Chapter 159: What the Ambush Doesn’t Know Yet

Chapter 159: Chapter 159: What the Ambush Doesn’t Know Yet

The generators had been on Erik’s mind for days before he finally raised it at breakfast.

"We have food," he said, setting his mug down. "Enough stocked in the space to last months, longer if we’re careful. What we don’t have is reliable power. The lanterns and solar chargers are holding for now, but if we want anything beyond the bare minimum — refrigeration for the medicine, real light through the cold phase whenever that starts — we need generators. Fuel too."

Aunt Mary nodded slowly, following the logic. "The hardware and home goods store near the marina. We saw it during the boat run."

"That’s the one I’m thinking of," Penelope said. "Big enough that it might still have what we need, assuming it hasn’t already been picked through."

Killian was already running the calculation. "A mile out, through flooded streets. We’ll need the boat again."

Erik nodded. "Then we take it. Kai, Ben, you’re with us. Aunt Mary, hold the floor."

Kai reached for his axe, some of the grim seriousness of the last several days briefly giving way to something more determined. "Generators. Actual electricity. I didn’t realize how much I missed lightbulbs until we lost them."

"Focus," Erik said, though his tone carried no real bite.

They gathered the gear quickly — weapons, waterproof bags, the folded shape of the storm-rated inflatable boat Penelope pulled from her space, sturdy enough to handle rough water without capsizing. By the time they reached the flooded lower landing, several other residents had already gathered near the water’s edge, drawn by the sound of the boat’s frame unfolding.

"That’s a good boat," one man said, stepping forward before they’d even fully launched it. Mid-thirties, tired eyes, the particular desperate friendliness of someone about to ask for something he badly needed. "Storm-rated? We’ve been trying to figure out how to reach the pharmacy on foot for days, but the water’s too rough without something like that."

"It is," Erik said, noncommittal, continuing to check the boat’s seams without looking up.

"Any chance we could borrow it? Just for an hour. We’d bring it right back." Another man had joined the first now, and a woman behind them, all watching with the same tight, hopeful expression. "We can pay, if that helps. Whatever we’ve got left."

"We need it for our own run today," Erik said. "I’m sorry."

"We could come with you, then," the first man pressed. "Split the trip."

"Not today," Erik said, final this time, already helping Kai secure the boat’s supply straps.

The small crowd’s hopeful expressions curdled, disappointment shading quickly into something sharper.

"You cleared the whole building," a woman near the back said, voice rising enough to carry. "You went floor by floor, door by door, made sure everyone knew you were the ones who’d handle things. Made everyone feel like you were responsible for us. And now what, you’re too busy for a boat?"

"We never claimed responsibility for anyone but ourselves," Erik said, keeping his voice level despite the accusation. "We cleared the infected because leaving them meant more of them, for everyone. That’s not the same as an obligation to provide for the whole building indefinitely."

"Feels the same from down here," the man muttered, though he didn’t push further as the group finished loading the boat and pushed off into the dark water.

Behind them, the murmuring didn’t die down. If anything, it grew, several voices overlapping now, resentment finding easy purchase in a crowd already exhausted, hungry, and watching four well-armed, well-supplied people disappear toward resources the rest of the building had no way of reaching.

"That’s going to bite us eventually," Ben said quietly, once they’d put enough distance behind them that normal conversation felt safe again.

"Probably," Erik admitted. "But we can’t outfit every desperate person in this building with our own resources. We’ve been over this."

"Doesn’t make it feel any better," Ben said.

"It’s not supposed to," Killian said, guiding the small motor with practiced ease around a submerged car, its roof barely breaking the surface. "Feeling bad about it doesn’t change the math."

Behind them, in the crowd still gathered near the flooded lobby, the muttering hadn’t stopped.

"They act like they own this whole building," one man said, arms crossed, watching the boat shrink into the distance. "Word’s already spread past our own floors — people two buildings over talking about the group who cleared everything out, who’s got a floor nobody else can even reach. Meanwhile the rest of us are stuck here rationing crumbs."

"They did clear the infected," someone offered, halfhearted.

