city full of zombies, no
question about how long the building would stay standing, and no need to
keep counting the days since the world had changed. There were only two
women in a quiet hallway, one of them fixing a door and the other
enjoying the fact that she could make the first woman smile with very
little effort.
They had just finished putting the tools away when a small voice came
from the apartment.
"Bai Li? Yan-jiejie?"
Lili appeared in the doorway with her hair sticking up on one side and a
little toy toolbox clutched to her chest. She was still sleepy enough
that she blinked slowly at the corridor light. Her socks did not match,
