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My attention cuts to the oak.

Clair stands on the branch, rifle braced against her shoulder, hair whipping loose around her face, furious, terrified, alive.

She yells something, but gunfire eats the words. I don’t need to hear them.

Probably some version of Pay attention.

Fair.

I nock another arrow and turn back to the horde.

Three infected women in torn sundresses stagger toward me from the left, one faster than the others. Obviously, they were enjoying a nice brunch before the world went upside down. Another comes from behind Lucy, dragging one useless leg but moving with purpose, its knee split open and flashing white bone with every step.

I shoot past them.

Not because I don’t see them.

Because I do.

Because Clair does too.

An arrow drops one closing in on Jacob from behind. Another punches through the ear of a corpse reaching for Trish’s ankle as she reloads near the van. A third takes a man in a shredded business shirt before he can grab Luis’s pant leg.

The sundress trio keeps coming for me.

I let them.

Clair drops the first before it gets close enough to grab me, its face splitting open as it hits the dirt. The second makes it two steps farther before her next shot punches through its skull and sends it folding over the first. The third stumbles over both bodies, arms windmilling, mouth stretched wide.

One more shot, and it’s gone.

Another infected breaks through the tree line to my right.

I don’t look at it.

Clair handles it.

The body drops before it reaches me.

She is screaming now. I can feel it more than hear it. Rage in the air. Fear with teeth. If she could throw the rifle at my head from that tree, she would.

Still, she keeps shooting.

I trust her to handle the dead near me.

I handle the ones near everyone else.

That’s the point.

Clair with a rifle in her hands and death closing in. Clair realizing she can protect me, Poppy, all of us.

Not the weak link.

Never was.

She just needed proof loud enough to drown out Russ’s voice.

The last of the swarm pushes through camp in ragged pieces. Jacob and Lyla cut down two near Lucy. Carlos buries a blade into one’s temple, and Joanie kicks the body off with a creative curse that earns a horrified “Joanie!” from Trish. Mom fires clean and calm beside Edith, who cheers like this is a sporting event and not a nightmare.