"You're doing it again," Elesa said. She'd fallen back to walk beside him, close enough that he could smell the faint scent of the Crystalist oil she used to maintain her blade. Her hand brushed his arm, a gesture that could have been accidental but probably wasn't.
"Doing what?"
"Getting that look. Like you're listening to something far away." Her green eyes searched his face with an intensity that made his pulse quicken for reasons that had nothing to do with the shard. "The whispers getting stronger?"
He nodded. "More coherent. It's like... like someone's trying to tell me a story, but they can only remember fragments."
"My grandmother used to tell stories about the time before," Xander said, catching up to them. "Said people could talk to each other across the world, instantly. Said water fell from the sky that you could drink without dying."
"Fairytales," Elesa said, though her tone was wistful.
"Maybe. But she swore her grandmother had danced in it. Pure water rain, no suits, no burns. Just... water."
They walked in silence for a while, each lost in thoughts of a world none of them had ever known. The rest stop grew closer, revealing itself to be a small cluster of buildings around what had once been a fuel station. The pumps were long dead, their metal husks standing like monuments to a lost civilization.
"Movement," Elesa said suddenly, her hand going to her blade.
They froze, weapons ready. Jyn's rifle came up smoothly, the shock rounds Xander had helped him craft sitting heavy in the magazine. Xander pulled out his modified scanner, sweeping for heat signatures.
"Two... no, three contacts," he whispered. "Small. Probably Rad-rabbits."
The tension eased slightly, but didn't disappear. Rad-rabbits weren't dangerous, but they were prey animals. If they were moving, something might be hunting them.
They approached the rest stop carefully, using cover and checking corners. The main building's roof had partially collapsed, but the walls still stood. Inside, they found the usual detritus of the old world—plastic packages faded beyond recognition, metal shelving twisted by heat, and the remains of what might have been a cash register.
"Water pump's out back," Xander announced, checking his tablet. "Pre-war survey says it tapped into an aquifer. Might still be good."
They found the pump, a manual thing that someone had installed after the bombs, probably in the early days when people still thought the world might recover quickly. Xander tested the water with three different strips, watching the colors carefully.
"Radiation's acceptable," he announced. "Some heavy metals, but our filters can handle it. No biological contaminants."
They refilled their water supplies, the process taking nearly an hour with all the filtering required. While Xander worked the pump and filtration system, Jyn and Elesa kept watch. She positioned herself on a broken wall that gave her a good view of the approaches, and Jyn couldn't help but notice the graceful way she moved, the economy of motion that spoke of years of survival.
"You ever think about what we'd be doing if the world hadn't ended?" she asked suddenly.
"The world didn't end," Jyn replied. "It just changed."
"You know what I mean." She glanced at him, then away, a faint blush coloring her cheeks. "In the old world. What would we be?"
"Probably sitting in a classroom somewhere, bored out of our minds," Xander called up, never one to let a conversation happen without him. "I'd be the kid taking apart his desk to see how it worked."
"I'd be the one getting in fights," Elesa said.
"And I'd be..." Jyn paused. What would he have been? "I don't know. Something quiet. Maybe a librarian."
Elesa laughed, a rare sound that made something warm bloom in Jyn's chest. "A librarian with a rifle and a magic crystal?"
"The old world probably had stranger things."
"All done," Xander announced, sealing the last water container. "Enough to get us to the next checkpoint with some to spare."
They were preparing to leave when Elesa held up her hand again. This time, her posture was different—more alert, more dangerous.
"We're being watched," she said quietly.
The Stalking
The Radwolves had been following them for six hours.
At first, it had been subtle—a shadow moving wrong in Jyn's peripheral vision, the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck. But as the day wore on, the signs became more obvious. Tracks in the ash that paralleled their own. The distinctive musky scent that even the wasteland's chemical stench couldn't hide. The deliberate snapping of a branch in the distance, testing their reaction.
"How many?" Jyn asked quietly as they walked, maintaining the appearance of being unaware.
"Pack of five, maybe six," Elesa replied, her voice barely above a whisper. "Standard hunting formation. Two flankers on each side, one or two trailing behind."
"They're not usually this bold during the day," Xander observed, his hand never straying far from his rifle. "Must be hungry."
"Or desperate," Jyn added. The shard was pulsing more rapidly now, reacting to the threat or perhaps to his elevated stress.
Radwolves were one of the wasteland's more successful adaptations. They'd started as regular wolves, but decades of radiation had changed them. Larger than their ancestors, with patches of fur that glowed faintly in the dark and teeth that could crack bone like dry twigs. They were intelligent, patient, and absolutely ruthless when hungry.
"There's a defensive position ahead," Elesa said, checking the map on Xander's tablet. "Old gas station with intact walls. We could make a stand there."
"Or we could keep walking and hope they decide we're not worth it," Xander suggested without much hope.
"When has that ever worked?"
"Fair point."
They maintained their pace, not speeding up enough to trigger a chase response but moving with purpose toward the gas station. It appeared through the haze like a mirage—walls of reinforced concrete designed to withstand storms, with narrow windows that would make good firing positions.
"They're closing in," Elesa warned. She'd drawn her blade, the Crystalist core in its hilt glowing softly in response to her bioelectric field. "They know we're heading for shelter."
The first Radwolf showed itself as they were fifty meters from the station. It stepped out from behind a rusted car, larger than any natural wolf had ever been. Its fur was patchy, revealing skin underneath that had a scaled texture. Its eyes glowed with a sickly green light, and when it opened its mouth in what might have been a grin, its teeth were far too long, far too sharp.
"Don't run," Elesa said quietly. "Back away slowly."
They moved in formation, weapons raised but not firing. The Radwolf paced them, maintaining distance but making it clear they weren't going to reach the station unchallenged. Two more appeared on their flanks, moving with the liquid grace of apex predators.
"I count five now," Xander said, his voice admirably steady. "The whole pack's here."
"Six," Jyn corrected, spotting another shadow moving behind them. "They've got us surrounded."
The lead Radwolf made a sound—not quite a howl, not quite a roar, but something that seemed to bypass the ears and go straight to the primitive parts of the brain that remembered being prey. The pack began to tighten their circle.
"On my mark," Elesa said, "we run for the station. Xander, suppressing fire on the leader. Jyn, watch our six. I'll clear the path."
"This is a terrible plan," Xander said.
"Got a better one?"
"No, just wanted it on record that I think this is terrible."