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refreshing warmth to it, a welcome change to the ice cold they’d grown used to. The trees blew in the breeze, which kept on distracting Hayden.
    But there was nothing beyond them. He was just being paranoid.
    Nothing they couldn’t handle, or run away from at least.
    “Had time to properly think about the transmission yet?” Newbie asked.
    Hayden’s stomach sank. He knew Newbie was always going to break the ice eventually, he was just hoping it wouldn’t be when they were out checking the old traps and placing new ones. Newbie seemed calm and composed enough, but he was a former hired killer. He’d killed people before. Hayden didn’t want to push his temper over the edge.
    Besides, he was twice Hayden’s size.
    Or more.
    “I … I just think we should all sit down and discuss it,” Hayden said, remembering Sarah’s surprising reluctance on pursuing the source of the radio signal. “Discuss it properly, not just on a whim.”
    “Have you told the others?”
    Hayden didn’t like the way Newbie peered at him. He wanted to lie, and the old coward inside him probably would’ve lied. But he had to be honest. Truthful. Besides, what problem was it if he had told Sarah anyway? “Yes. I told Sarah when we were out burning the bodies. She said—”
    “So you’ve had the chance to poison her against moving on.” He nodded. Half-smiled. “Nice one.”
    Hayden felt his insides tighten up. “No. I just told her it as it was.”
    “And what did she have to say?”
    Hayden looked around at the trees. Again, he swore he saw movement way in the distance, but the movement was like the floaters you got in your vision sometimes. When you weren’t focusing, they were so ever-present. When you tried to focus, they slipped out of view.
    “She … she said she thought it’d be better if we all discussed it too—”
    “Bullshit. Try again. What did she say?”
    Hayden stepped through a slushy section of the grass as the bare trees around them got thicker. “She … she’s not sure. But hear me out—she’s just worried about what happened to Frank. Worried it’s some kind of trap.”
    Newbie brushed aside some branches scratching against his cheeks. “Hayden, when the hell will you see it? This is the trap. This is the trap that we’re in right now. Living this way. Barely fucking living at all. This is the trap. This is what the military want. Don’t you see that?”
    Hayden was surprised by two things. One, to hear Newbie swear. He didn’t seem to swear much. Probably the least of them all.
    But there was something else, too.
    “Why the sudden change in tune?” Hayden asked.
    Newbie lowered his head. He searched the leaf-covered ground for the trap they’d placed yesterday. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “You—you were with me. With me on this bunker. On how it wasn’t such a bad place. How it’s secure at the very least. And now you’ve heard a few crackly words on a radio signal telling you to go to Warrington, you’re crazy about leaving. What is it? Why the sudden change?”
    At a glance, it looked like Newbie was still searching the ground. But on closer inspection, Hayden could see that Newbie wasn’t really staring at anything in particular. He was shaking. Something wasn’t right.
    “We’ve known each other over a week now. We’re living together until … well, until whenever the end of this infection is. You’ve told us things and we’ve all told you things. Why are you so desperate to leave all of a sudden? What’s … what’s in Warrington?”
    Hayden saw something in Newbie’s eyes when he looked up at him. Tears.
    Tears in Newbie’s eyes. Something that definitely didn’t come lightly.
    He leaned back and rested his arms on his knees. He stared at the frosty grass in front of him. “Seven years ago, I … my ex-wife won custody of my kid. Amy, she was called. Only three when she went to live with her mum. And the courts, they … they accused me of being