Chapter?24 (Joshua’s?POV)

  I cut east off Amsterdam, boots sliding on loose shale as I dropped into the narrow side street that led home. Morning light slanted between row?house rooftops, catching dust like glitter in the air. The cottage sat half a block ahead—peeling paint, sagging porch, vines throttling the columns. I’d left it looking like a bunker cobbled together by a panicked handyman.

  Something bright glinted near the curb. I squinted, heart stuttering. My bicycle—the rust?pocked frame I’d sworn was gone forever—leaned casually against the hedge that fenced the yard. Rear tire still inflated, handlebars straightened. As if someone had rolled it back and parked it with deliberate care.

  A chill crept across my scalp. I slowed, war?hammer sliding into my palm. Had scavengers tracked the tracks back? Empire scouts? My pulse throbbed in my temples.

  Then I saw her.

  On the porch, half?turned toward the front door, stood a figure—lean, tense, long brown hair gathered in a messy tail that brushed the collar of a ragged jacket. One hand rested on a steel pipe; the other hovered near the doorframe as if weighing whether to knock or break in. Even from thirty yards away I recognized the wary set of her shoulders, the slight hitch in her stance that favored one leg.

  Anna.

  A lump the size of a fist lodged in my throat. My first instinct was to shout her name, but the sound died behind my teeth. Instead I broke into a run—boots pounding broken pavement, breath catching, vision tunneling on the woman I’d abandoned to a city of corpses.

  “Anna—” The word came out a cracked whisper, lost to the wind.

  She stiffened, head tilting like an animal scenting danger. I pushed harder, hammer banging my thigh, eyes burning. Ten yards. Eight. The cottage loomed behind her, porch boards creaking under her weight.

  And then—whether she sensed me or simply obeyed the survival reflex that ruled us all—Anna pivoted off the steps, steel bar raised, and slipped around the far corner of the house, vanishing behind a wall of ivy.

  “Wait!” My voice finally tore free, ragged with desperation. I skidded to the curb beside the bicycle, chest heaving, but she was already gone—swallowed by vines and the cottage’s blind side. I hesitated, pulse hammering. Chasing might spook her deeper into the ruins, or worse, into an ambush. But letting her disappear felt unbearable.

  I gripped the war?hammer until my knuckles blanched, forcing breath into my lungs. Five hours had dwindled to something closer to four. The Gate’s silent metronome ticked behind my eyes. Yet the world had shrunk to the echo of Anna’s footsteps fading around the corner and the scent of dust she’d stirred from the porch.

  “Not this time,” I muttered, voice shaking with a cocktail of hope and fear. I stepped onto the weed?choked path, eyes fixed on the ivy?draped corner where she’d vanished—determined to find her before the countdown hit zero.

  I vaulted the low hedge, weeds whipping my shins, and hurried to the corner where Anna had disappeared. Vines as thick as forearms sheeted the siding, their leaves trembling from her passage. I slowed, pulse hammering in my ears, and peered into the narrow gap between cottage wall and overgrown lilac bushes.

  Nothing but shifting green shadows.

  “Anna,” I called, forcing my voice to stay low, urgent rather than frantic. “It’s me—Joshua. I’m not here to hurt you.”

  Silence answered, broken only by the ticking of a bent wind chime somewhere on the block. I edged along the wall, hammer ready, scanning for fresh footprints. The soil was churned where she’d pivoted; a single tread mark—bike?shoe, size small—pointed toward the backyard.

  I followed.

  The yard opened into a tangle of knee?high grass, rust?spotted lawn chairs, and a stone birdbath cracked clean through. A wooden gate sagged from one hinge in the rear fence, swinging lazily. Beyond it, the alley dipped toward a row of garages long since collapsed. No sign of her. Only a faint scent of sweat and road dust lingered in the cool air.

  She could be anywhere—behind the garages, on a rooftop, halfway back to the outpost. Chasing blindly would burn precious minutes I didn’t have. Worse, it might drive her farther away.

  I forced a slow breath. Think. Anna was wounded, but healing fast if her regeneration stat mirrored mine. She’d cached my bike instead of stealing it outright—maybe a gesture of… what? Courtesy? Guilt? Either way, she’d come to the cottage for a reason. Curiosity? Shelter? If I made this place look welcoming—and safe—maybe she’d circle back.

  I jogged to the front porch, hauled the bicycle up the steps, and leaned it where she’d left it. From my pack I fished one of the MREs and set it on the top step, next to a sealed bottle of purified water. On impulse, I added a clean bandage roll and the least filthy rag I owned.

  Then I found a nub of carpenter’s pencil and scrawled on a scrap of plywood torn from the porch rail:

  Anna—safe inside. Supplies here if you need them. Key works on front door, latch unhooked. No traps, will be returning here. –J

  I weighed the board with a rusted horseshoe so the wind wouldn’t flip it.

  Inside, I unlocked the dead?bolt, cracked the door wide enough to show candlelight within, and placed my war?hammer just inside arm’s reach. If she entered, I wanted no misunderstanding about who held weapons.

