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wanted to go out there, though. He wanted so badly to help that it almost hurt. The thought of Remy out there alone terrified him.
    Gray shook his head to rid himself of the creeping feeling in his gut. He touched Cade’s shoulder gently. “Hey,” he said.
    “Yeah?” Cade didn’t look up as she spoke, still engrossed with the contents of her bag.
    Gray tried to jostle off the year-old sense of déjà vu before continuing. “Last time I saw Remy, she was near the third house on the left. The stucco-looking one. It’s off-white with a few trees out front and a beat-up green truck in the driveway.”
    Cade grabbed an empty green bag from under the dining table and started to stuff ammunition and survival packs into it. The packs were Brandt’s idea, put forward after his and Cade’s separation from the rest of the group the year before. The packs contained dried foods, bottled water, and basic first aid supplies in case they had to evacuate quickly or got cut off from the rest of the group again.
    “We probably won’t be back until morning,” Cade warned. “Don’t expect us until after dawn. It’s too late in the evening to try to get here before sunset. Hopefully, four of us will walk back in here come morning.”
    Gray clenched his teeth and turned away. As much as he hated to admit it, Gray didn’t have much hope for Remy’s survival. The situation had been bad. Considering how quickly he’d run out of ammunition, Gray had no doubt that Remy eventually ran out too. Regardless of their opinions on Remy’s current status—and despite his and Ethan’s general animosity toward each other—they were a tightly knit team. None of them would rest until they knew what happened to Remy, one way or the other.
    The way the seven of them had meshed was odd, especially considering the short amount of time they’d known each other. Granted, there were exceptions: He and Theo, of course, grew up together, and Cade and Ethan had been best friends for over seven years. Overall, though, they were strangers to each other when the Michaluk Virus broke out, and they were thrown together in circumstances that bordered on desperate. The ease with which they worked together was a miracle. They spent almost all their time together: They ate together, they slept together, and they fought together. With so much time spent crammed in the same space, it was a wonder they hadn’t killed each other yet.
    Gray got along well with almost all of them. The only tension was between him and Ethan. Gray knew the cause, and he wasn’t foolish enough to ignore it. It was everything to do with Remy Angellette.
    Gray had fallen for Remy. Hard. It didn’t take long for it to happen, either; he spent so much time with the young woman while she recuperated from her ordeal in Biloxi that they got to know each other very well. Maybe it was because they were nearly the same age, with similar backgrounds. Maybe it was because they both lost nearly their whole families. Maybe it was because Gray had feelings for Remy that he suspected were shared but not acted upon.
    Maybe he was just imagining all of it.
    Ethan’s attraction to Remy was something of an open secret. It was obvious to all of them, though no one knew why Ethan never acted on it. Gray theorized that it had to do with Ethan’s departed wife. Despite that lack of movement, though, Ethan seemed to think that Gray had horned in on territory that wasn’t even Ethan’s yet—if it ever would be. And if Gray had anything to say about it, Ethan would never have the opportunity to tread on that ground.
    Cade brushed past Gray and went up the stairs, shaking him free from his deep thoughts. Gray watched the woman ascend to the second floor before he glanced back at Ethan. The older man was still glued to the front door. Brandt hovered behind him, clutching the gun he took out with him earlier in the day—no doubt one of the many weapons he had about his person. Brandt Evans was a man with