"So what?" The first man’s jaw tightened. "We helped too. Everyone who survived this long helped somehow. Doesn’t mean we owe our lives to them forever, and it definitely doesn’t mean they get to hoard a boat while people down here are drinking rainwater off a tarp."

A taller man near the back of the crowd said nothing at all, watching the water where the boat had disappeared with a different kind of attention entirely — cold, calculating, the same look he’d been quietly cultivating for days now while everyone around him vented and complained without ever moving past words.

He waited until the crowd began to disperse, most of them drifting back toward their own floors, defeated and grumbling, before he crossed to where three other men had hung back, watching the same exchange with expressions considerably less resigned than the rest.

"You heard all that," he said, low.

"Heard it," the nearest one confirmed. "Same story every time they leave. People are getting angrier, not calmer."

"Good." The tall man’s eyes stayed fixed on the empty water. "Angry people are useful, if you point them the right direction."

He flexed one hand as he spoke, and the puddled rainwater collecting near his boots rose obediently a few inches off the ground, hovering there a moment before he let it drop again, careless, almost bored with his own display. He’d awakened four days ago — water manipulation, nothing spectacular compared to what he’d heard others in the building could apparently do, but enough. Enough to feel, for the first time since the world ended, like the ground beneath him wasn’t entirely equal to everyone else’s anymore.

"You’ve been practicing," the younger man beside him said, watching the water settle.

"Every day." He didn’t smile, exactly, but something close to satisfaction crossed his face. "And Marcus over there’s not doing too badly either."

The third man — broader, quieter, standing slightly apart from the others — raised one hand without being asked, and the shadows pooling along the garage’s broken wall seemed to thicken briefly around his fingers, coiling and shifting like something half-alive before settling back into ordinary darkness.

"Still can’t do much with it," Marcus admitted. "But it’s something."

"It’s more than most people down here have," the tall man said. "And that’s the point. We’ve got something now. They’ve got everything else — food, weapons, a dry floor, medicine, training most of the building will never get close to. Doesn’t seem fair, does it? Us finally getting an edge, and still ending up on the wrong side of it."

"You’re thinking we hit them?" The younger man glanced between the others, uneasy. "That crew cleared this whole building. Word is they took down a full horde near the pharmacy district without losing anyone."

"Doesn’t matter how good they are if we choose the ground." The tall man’s jaw tightened, a fresh scar cutting through one eyebrow catching the dim light. "Six of us, four of them, somewhere tight where they can’t spread out and use whatever they’ve got. Ambush, not a fair fight. We watch first. Learn their route, their timing, how many go out and how many stay behind."

"And if it goes wrong?"

"Then we’ve lost nothing we weren’t already losing slowly down here anyway." He said it flatly, like a fact already settled rather than a risk still being weighed. "They’ve got food. Weapons. A secured floor high enough the flood won’t touch it. That’s worth more than sitting here waiting to starve out with everyone else."

His eyes lingered on the water a moment longer, some private thought passing behind them before he spoke again, quieter now.

"There was a woman with them. Red hair."

"What about her?"

"She’s mine." He said it simply, without heat, like an afterthought already decided rather than a claim still needing to be made. "Whatever else we take, whatever else happens — she comes with me."

The younger man’s expression flickered with something uneasy, though he didn’t argue, and neither did Marcus, the silence settling over the group in a way that felt less like agreement and more like the particular, dangerous quiet of men who’d already decided not to be the one who objected first.

"When," Marcus finally asked.

"Not today." The tall man turned away from the water at last, expression settling into something patient, almost pleasant, entirely at odds with what he’d just proposed. "They’ll get comfortable eventually. Everyone does, when nothing’s gone wrong in a while. We wait for that. And then we take everything they have."

Behind them, the rain continued its endless assault against the flooded lobby windows, and somewhere out on the water, Penelope’s group guided their boat steadily onward toward the hardware store, exhausted but focused, entirely unaware that the anger they’d left behind in that crowd had already found its shape — patient, calculating, and armed now with something the rest of the building didn’t yet know to fear.