“I wrote it down. Message received on the east coast. The western barrier has been compromised. The eastern barrier is gone. There are no lines to hold. Relay on all channels. God help us all.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Listen, I don’t care if you’re a bunch of supply stealing survivalists. I’m done doing this alone. You can find me at—”
I was across the room and taking control before the man could get more out.
“Wait,” I said. “Just wait. We’re not supply-stealing survivalists. And we don’t want to see you or anyone else killed by any assholes listening. Don’t give us your location. Let’s set a meetup point instead.”
Matt’s gaze met mine, and he nodded.
“You aren’t alone,” Matt said to the man. “There are hundreds of us here. Enough to protect anyone looking for communities working together to survive. We’ll take anyone in. But you should know—the world isn’t what it was.”
I returned to my seat and listened as Matt talked to the man about the infected, hellhounds, and the fey. He laid it out plain and gave the man an option of three places and asked if any of them were doable.
The man said two were but suggested we go to all three at set times just in case other people who were as done surviving alone as he was were out there listening. Matt readily agreed.
Yes, we’d all lost so much. But now it was time to start putting the world back together.