Michael had struck home.
He hadn't been entirely sure that Zoe was a leader, but there had been enough evidence that he felt fairly confident. And now he had nearly irrefutable evidence. Her words, and her reaction, were basically a confession.
Her eyes were still trying to avoid looking at him, when before he had said it they had been fixed on the fire's unnatural dance. Her breathing was returning to normal quickly, but there had been a slight shift in it, a small hitch.
"Well, I'm not a leader," she said.
Her voice was remarkably composed. In fact, all of her was. It was as though in an instant she had removed every iota of stress from herself.
Michael's eyes flicked down, and he saw exactly what he had expected.
Her hand on the hilt of her sword.
Touching it had calmed her down considerably. She was even more relaxed now than she had been even immediately after she had gotten up.
Her body was one of those that seemed able to lie in stasis for as long as it needed to. When she got up, her heart rate had been slow, and there had been hints, but only hints, of drowsiness in her eyes.
He had seen people like that before. People who got up in the mornings as easily as opening their eyes, no matter how late they had been up the day before. They were also the most like their usual selves in the morning.
Michael himself fluctuated. He was never able to tell the night before if he was going to be able to get up or not.
He took in a deep breath, smelling the smoke that drifted lazily up into the air.
No wind.
That was either a good thing or a bad thing. They weren't sure whether Mutated would regain their senses, but it was a possibility. The only one they had seen so far, Eve had killed too quickly for him to tell. He had barely even seen the thing.
If they did, then there would be a possibility that one of them would smelled the smoke if there had been wind, or that one would see the thin pillar currently tracing it's way in the sky.
If they didn't, then it shouldn't matter. But they also needed to figure out how the zombies hunted, otherwise they wouldn't be able to go out safely.
If there were certain actions, emotions, or thoughts that caused the zombies to detect people, and they didn't know what those were, then every time they went out, whether they would attract a horde or be able to waltz right under the undead's noses was a toss-up.
"Then why do you act like one?" Michael asked quietly. Lowering his voice would help her to relax to his presence and unconsciously realize that he didn't mean her harm. And he didn't, really. After all, he was only trying to get information. For now.
The thing was, Luke also had a bodyguard, and he also acted like a leader, clashing with Zoe about the big decisions, insisting that he knew the right way. But if that was the case, that would mean that there were two people who had command over others in the same location with no underlings in sight, aside from their guards, and that was almost never a good idea. But if Zoe, who definitely held a position of at least some importance even if she wasn't a leader, had a bodyguard, and so did Luke, then he must be, right?
Of course, there was a possibility that everyone in the group did, but it would be difficult at the least to get that many people who could devote their entire attention to protecting someone else.
Being a bodyguard was not easy, in theory or in practice. Your entire goal in life was only to defend your charge, and if your job was a permanent one instead of a temporary hire, you had practically no room for leisure. Every single moment was dedicated to making sure that your charge survived. Checking for poison, deterring potential assailants, defeating assassins, bodyguards needed to be skilled in all of that and more.
So it was far more likely that Zoe was in fact someone important.
And Luke...
He hated to say it, but it was a possibility that Luke had just gotten stuck with the bottom of the barrel, and he wasn't a leader at all.
Eve wasn't exactly the most normal. She drank his blood, and she was shockingly unstable emotionally.
Not everyone was able to see greatness as easily as Michael. And people despised what they didn't understand.
But Michael, and probably Luke too, could tell that Eve was incredible.