Max's comms sat in his ear long after the line had gone dead.
Sinn had hung up on him.
He didn't take it out. He stood in the yard of the building where their apartment was and let the silence in the earpiece keep him company. The plastic was warm against his skin. The evening air carried the low, continuous sound of the infected—wet breathing, the soft shift of weight, the occasional dry scrape of a boot that no longer needed to land cleanly.
Ingrid stood at his shoulder. Close enough that the heat of her body reached him. Her hands were slightly raised, fingers loose, the posture of someone holding an invisible thread that ran through every body in the yard.
