Rosé does most of the work to pack everything into the back of the truck. She tells me to keep inventory while she gets everything in order, but I know the real reason is that my arm is still healing. And she's better at organizing than me-which she's dangled over my head since we were kids. So I watch her, sitting on the ground with the notebook in my lap, as she pulls everything from the back of the trunk out onto the asphalt and rearranges everything. 

"We can leave everything we don't need here, there's no reason to-"

Rosé falls silent, her eyes fixated on one spot. I stand, confused, and follow her gaze down to a small silver bowl, formerly used by a dead dog that we killed. My breath hitches. 

Before I can do anything, Rosé grabs the bowl and the box of dog food next to it from the pile and hurls them across the parking lot. The bowl clangs against the pavement, and the box hits a nearby car with a thud. Rosé screams and kicks the tire to our car. 

"Fuck!" She cries, grabbing her foot and collapsing to the ground. I rush over and check to see if she's okay.  Rosé sighs and falls backward onto the floor, spreading herself out. She closes her eyes.

"Goddamnit, Oscar, why are we still alive?"

The question startles me. If I was standing, I would have taken a step back. 

"W-what?"

She sits up suddenly and rubs her face.

"I mean, why are we still alive? Why weren't we affected, why didn't we get infected like almost everyone else in the goddamn world? I mean, we're just sitting ducks at this point. It's only a matter of time before someone kills our asses."

Rosé bites her lip and sighs, rubbing her head. 

"I don't know, Rose," I whisper, admitting defeat. "I don't know why we're still here, or why this is happening. And you're right, we could die today."

She looks at me, confused. I'm not one to be pessimistic, that's her job. But, I am a self-proclaimed realist with optimistic tendencies, which is why I continue.

"But, I'll be damned if I'm gonna let you sit here until someone comes along and kills you for the hell of it. No, we're going to make the most of the end of the world, okay? We're gonna pack this shit in the truck, we're gonna go to the police station. It's only a few miles away, maybe it's a refuge and there are people there. It's been a week since the boxes, there's bound to be some organization. So I'm not going to let you die, and we're going to find a way out of this so we can get back to normal. Got it?"

Rosé is smiling at me. Really, genuinely smiling, teeth and all. But, she ruins my moment with a punch to the shoulder.

"That was the corniest shit I've ever heard, Os. Right off the back of a birthday card. Thanks for that." She stands and brushes herself off, then offers her hand to help me to my feet. 

"Alright, Mr. wonder, keep inventory, let's pack this shit up." 

She bends over and from behind her, I see three people sprinting towards us. I suck in a breath and reach inside my hoodie for the kitchen knife, dropping the notebook.

"Rosé, Rosé look," I say frantically, tapping her on the back. She stands and turns, then lets out a sharp breath when she sees them.

"Fuck. They heard me throw the things, didn't they?" She says, reaching for the handgun on the bed of the trunk. 

Before I can blink they're in the parking lot. I lift my knife with shaking hands, terrified but ready. Rosé however, raises her gun to her eye with a practiced hand and takes a shot at the nearest guy. The bullet hits him square in the chest and he drops, but the other two continue their assault. They split off, and as soon as the one attacking me grabs hold of my arms, I'm not thinking about Rosé. She can handle herself. 

I almost drop the knife from my struggle with the guy. He has a tight grip on both my arms. I jerk around, trying to get out of his hold, and in the process, tear my shoulder bite open again. I grimace and finally kick his foot out from under him and throw him as far from me as possible, which is only a few feet. But it only takes a few moments for him to be back at me. I thrash my knife around, hitting him once, slicing through his shirt and skin. There's blood, but it's not enough to stop him from coming after me.

"Rosé!" I scream.

"A little busy!" She yells back, sounding a little annoyed. I hear another gunshot and, in a panic, kick the guy away from me, my arm pulsating. Rosé raises her gun at the guys head and shoots him. As soon as he hits the floor I double over and heave onto the floor. After the remains of my breakfast are splattered onto the asphalt, I wipe my mouth and breathe as deeply as I can.

"Gross," Rosé says unamusedly. I shrug.

"You try to fight off a guy with one arm."

She sticks her tongue out anyways and looks at the two bodies nearest us. There are spurts of blood on the ground from where they were shot, which only makes it worse. 

"Should we just, you know, leave them?" I ask. Rosé shrugs.

"Well, we probably should move as soon as we can, the gunshots were pretty loud, we have to be careful. Plus, your arm."

I look down and lift the padding from my shoulder. Fresh blood is seeping out of my bandages.

"Ah, shit," I say, sighing. The adrenaline had eased the pain quite a bit, but now that I know it's there and I'm calm, it hurts a fuckload more.

"Goddamn, Os, you have to be careful," Rosé says, gingerly touching the wound. I grimace, and she frowns. 

"Here, let me get this packed, and then I'll get you fixed up."

Without waiting for me to answer she picks up my notebook and tosses it into the truck, then goes back to rearranging and packing. So much for inventory. I sit on a concrete stopper and fidget with the strings to my hoodie. I hate being hurt. I can't do anything to help Rosé. She's probably going to leave my sorry ass at the police station and be some cool rescue agent or some shit.

Rosé finishes packing and goes back into the truck, coming back over to me with the same first aid kit we used when I first got bit. I pull my hoodie and shirt off and my skin meets a blast of cold wind. I shiver. Rosé crouches next to me and slowly unravels my bandages, being careful not to hurt me.