  A quick glance at my watch: 4?hours?03?minutes left. The Gate’s pulse throbbed behind my temples, each beat a reminder that this fragile reunion window was closing. I forced myself not to pace. Instead, I tidied the front room—swept broken glass into a corner, draped a sheet over the worst of the furniture barricade, anything to make the place look less like a bunker and more like a home.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  Every few minutes I stepped onto the porch, scanning the street. Crows hopped along power lines, cawing at my restless movements. Wind rattled the shutters of the neighboring house. Once, I thought I saw a flicker of brown hair beyond the hedge, but it might have been a cat or the twitch of dead ivy.

  With three hours and change remaining, the sky brightened to full morning. No sign of Anna. My stomach knotted—fear she’d misread the gesture, fear she’d been caught by roamers or worse. But chasing again would leave the cottage undefended and risk missing the Gate entirely.

  I stepped inside, left the door ajar, and sat in the entryway where she could see me if she returned—war?hammer across my lap, heart thumping. Candle flame flickered on the note outside, making the words dance.

  Waiting had never felt so heavy.

  My lungs still burned from the sprint that had carried me away, but curiosity dragged me back like a fish on a barbed hook. I doubled around the block in a looping arc, keeping hedges and half?collapsed garages between me and the cottage until I reached a vantage where I could watch unseen. No sign of the biker?helmet stranger now. Just the sagging porch and, absurdly, a little offering laid on the top step beside the bicycle: a sealed bottle of water, a tightly rolled bandage, and what looked like a vacuum?packed MRE. A scrap of plywood, scrawled in blunt carpenter’s pencil, weighted down by a rust?flecked horseshoe.

  I squinted. Even from thirty paces, the first line jumped out:

  Anna—safe inside… –J

  A chill slid under my ribs. I knew one “J” who might leave supplies instead of bullets. Joshua? But he’d dissolved into fractals, vanished like a bad dream. Yet the neat pack of items looked like something he’d fuss over—trying too hard to be helpful. My pulse thumped in my ears.

  Steel pipe clenched in white knuckles, I crept from the hedge. Each step on the overgrown path sounded thunderous to my nerves, but no curtain twitched. The porch boards groaned under my weight; a family of startled beetles scattered from a flowerpot long gone to seed. I paused at the top step, scanned the street—empty—and crouched to read the note.

  Anna—safe inside. Supplies here if you need them. Key works on front door, latch unhooked. No traps. –J

  My throat tightened. Joshua. No doubt now. Either he was inside or someone was using his name. I eyed the door: wood scarred by age, latch dangling loose. A battered dresser blocked half the frame from within, visible through the crack. Classic amateur barricade. I slid the bandage and water into my pack, tucked the MRE under my arm, and wrapped fingers around the doorknob.

  Breath hitched. If it’s not him, be ready. I eased the latch, heart slamming, then pushed. The door resisted against the weight of the dresser. I braced, shoved harder; wood scraped floorboards with a scream that set my teeth on edge. Gap widened. Musty air breathed out, carrying dust and the faintest ghost of soap—someone had tried to clean.

  I slipped through sideways, pipe raised. Inside, sunlight knifed through boarded windows in slanted beams, illuminating motes of dust. Furniture fragments had been stacked into rough barricades. A candle guttered on a crate, throwing jittery light across the floor. And there—center of the living room—loomed a massive copper door, its burnished surface engraved with a cityscape in ruin. My pulse stuttered at the sight; it matched the basement portal I’d found beneath the outpost, but here it stood free like a monolith.

  Directly in front of that door stood Joshua.

  He looked leaner, grime?streaked, eyes shadowed by exhaustion, but unmistakably the same man who’d vanished from the plaza. He wore a scuffed leather jacket and biker helmet—visor now lifted—revealing a face etched with equal parts relief and terror. In his left hand he held an antique skeleton key that seemed to hum with faint copper light. In his right, the haft of a war?hammer—broad, medieval, its head dark with dried something—hovered half?raised, ready to fall.

  For a heartbeat we stared, neither breathing. My grip tightened on the pipe; his knuckles whitened on the hammer. Two feral animals in a trap.

  Then his voice cracked the silence, soft, ragged: “Anna?”

  The hammer dipped an inch. My throat worked, words snagged behind disbelief. The cottage, the door, the supplies—him. All real.

  I lowered the pipe a fraction, muscles trembling from adrenaline. “Joshua,” I managed, the name tasting strange after so much time surviving on curses. “You… you’re alive.”

  The hammer clattered to the floorboards as his shoulders sagged. He laughed once—a broken, half?sobbing sound—and stepped forward. Instinct flared; I shifted back, pipe rising. He halted, hands spread, key still glinting between fingers.

  “No traps,” he repeated from the note, voice barely above a whisper. “No tricks. Just… needed to see you were real.”

  I swallowed, senses spinning: the copper door hummed behind him like a heartbeat; the candle threw wild shadows across his face. Outside, wind rattled the boarded windows, reminding us both that the city still watched, hungry.

  “I’m real,” I said, pulse finally slowing. The pipe lowered to my side. “And I’m not here to hurt you. But we need to talk fast—before something else shows up.”

  He nodded, eyes bright with relief—or maybe fear. The key’s faint glow flickered against the copper door as he gestured me deeper inside. I stepped fully across the threshold, closing the battered door behind me, and for the first time since the world ended I felt something almost like safety slip through the cracks of panic.

  Almost.