A mimic. And a reflection manipulator. Two teens with super strong, and helpful, powers. Two teens that have potential and want to be with us.

  A group with a hive-mind. The ultimate security detail.

  A whack load of kids, with who-knows-what sort of abilities—and who knows how they’ll grow into them.

  I understand why Sutherland sent us to get these folks. I’m sure part of it was to stick it to Ingrid, but it seems like there’s a lot more that we’re getting from this group.

  Ryder’s announcement sits in the air a moment, as I turn onto our street. A large gate sits across the road, currently perched open as I drive through it. It’s nice to see little hints that things are coming together. Also, this fence wasn’t here this morning. Our fence team has made progress.

  “Maybe you didn’t turn me invisible,” Dustin finally says.

  Madison throws her hands up. “That’s what I told you! I can’t turn—”

  “If I’m a mimic, I can copy your magic, so I turned myself invisible!”

  Madison lets out a groan, but Ryder and Nancy both laugh. And then we’re turning into our driveway.

  We gave the other cars our address and directions, and they mostly followed us, but it does take a few minutes for both the other vehicles to join us in front of my house. The Black woman—Charity, I learned her name is—collects the two children that were in the other car into her arms and hugs them at their reunion.

  I lead all twelve of the church folk across the street toward Sutherland’s house. He’s already standing on his front porch as we approach. “Hello and welcome!” he greets everyone.

  There’s a few whispered greetings returned and a few hands lifted in waves. The four non-speakers of the hive-mind don’t even look at Sutherland. The dark-haired one, the one who spoke, she watches him. I guess the others don’t need to be watching him to see what he’s doing.

  As convenient as magic is, there’s still elements of it that feel a little freaky.

  Sutherland doesn’t say much. He greets them, introduces himself, assigns them houses. I find myself distracted by Elsa and Mazy, who are both giving themselves baths while basking in the sun in the middle of a driveway a few doors down. A couple of the children, too, notice the animals, and stare at them while they whisper to each other. Charity is listening to Sutherland with rapt attention.

  It strikes me, then, that this is my life now. These are my people. This is my community. I’ve come a long way from the person who nearly left a kid behind because she wanted to ride out the apocalypse alone. I wander off before Sutherland is finished his welcome spiel to the newbies, pensive for a moment. I wave to Gigi and Portia, sitting under the awning of Portia and Pete’s house; I pass the little parkette where I see Colton throwing his niece up in the air, his sister sitting on a picnic blanket. This street felt like a graveyard when this all started, but somehow, at some point in time, it turned into a proper little community.

  It brings on a sense of pride I didn’t expect.

  A hand slips into mine, and I recognize the size, shape, and feel of it without needing to look. Something else that I didn’t expect—that kid who I almost left behind, and how important he had come to be to me. I give his hand a squeeze. “We haven’t had much time lately, just us,” I say, only glancing over at Ryder for a moment. “I know it’s been a busy few days. If there’s anything you want to talk about…” I trail off, giving Ryder the moment to collect his thoughts.

  “You know,” he says finally, “when we first started talking about making this into our little community, I thought that meant that we’d have less to do every day. I was worried about being bored, or unneeded, or treated like just a kid.”

  I let his pause sit for a moment before I prompt, “But?”

  “But that’s not the case at all,” he says. “I’ve got responsibilities and duties and get to go on the adventures-slash-assignments to get our new people.”

  “And you like that?”

  I look over at him in time to see him nod. “I like being needed,” he admits. It’s a soft admission. I pull my hand from his to wrap it instead around his shoulders and give him a squeeze that way.

  “I’ll always need you,” I tell him.

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  “I know,” he says, smug. “You’d be lost without me.”

  I laugh, but I give him the truth all the same: “It’s true.” I stop walking and turn him to face me. “But I still want you to be a kid. Play games. Make friends. Have fun.”

  He nearly rolls his eyes. “Playing with fire is fun.”

  My laugh comes out more like a snort. “You know what I mean. You should still get to have a childhood.”

  A serious look overtakes his face. “I don’t know if I know how to be a kid anymore.”

  “There’s no shortage of young people around,” I tell him. “Something you”—I poke him in the chest—“helped out with. Any of them will want to be your friend. They can remind you how.”

  He nods, pensive. “I don’t know if I want to be a kid anymore.”

  At that, I laugh, and his expression turns stricken. “That,” I tell him, “is exactly what kids have been saying for hundreds and thousands of years.”

  His face relaxes into a grin and he gives me a small shove with his shoulder before walking on again, and I hurry to catch up to him. “So where are we headed?” he asks, and there’s something a little looser in the question.

  “I thought we’d check on the fence,” I say, and he nods.

