Perhaps there's a God out there who doesn't have it out for me and decided to lend a hand; the arrow hits the Feral in the back of the head rather than burying itself between Matt's eyes, which are now staring at me in shock, his crowbar ready to whack the Feral I killed. 

"Well," I greet, my voice shaky from the close call, "talk about good timing."

Dani pokes her head around the doorframe, spots me, the dead Feral, and a look of relief washes over her face. 

"Good timing?!" Matt shouts. "You almost shot me in the face!" 

Dani shrugs as she steps out of the cabin towards me, a grin on her face that may suggest some newfound respect. "No autopsy, no foul, I suppose," she says, lowering her shotgun. "What are you doing here, though? I told you to wait at the Big House."

"Your illustrious leader was planning on leaving without you, and I couldn't have that," I tell her, gesturing with my head towards the Big House, where I've noticed that the scouts are no longer there. 

"Then we better hurry," Dani says. I turn to lead them back to the vehicles just in time to see the bus and RV both making their way towards the gate. 

"Son of a bitch!" I shout, sprinting after them with Matt and Dani hot on my heels. Felix must have bought me as much time as he could without knocking the bastard out, but which vehicle are they on? The bus pulls ahead of the RV and clears the gates before we can even cross halfway across the clearing, but the RV starts to turn towards us. 

The side door slams open, and Felix hangs out, his hand outstretched as Dani, Matt, and I struggle to keep up. 

"Come on!" Felix urges. "Jump!" 

Matt pulls ahead of Dani and me, running as fast as a coward can, and he throws himself into the RV. Behind me, I hear Dani growl something under her breath, and I'm pretty sure whatever it was, it was something along the lines of, "That fucking bastard..."

I glance back behind me to make sure Dani is still close and gulp when I notice a group of Feral's are chasing us while we pursue the RV, and Dani's starting to slow down, favoring her arm. 

I've got to help her get on the RV; she won't even be able to keep up at this pace. 

"Come on," I urge her, trying to spur her to move faster, "we're almost there!" 

Felix appears in the doorway again, his hand outstretched towards us, and I can see Dani in the corner of my eye now, running as fast as she can with a growing group of Ferals behind us. 

I jump, my brother catching me and smoothly pulling me inside, but I don't move to enter any further. "Grab my arm," I tell Felix. 

"What?!"

"Grab my arm!"

I lean out of the RV as far as I can, with Felix anchoring me, stretching my hand out as far as I can. "Jump, Dani!"

She looks at me with wild eyes, and for a split second, I'm scared she'll simply stop, but she puts on a burst of speed and leaps. 

The moment my hand makes contact with hers, I pull as hard as I can as Felix hauls us both into the RV, and we spill inside in a tangle of arms and legs. Dani pants hard into my shoulder as she awkwardly adjusts herself over me to try and sit up, but she's too busy trying to catch her breath to do much more than squirm, and I'm too exhausted to move from under her. Finally, Felix manages to step around us and close the RV door before a Feral can jump inside after us, and he crouches before us to make sure we're alright. 

"Nice... catch..." Dani pants, raising herself with shaky arms onto her knees, then finally sitting down against the RV door. 

"Couldn't let you... get eaten..." I reply, just as out of breath as she is while raising myself to a sitting position. I cast her a grin, which she returns with a light chuckle, resting her head against the door as she catches her breath. 

A sharp slap on the back of my head interrupts my next thought as Octavia collapses on her knees behind me and pulls me into a hug. "Why are you such a fucking dumbass?!" She exclaims, doing her best to stop herself from tearing up. 

"Oh, thank God you're here, too..." I breathe, grabbing her arms in a pseudo hug back. 

"Felix did what he could to make sure we wouldn't leave without you," Octavia says, sitting on the ground with us. "I didn't even realize that you two were gone until we had to get on the RV." 

I finally look up at the people inside, and my blood boils when I spot Leon in the driver's seat. Electing to ignore him for now, I stand and dust myself off as I take note of the others. Josh stands at the kitchen table with his rifle aimed out of the window, picking off Feral's; Sparrow stands behind Leon's seat, looking relieved that we made it; Jocelynn is kneeling on the couch on the other side of the RV, her pistol aimed out of the window as well, picking off Feral's; Matt sits in the passenger seat, looking pissed, but glad to be alive. 

