Distance Between Us

The first thing Diego noticed was the fire.

Not the warmth of it, the sound. The soft, indifferent crackle of something burning down to nothing. His throat stung. His clothes were still damp and clinging, and there was a blanket over him that smelled like woodsmoke and someone else's sweat.

He didn't remember falling asleep.

He didn't remember anything after the current took him.

Voices drifted in low and careful, like people trying not to wake something dangerous:

"...barely made it out of the water."

"He tried to bite Nolan, June. I'm just saying—"

"He was scared, Junie. Leave it."

He opened his eyes slowly. A dying fire. Dark treeline beyond it. And crouched near the coals was a woman, forties, with kind eyes set into a face that had learned to be careful. Beside her, seated on a log with his forearms resting on his knees, a boy about Diego's age. Broad-shouldered, blond, mud drying on his jaw. He was wrapping a cut on his arm with slow, practiced patience.

His eyes found Diego's before Diego had fully lifted his head.

"He's awake," he said. Quiet. Not alarmed.

The woman rose and moved closer, hands loose at her sides.

"Hey, sweetheart." Her voice was measured, gentle the way you'd gentle a dog you weren't sure about. "You're safe. You're with good people."

Michael's hand slipping from his. His father's voice swallowed by the current.

Diego's heartbeat spiked hard.

He didn't know her. He didn't know any of them. He didn't know where the treeline ended or whether it was full of Feral or worse... people... and the blanket was tangled around his legs and he was trapped—

He moved before he thought. The blanket hit the dirt. His hand closed around a fire poker still warm from the coals and he was on his feet with sparks scattering, back to the fire, facing all of them.

"Back off." His voice came out wrecked and ragged. "Don't touch me."

The woman stopped mid-step. Somewhere to his left, a girl with wild curls and an oversized jacket threw her hands up. Someone else's fingers closed around a knife handle, not drawing, just ready.

And the blond boy stood. Slow. Deliberate. Palms out, empty.

"Hey." No urgency in it. No fear either, which was almost worse. "Nobody's going to hurt you. You almost drowned. We pulled you out."

"That's what raiders say," Diego snapped, eyes cutting to the treeline, "right before they take everything you've got."

"If we were raiders," the boy said, "you'd still be in the river."

Diego hated that it was a reasonable answer.

"Nolan." The woman's voice, low and warning.

"He's scared, June." He didn't step back. "Let me talk."

There was something in his tone that made Diego's grip tighten on the poker, not because it threatened him, but because it didn't. Like this boy had done this before. Like he knew how to stand in the middle of someone falling apart and not flinch.

Diego took a step back toward the dark.

"Stay back," he warned, voice cracking at the edges. "All of you. I swear I will—"

"You're bleeding."

That stopped him. He glanced down. A deep gash along his forearm, still sluggishly dripping, he hadn't felt it until Nolan said it.

He raised the poker anyway.

June exhaled slowly and shifted to the side, opening space like she'd thought about what a cornered person needed.

"You've been through hell," she said. "That's plain enough to see. But we're not your enemy, kid. If we were, we'd have left you face-down in the current."

No one moved. The night hummed, crickets, the faint pop of dying coals, the distant sound of wind moving through branches that might be wind, or might not.

Then Nolan took one step forward.

Not fast. Not aggressive. Just... forward.

"If you're going to hit me," he said quietly, "then hit me. I was the one who pulled you out. You'd be dead without me, so." A faint tilt of his head. "I figure that earns me a minute."

The firelight moved across his face. Tired. Mud-streaked. Sincere in a way that looked almost painful on him, like he couldn't help it.

Diego hated that he hesitated.

He hated that it landed.

The poker trembled. Not from fear anymore, or not only fear. A year of running lived in his arms and his jaw and the backs of his eyes, and it had nowhere left to go.

June exhaled and stepped aside. And then the girl moved, the curly-haired one, jacket mismatched at the sleeves, a handful of odd buttons stitched down one side like she'd collected them from everywhere she'd ever been. She stepped into his line of sight carefully, palms visible, a crooked almost-grin on a face still smudged with ash.

There was a scar along her jaw, thin and pale. Something about it pulled at Diego without his permission.

"Hey," she said, voice a little too bright for the middle of the night. "I'm Emily." She glanced at the poker. "You okay holding that with one hand? Genuinely asking. It looks like a lot."

It was such a strange thing to say that something almost cracked in Diego's chest.

Nolan, still standing, held out a strip of cloth, makeshift bandage, a little bloodied at the edge. Not his blood.

"We've got clean water and something for the pain," he said. "You don't have to—" He stopped when Diego didn't reach for it. Didn't push. Just let it sit there in his outstretched hand, offered and undemanded.

Somewhere in the trees, a branch snapped.

Emily flinched. Nolan's eyes cut to the treeline and back to Diego, patient and steady.

The fire ticked down to embers.

Everyone waited.

Diego's chest rose and fell, fast and shallow. He could feel the question building before he could stop it, the only thing left once the adrenaline had nowhere else to go.

The question tears out of him before he can stop it.

"I was with a man and a boy," he says, voice shaking despite his effort to sound steady. "Where are they?"

Every head turns toward him. The forest holds still, the fire popping faintly in the space between breaths.

June frowns, glancing toward Nolan, then Emily.

"We didn't see anyone else," she says gently. "Just you. The current was too strong. You're lucky we spotted you at all."

Diego swallows hard, his jaw locking. That isn't an answer. He looks from face to face, searching, hoping, but all he finds is pity.

