The smoke was still north.
Six people walked toward it through what had once been the Hollywood Hills. Now they were just hills. The trail they followed used to be a road. Will could tell by the unnatural flatness, the sweeping curves designed for vehicles rather than feet, and the occasional ghost of asphalt pushing through the moss.
His bruised ribs had settled into a steady ache. He managed it by breathing shallow and keeping his mouth shut.
Allison had drifted to his side somewhere in the last ten minutes. Nothing obvious. She just stayed close, asking about the trail ahead with her voice pitched slightly lower than the wind required.
The dark-haired one, Khan said privately. She positions herself with intention.
She's just walking, Will thought back.
Men who believe women are just walking spend a great deal of time confused about their lives.
Allison asked whether his ribs were broken or bruised, tilting her head toward his right side. It was a perfectly practical, legitimate question.
She already knows the answer, Khan noted. She is not asking about your ribs.
Will told her they were probably just bruised. She nodded like this was vital tactical data and stayed exactly where she was.
Maddie started the interrogation ten minutes later. For her, small talk was just information gathering with better manners.
"What zone were you in when the Tutorial ended?"
Will told her. Zone Seven. A corridor system that dumped into an open arena for the final wave. She had been in Zone Four, something that used to be a forest. Curtis volunteered his own details immediately, slightly too eager—the actor in him recognizing a scene he could play a part in. Don confirmed Curtis's story with the automatic loyalty of someone who had spent years doing exactly that.
"Same structure, though," Will said. "Wave one manageable. Wave two harder. Final wave designed to make sure not everyone—"
"Came out," Maddie finished.
The words hung in the damp air.
"Seventeen went into ours," she said, her eyes on the trail. "Eleven came out."
Will looked at the trees. "Eleven went into ours. Seven came out."
"Nobody over twenty in ours," Allison noted.
"Same," Curtis agreed.
"Nobody under fifteen, either," Will added. "I checked."
"Old enough to fight," Allison said softly. "Young enough to still think it might be worth it."
"Young enough to be stupid about it," Maddie corrected.
"We're all still alive," Will said.
Maddie glanced back at him. "Seven out of ten."
Even Curtis laughed at that.
The trail narrowed where two ancient oaks had grown together, forcing them into single file. Allison went first. Will followed.
She glanced back over her shoulder. A routine trail check, completely legitimate. But her eyes found his and held a half-second longer than the terrain required.
Ah, Khan rumbled.
Don't start.
I said nothing.
You said 'Ah.' From you, that's a full paragraph.
I am a general. I survey the full landscape. It would be irresponsible not to.
The trail widened, and Allison dropped back into that ambiguous zone—not quite beside him, not quite behind. She asked about his [Luck] stat. She wanted to know if it felt like anything from the inside, or if it just showed up in the results.
Will answered more thoroughly than he intended to. There was something about the absolute quality of her attention that pulled the words out of him. He was entirely aware she was doing it, and he kept talking anyway.
"Honestly," Will said, "mostly it just shows up in the math. Things land strangely. Timing breaks my way. Half the time I don't know whether I did something smart, or if the world just tripped over itself trying to help."
Allison looked at him a little differently after that.
Maddie, walking four feet to Will's left with her eyes on the hills, said absolutely nothing. She just filed it all away.
The blonde noticed, Khan said quietly.
I know.
Good.
They had spread into a loose, comfortable cluster, the adrenaline of the ambush finally wearing off. Allison waited for exactly the right lull in the conversation to strike.
"Curtis had the biggest crush on Maddie before all this," Allison said conversationally. "Like, genuinely embarrassing levels."
Maddie didn't react.
"Allison," Curtis warned.
"We almost died twice today," she countered, entirely unbothered. "I feel like we're past pretending."
Don couldn't help himself. "He talked about her literally every day. Every. Single. Day."
"Don," Curtis snapped.
"What? Everyone knew."
"Everyone knew," Maddie agreed, eyes still forward.
The silence that followed was heavy and highly specific.
He ran from her, Khan noted. Now he follows her. This is the oldest story.
Does it end well? Will asked privately.
That depends entirely on what he does next.
Curtis stared at the back of Maddie's head with the expression of a man running math he already knew the answer to, desperately hoping the numbers would change.