"I take it the others are on the bus?" I ask, glancing through the windshield at the short bus ahead of us. 

"Yeah," Octavia replies, standing with me. "Ethan, Doc, and some of the other scouts are inside. We're heading to a rest stop not far from here to meet with the other survivors."

Leon finally speaks up, his voice calm. "We'll be waiting there for twenty-four hours while everyone else shows up. Then, once we have a headcount of who made it, we'll make plans to head north."

"We should have left earlier..." Matt growls from the passenger seat, glaring over at me. 

"What, are you going to blame the hoard on us, too?" I demand, glaring back at him. 

He stands, rolling his shoulders back in an attempt to intimidate me, but I'm not scared of a coward like him. 

"It's pretty convenient, don't you think?" He says, glancing over my shoulder at everyone else. "Everything was fine until she showed up with her little family, then the Widow's attacked us. Then, when we should have left, she advocated for us to stay the fuck where we were in that death trap, and no more than a week goes by, and a hoard blows through when we're away." He glares back at me, seething. "I'd say that's one hell of a coincidence." 

Octavia bristles at the accusation and stands beside me. "My sister risks her ass to save your ungrateful bitchy hide, and now you're trying to blame her for everything?" She demands. "Sounds like you're projecting."

"Matt," Sparrow warns, stepping forward to try and diffuse the situation. "Just back off, man. If it weren't for her, you wouldn't even be in the RV."

Matt glares over at Sparrow, not standing down. "What are you going to do, sword boy? Cut me down to size? You seriously can't be standing there and telling me it's all just circumstance when she's literally the one who led us into that death trap at the mill!"

Octavia steps into his space, ready to punch him in the throat. "So you think we, what? Hacked the matrix and spawned a fuck ton of infected right over the camp? Get your head out of your ass!" 

"Get your face out of my space, bitch," Matt growls. 

"Or what? You'll whine some more? That seems to be the only thing you're capable of doing." 

Matt squares up as Dani stands, trying to diffuse the situation, and before I can pull my idiot sister away, Matt gives her a hard shove. Octavia stumbles backward in surprise, unable to catch herself before the back of her head connects with the edge of the kitchen counter with a dull crack, and she collapses with a pained shout. 

Felix reacts before I can, grabbing Matt by the back of his neck and slamming his face into the wall of the RV hard enough to make me wince, holding his hands behind his back with his free hand. 

"Fucking let me go!" Matt groans, trying to squirm from Felix's grip, but unless he can dislocate his joints to get away, Felix won't be letting go any time soon. The action spurs the others into action, Dani and Jocelynn crouching beside my sister to make sure she's okay, while Josh and Sparrow try to get my brother to let Matt go.

"Whoa, easy big guy," Josh says, hesitantly patting my brother's shoulder. 

"I think the moron learned his lesson," Sparrow adds, looking impressed at my brother.

Felix growls, "Don't fucking touch my sisters," as he lets Matt go.

"Maybe if your sisters weren't such little bitches-" 

Felix moves to power punch Matt in the nose as Leon slams on the breaks, careening us all forward as he roars, "THAT'S ENOUGH!" 

While we try to steady our footing, Leon parks the RV and stands, his anger flaring. "What happened today was a tragedy and not one that any of us could have predicted or orchestrated. Murphy, keep your conspiracies to yourself. If you so much as look at the Leung family sideways, I'll have you run behind this RV all the way to Eton." Leon glares over at my brother. "Felix, I understand you're trying to protect your sisters, but assaulting him is not the answer. I suggest you correct your behavior until your sister decides it's time for you to depart." He looks over the frozen group as he speaks. "Do I make myself clear?"

Everyone gives a tense nod, and Leon zero's on me as the only one who didn't. 

"I said," he deadpans, stepping into my space, "do I make myself clear?" 

I glare up at him, unwilling to give him the satisfaction of an answer. So instead, he waits, the tension in the RV so rigid it could be cut with a spoon. 

"Cass," Dani urges from behind me. I spare her a glance as she gives me a look of warning, her eyes darting from Leon to me, then down at my sister. 

