She nodded.
“If that marina looks anything like the parking lot outside this building, it’ll be crawling with them.”
I pictured it. Empty docks. Silent buildings. And thosethings drifting along the shoreline with their slow, wrong way of moving.
“Yeah,” I said quietly. “That’s the problem.”
She drummed her fingers against the table, thinking.
“And you want to take the Mariner there? After they dock here?”
“After we figure out how much fuel they’ve got left, what kind of shape the boat’s in, and whether the captain’s willing to risk it.”
Sloane nodded.
“That’s a lot of unknowns.”
“Welcome to the apocalypse.”
That earned a small snort from her.
She studied the map for another long moment. I watched her trace the coastline with her eyes, calculating distances, weighing risks, running through variables the way her mind always worked—quiet, thorough, three steps ahead.
“If we could get enough fuel,” she said, “three hundred miles isn’t impossible.”
“No, and we wouldn’t have to keep running.”
Her gaze softened.
“That sounds nice,” she said. And the way she said it, carefully, like she didn’t want to trust it yet—told me everything about how tired she actually was.
I folded the map back up halfway.
“But first, we get through tonight.”
She looked up.
“The captain and his son.”
“Yeah.”
“They’ll be scared,” she said.
“Probably.”
“And hungry.”
“Definitely.”
She pushed herself up from the chair.
“Then we should start getting ready.”
I stood too.
“Food?”
“Food,” she said. “And somewhere for them to sleep.”