"We can send a couple of people upriver tomorrow," Nolan offers, his voice low and careful. "If they made it to the other side, maybe."

Diego cuts him off with a short, bitter laugh. "Maybe." The word tastes like rust in his mouth. "You don't even know who I'm talking about."

Nolan hesitates. "No. We don't. But it sounds like you care about them. That's reason enough to look."

Diego doesn't answer. His throat tightens, and he forces his eyes to the ground. The fire flickers against his damp clothes, painting his skin in orange and shadow.

Emily steps forward a little, holding out a canteen. "Here," she says softly. "At least drink something. You'll pass out otherwise."

Diego stares at it for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reaches out and takes it, not as acceptance, just necessity.

The cool water hits his tongue, and it's the first thing all day that doesn't feel like it's trying to kill him.

A quiet settles over the camp. Nolan sits back down, still watching Diego from across the fire, cautious but not afraid. Emily finally exhales like she's been holding her breath the whole time.

Above them, the stars glint faintly through a break in the clouds.

Diego hands the canteen back without a word, turns his shoulder to them, and walks a few steps away. The poker scrapes softly against the dirt as he drags it with him.

There's a fallen log at the edge of camp, half rotten and covered in moss. He drops onto it, the damp wood soaking through his jeans, and stares out at the darkness beyond the trees.

Behind him, the group exhales as if they've all been holding their breath at once. The murmur of voices returns, softer now. Someone stirs the fire. Someone laughs quietly at something Emily says, but it dies fast when June clears her throat.

He pretends not to listen, but his ears catch fragments anyway.

"He's scared, that's all."

"We can't just take anyone in, June. What if he's with raiders?"

"He's not," Nolan says. "You saw him. He's alone."

That last word hits harder than it should.

Diego curls his fingers around the poker until his palm aches, keeping his eyes on the dark. There's movement out there, branches shifting in the breeze, maybe an animal, maybe something else. He can't tell anymore.

His body feels heavy. His clothes still cling cold to his skin. He's alive, but it doesn't feel like it.

Nolan glances at him across the firelight. Diego catches him watching. He doesn't look away this time. There's something in his eyes Diego can't name, not pity, not judgment, just quiet understanding. It makes him uneasy.

Emily notices too, a faint smirk flickering on her lips before she hides it with her hand.

June's voice cuts softly through the flicker of the fire.

"Alright, that's enough chatter for tonight. Nolan, you take first watch. Emily, you're up after him. The rest of you, get some sleep while you can."

The others grumble quietly but start settling in. Blankets unfold, the last embers of laughter fade, and the forest swallows the camp in a calm that feels almost unreal.

June wipes her hands on her jacket, then turns toward Diego. Her boots crunch over the dirt as she crosses the small distance between them.

He tenses, instinct again, but she stops a few feet away, keeping her tone careful.

"You can sit out here if you want, sweetheart. Just, it gets cold when the fog rolls in."

He doesn't answer. She doesn't expect him to. Instead, she kneels near one of the supply crates and pulls out a folded bundle: a gray T-shirt, a flannel, and a pair of sweatpants, all clearly scavenged but clean enough.

"They'll be big on you, but they're dry. I can turn around while you change, or you can take them somewhere else. Up to you."

Her voice is steady, that same tone she probably used before the world ended, to coax scared kids down from trees or calm someone after a nightmare.

Diego glances up, uncertain.

"Why're you helping me?"

She pauses, like she's deciding how much of the truth to give him.

"Because I've buried people I should've helped sooner," she says quietly. "I don't plan on doing that again if I can help it."

She places the clothes on the log beside him and rises slowly.

"There's a spare tent by the van. Nolan set it up earlier, you can use it if you want. Or stay out here. No one's gonna bother you."

Then she pats his shoulder gently, careful not to startle him, and heads back toward the firelight.

Diego watches her go, the poker still resting across his knees. The night hums with insects, and the fog is creeping in just like she said.

The bundle of dry clothes feels heavier than it should.

Diego sits there long after June disappears into her tent. The night deepens until the fire is no more than a soft pulse of orange behind him.

The clothes rest beside him on the log, neat, folded, dry. He stares at them like they might bite.

His thoughts drift back to the river. The roar of the current. His father's hand closing around his arm, then slipping away. Michael's scream fading under the water. He remembers the silence after, heavier than the noise itself.

He presses the heel of his palm against his eyes until colors burst behind them. But the memory doesn't leave. It never does.

Somewhere behind him, Nolan murmurs something to himself, probably counting the seconds between his own thoughts. Diego can hear the shift of his boots when he paces, the faint click of his safety catch on his rifle. He's careful. Too careful.

The air grows colder. Diego pulls his damp jacket tighter, but it's no use, the chill finds its way through everything.

Finally, he reaches for the folded bundle. The fabric is rough but dry, a luxury he hasn't felt in weeks. He glances toward the camp, makes sure no one's watching, and changes quickly in the dark. The clothes smell faintly of soap and smoke.

When he's done, he drops the wet ones over the log and stares at the camp again.

Nolan is still awake, sitting near the fire now, rifle across his knees. His head tilts slightly, maybe sensing movement, but he doesn't call out. Just nods once, slow, acknowledgment, not invitation.

Diego hesitates a moment longer. Then he stands, grabs the poker out of habit, and walks toward the tent June mentioned.

Inside, it smells like old canvas and dust. There's a blanket rolled out and a lantern turned low. For the first time in a year, he lies down without a weapon in his hand.

He doesn't sleep right away. He listens, for the wind, for the Feral, for the river, until the exhaustion finally drags him under.