I look back up at Leon, who is staring at me expectantly. I square my shoulders as I look him in the face. "Clear as day," I growl back. Satisfied with my answer, Leon gives a nod and regards my sister with a briefly sympathetic look before turning back to his seat and continuing down the road. I kneel beside my sister as Dani checks her over, Matt stepping over us to storm into the back living quarters to lock himself in. 

I sigh, resting my hand on Octavia's knee. "How's she looking?" I ask Dani, worried. 

"Minimal blood, so she won't need stitches," Dani notes, pulling out gauze. "But she does have a mild concussion, so she's going to need to take it easy for a few days." 

I groan, pinching the bridge of my nose; I have to remind myself that we'll be leaving these people soon, though it doesn't do much to curb the urge to throw Matt out of the RV. 

"Once my family and I move on, we won't have to deal with that asshole anymore..." I grumble to myself, helping my sister onto the couch where she can lay down and rest. 

"You still plan on leaving?" Dani questions cautiously. 

I raise an eyebrow at her. "Yeah, that's been the plan this whole time, you know. Why, missing me already?" 

Dani rolls her eyes at my teasing and stands, electing to ignore me, but Josh answers in her stead. "I mean," he says, sitting at the kitchen table as the RV rumbles along, "with everything we've been through, we kind of owe you guys. You know, for sticking around and helping us out." 

Sparrow plops down into a seat across from Josh with a grin. "Plus, you're basically family now!"

I spot Leon watching us in the rearview mirror with a flat look before he turns his eyes back to the road. I sigh, glancing away. "Sure, one big nuclear family..." 

The RV follows the winding dirt road for quite some time before the road turns into a street which eventually leads to a small rest stop off the main road. Ethan's bus is already parked, and a handful of people greet us with raised guns until they see Josh poke his head out of the RV. 

Ethan's voice rings clear as day as he asks, "Was anyone behind you?" 

"No," Leon answers as he steps out of the RV, "we were the last ones out."

Everyone files out of the RV one by one, with my siblings and I coming out last. Ethan narrow's his eyes when he spots me but doesn't make a comment about it. Instead, he addresses Leon again. "If we're the only ones here, we should at least wait for a bit to see if anyone else made it out. I have fourteen people on my transport."

Leon nods as I look over the people from Ethan's group; most of them look like the scouts from the Big House, which is good, and I notice Alison and her kids made it too. 

"I have eight with me here," Leon notes. 

Ethan grunts, shaking his head. "So twenty-four people if we include you and me, then. That's less than half of the people we had..." 

"I wouldn't count them out too quick," Leon adds. "We'll be waiting twenty-four hours for any of the others to show up. Until then, we bunker down here and plan our next move." 

Ethan gives Leon a stern look, one I'm sure I've used with him many times before. "Bunker down and plan? That's all you have?" 

"It's all we can do at the moment."

"We all just became homeless; you better have a backup plan in mind because right now, we're sitting ducks until we can find a better place to call home." 

I find myself agreeing with Ethan for once, and as the two men dissolve into an argument, my brother, sister, and I are steered away from the group by Josh, Dani, and Sparrow. 

"Listen," Josh says once we're out of earshot of Leon and Ethan. "I wanted to thank you for going back to get Dani and sticking around long enough to help out." 

I glance over at Dani, who seems to be waging an internal war with herself; she glares away from me, sighs, and when she finally looks over at me, her stern expression is replaced with one of exhausted gratitude. 

"I don't know if we would have made it out of there without you," Dani says, sounding sincere. 

My face heats up at her sincerity, and I can't hold her gaze without laughing over the awkwardness. I haven't been around people other than Felix and Octavia in what feels like years, and I definitely haven't gotten any praise or thanks from passing strangers. 

This apocalypse has taken a toll on my social skills.

"Yeah, uh," all I think to do is shrug, looking everywhere but at Dani, who is very clearly confused. "I mean, I couldn't just, you know, leave without trying to help out." 

Josh smiles at me with his lopsided grin. "We're glad you stuck around for as long as you did, though. I'm sad to hear you're still leaving, but if you need help with preparing or anything, let me know." 

Sparrow chimes in, matching Josh's grin. "Yeah, just ask us! I can't speak for Matt since he's, you know, a dick, but the rest of us would be more than happy to help out."