They crested a ridge, and the basin opened below them.
The grid of the old city was still there, faint but readable. The 405 river caught the morning light and threw it back silver. Farther out, whole sections of the basin had drowned under the weight of time. Entire city blocks were swallowed by dense forest, leaving long, straight corridors of old streets cutting sharply through the green canopy. The ocean to the west was a brilliant, painful blue. The mountains to the north were wild and completely unbothered by the end of the world.
Maddie stopped walking.
"This is Hollywood," she said quietly. Not really to anyone.
"Was," Allison corrected.
"Is." Maddie didn't look away. "It just got a renovation nobody asked for."
Will looked at the distant hillside. The iconic white sign was still there, though three letters were missing. He didn't let himself think about what lay buried under a hundred thousand years of healed earth below it. He filed the thought away next to the other things he couldn't afford to process yet.
"My agent's office was down there somewhere," Curtis said quietly.
Everyone looked at him.
"I was an actor. Before."
"That explains everything," Maddie said.
Don's loyal reflex kicked in immediately. "He had a callback for a Marvel thing right before—"
"Don," Maddie interrupted. "Has there ever been a single moment in your life where your first opinion wasn't just Curtis's opinion on a slight delay?"
Don opened his mouth. Closed it.
"He's my brother," Curtis said, surprising everyone. "He gets to."
That landed differently.
As the trail sloped downward and widened, the group spread out naturally.
Allison drifted close again. She wasn't asking about [Luck] this time. "Do you always listen when he talks to you?"
Will glanced at her. "Are you asking whether I take advice from the voice in my chest, or whether I answer him out loud in front of people?"
She almost smiled. "Either."
"Not always," Will said. "Just when he's right. Which is, unfortunately, often."
"Unfortunate for you, or everyone else?"
"Still gathering data."
"Eyes on the trail, both of you," Maddie called out without turning around.
"Good advice, generally," Allison murmured to the trail.
Behind them, just below confident audibility, Curtis and Don walked with their heads together. Their voices had dropped low. Will caught fragments drifting on the wind—his name, something about the group dynamic, and a hushed question shaped exactly like what do we do about... without the noun attached.
Don't get comfortable, Khan warned.
I'm not.
You saved their lives. They have already finished being grateful and have started being strategic. Gratitude is brief, boy. Ambition is patient.
Will glanced back over his shoulder. Curtis and Don looked up at precisely the right moment, their casual smiles perfectly calibrated.
I know how these stories go, Will thought quietly.
Then you know the man who stops watching always finds out too late.
The smell reached them first. Woodsmoke, close now, layered with something cooking over an open fire—meat, something starchy, and a bitter scent that couldn't possibly be coffee but smelled desperately like it. It was domestic. It was the smell of people who had been in one place long enough to make it theirs.
They rounded a long bend in the trail, and the sound hit them like a physical wall.
Voices. A dozen at minimum, probably more. Overlapping conversations, rough laughter from somewhere to the left, and a single, sharp voice giving orders with the distinct tone of someone who expected to be obeyed.
Will stopped the group with a raised hand.
There was still a thick line of trees between them and the source. All they had was sound. Six survivors stood dead still in the overgrown hills, listening to absolute proof that they weren't alone.
"How many?" Maddie whispered, her hand drifting toward her scavenged gear.
"Dozen minimum. Probably more."
Allison stepped up close beside him. "Friendly?"
Will listened. The casual laughter. The recurring argument over the fire. The smell of hot food.
"Sounds human," Will said.
"So did we," Maddie replied coldly. "Twenty minutes before the monsters showed up."
In Will's chest, Khan went perfectly, absolutely still. It was the kind of stillness that meant the conqueror had given the situation his complete, undivided attention.
Someone is already organizing, Khan rumbled, an unfamiliar, sharp edge to his archaic voice. Someone got here before you, Will, and they have already started building.
Will kept his eyes on the tree line.
How you enter a room you did not build, Khan added, tells everyone in it exactly who you are.
Then how do we walk in? Will asked.
Do not walk in there like a refugee. Walk like you were already planning to be here.
Will looked at Maddie. Her jaw was set. She was already running the exact same math.
Will lowered his hand, squared his shoulders, and started walking.