  We follow the noises around the back of a house and find the fence crew. We can see the other end, the place where they started, about a house-length away. When you’re using magic to put it together, it doesn’t take much time.

  Wing is holding up a post while Beaker is pulling things into and out of his inventory. It takes a few tries, but by the time we reach them, they’ve got the spot they’re working on done.

  “Jane!” Beaker says once he’s not focused on their task. “Ryder. What brings you two to our little corner of the community?”

  “Just checking in,” I say. “The gate at the road looks great.”

  “Oh, thanks!” Beaker says.

  Wing scoffs. “It’s crooked.”

  “It is a work of art,” Beaker shoots back, mock-offended.

  “Does it work?” I ask, interrupting what is clearly a practiced conversation between them.

  This time, they both look offended. “Obviously,” Beaker says.

  “Then it’s perfect.”

  They both smile, satisfied.

  “We just got back from the church,” Ryder tells them. “You know, the one near that Tim Horton’s where we had—”

  “Oh yeah,” Beaker says, cutting him off. Probably for the best, before Ryder could mention Elisa. “I remember that story.”

  “How many of them came along?” Wing asks. I wouldn’t be surprised if she already knew what happened at the Tim Horton’s, exactly how many of the church folks joined us, and what their magics are. If Sutherland already knows…

  “Twelve,” I say.

  Wing nods. “Did Roy end up coming?”

  “Nope,” Ryder answers, unfazed that Wing knew the name. “Madison’s a little sad to leave her dad, but she’s actually really cool!”

  Wing catches my eye and we share a grin. I don’t know if a teenage girl will think being called cool by a nine-year-old is cool, but it does make me happy when he’s happy. And I guess it’s a good first step in him finding his childhood again.

  “And Ingrid?” Wing adds.

  “She was there,” I say. “But she did not choose to join us.”

  Wing lets out a laugh. “Not surprised,” she says. “Though she might still. Roy, too. That’s the thing about this kind of venture—people will say they don’t want to be part of it at first, but they’ll all find their way here eventually.”

  “We’re going to run out of houses,” I say.

  Wing grins. “A good problem to have.”

  We jump in to help them, and barely half an hour later, the last connection is made.

  “Is that… it?” Wing asks, looking around.

  Beaker places a hand on the fence, closes his eyes, and frowns. “I think so,” he says. “My interface is saying that it can’t full the fence into my inventory because it’s bolted to the ground. Which means… the interface thinks it’s a completed fence.”

  I check in with the Game immediately. Is it done? Is the fence complete? Do we officially have a proper safe zone?

  Wing and Beaker give each other a high-five and Beaker lets out a shout of glee. Ryder just looks at me, and I wonder if he’s asking the Game the same thing as I am.

  The fence is complete. There are currently two monsters inside the fence. The enclosed space cannot be designated as a safe zone while monsters are present.

  Ryder frowns. “The monsters are Elsa and Mazy,” he says aloud. “They’re not monsters. They’re NPCs. They’re with us.”

  “Didn’t we already set them as NPCs?” I ask him. He nods. We both wait for the answer from the Game.

  Acceptable. Monsters Elsa the Cat and Mazy the Tiger have been marked as NPCs. The safe zone is complete.

  And then a blast of warmth, one that feels a lot like Nancy’s healing, washes over us. Beaker notices it and pauses, looking over at us with alarm. Wing doesn’t, continuing to collect whatever items didn’t make it into the construction of the fence. Guess those of us in the Game could feel it, but the NPCs did not. I give him a smile, reassuring. “The fence is done,” I say to him. “Safe zone in effect.”

  The realization of what the warmth meant hits him, and he breaks out into a beaming smile. “We did it,” he says softly. And though I don’t think he’s exactly talking to me, I nod. “I need to go find Sav,” he adds, and turns back to Wing with some hushed words I don’t hear. A moment later, he sprints off toward the road.

  “But… what happens now?” Ryder asks.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We have a safe place to live. There’s no more surges to chase. We’re going to run out of houses soon, so we can’t just keep going to get people to move in. What’s that going to mean for us?”

  “There will always be things to do,” Wing says, startling me a little. She’s got a small box tucked under one arm and a reusable shopping bag in the other. “The fence will need maintenance, monsters will need to be stopped, people will… still be people, and the conflicts that arise from that.” She tilts her head, her gaze still on Ryder. “I’d start by having a day off, and a pastry to celebrate. You’ve earned that.”

  Ryder frowns. “So I’m going to be bored for the rest of my life.”

  I hook my arm around Ryder’s neck and turn us toward the main road. “I don’t know about you,” I say, as Wing falls into step beside me, “but a little bit of boredom sounds like not a bad idea.”