"You okay?" She asks. 

"Yeah, I'm good."

Obviously, my answer wasn't convincing enough for her, because she laughs.

"You know you can't lie to me, Ozzy. What's wrong? Other than the gash in your arm, that is."

I sigh and watch her as she fixes a new bandage and dabs some rubbing alcohol onto a towel.

"You're taking care of me. I feel like, with this," I gesture to my arm. "I'm useless. I can't even fend for myself." 

Rosé sets the bandage on her knee and dabs my arm with the towel. I hiss and clench my teeth, trying not to spew out obscenities like the first time.

"Well, you fought off the first guy pretty well, and it's  not like you haven't taken care of me before. I'm just returning the favor."

She raises my arm and puts the new bandages in place. When she pulls on them to tighten them, I let out a yelp, which makes her laugh. I feel my face erupt with heat.

"Yeah, fuck you, you asshole," I grumble. " Let's see you get your arm torn off."

"Stop being such a baby, you know women can take way more pain than men. And you couldn't keep up if you tried so keep dreaming, loverboy."

My mind goes to mush when she says that, I can't even reply with a snarky comment about how she told me that fact the first time she stitched me up. What? I can keep up with her on anything.

Rosé laughs at my sudden loss for words and stands.

"I'll get a new shirt, and then we can get back on the road. You can take a nap."

She tosses me a shirt and I pull it on with one hand, along with my sweatshirt.

"How nice, I'll sleep like a baby."

With nothing more to say, I walk over to the passenger side of the truck but stop before I get in.

"You okay, Os?" I hear Rosé from the other side of the truck. 

"I'm good, just had an idea."

I clean the small amount of blood off my knife and kneel down to the door. Rosé has made her way to me and gasps sharply as I begin to dig the edge of my blade into the paint of our car.

"What are you doing?" She practically screams at me. I carve out five lines and stand. Rosé takes a moment to process before she speaks again.

"Did you just key your own car," It's more of a statement than a question. I nod.

"Four dead. These three, the guy I stabbed, and Biscuit." My voice catches when I say his name. I can see Rosé's eyes get misty and she pulls my body towards her, pressing her face into my chest as she hugs me. I hug her back tightly but she doesn't cry. Just holds me for a while.

"Okay, let's get going."

I nod and open the newly damaged door, moving the notebook aside as I take a seat. Rosé walks to the other side, gets in the driver's seat, and turns the car on, then pulls out of the parking lot, leaving the three bodies and a fair amount of old and new supplies that couldn't fit or wasn't necessary. 

I move my seat back to lay down, but, surprise surprise, I can't sleep. I just stare at the roof with my arm draped across my stomach until it's dark. I try to avoid feeling every imperfection in the road but my arm still throbs. There's music playing softly from the stereo, a song that I recognize as Rosé's favorite. I turn my head slightly and see her silently dancing and mouthing along to the lyrics, and my lips turn into a small grin as I watch her, oblivious to her audience. She moves her hand along with the lyrics and sways to the beat, grinning like mad. She seems completely lost in the music like she doesn't even realize that she's driving past bodies and fire and destruction. It warms my heart to know that she's still herself, not some weird apocalypse version of herself. She's still beautiful Rosé.  

The song ends, prompting another to begin, but she turns the radio off before it can start. The silence is jarring, and I watch her posture change into one to rival a military stance.

"Oscar, wake up, wake up." She says frantically, shaking my good arm. I sit up and look through the front windshield to see we've come across a construction site, probably for a new building. The property is dominated by piles of dirt, with stacks of materials and a few pieces of machinery. But, upon closer inspection, I can see bodies laid out in the dirt and strewn across the materials, even one hanging from a steel bar by their stomach. Blood is everywhere.

"Holy shit." I breathe, gripping the car door. Rosé slows down the car as we pass it, and she ducks down low. I follow her lead but keep my eyes on the site, scanning for movement. Maybe someone's still in there, no telling. At least we're in the car, which is better than nothing. 

As we roll past the gruesome-looking plot of land, I hold my breath. Whether it's from stress or sheer terror or both, I don't know, but I don't exhale until we're past it.

"I think we're okay, doesn't look like anyone else was in there," I say, sitting up. Rosé follows suit but as soon as that happens, an extremely buff man throws himself onto the hood of the truck, armed with a chainsaw. He's covered in blood with the same look in his eye as the others, with gashes and wounds all over his body. One of his cheeks is practically shredded, which adds to our terror.

Guess I spoke too soon.

Rosé and I scream as the guy climbs onto the hood and starts beating at the roof with the hand-held part. A dent starts to appear in the roof, which is bad since we're on the inside.

"SHIT SHIT SHIT HOLY FUCKING SHIT WE'RE GOING TO DIE!" I scream, covering my head.

"Oscar calm down! He's not using the saw part!" Rosé attempts to calm me, but she's shaking, which doesn't help. 

"What do we do?!"

We're both panicking, and Rosé does what any rational person would do when a psychopathic zombie-not-really-zombie guy is beating the top of your car with the not chainsaw part of the chainsaw.

She slams her foot on the gas.

we fly forwards, hitting quite a few cars and crushing just about every dead body on the street. The guy loses his balance and tumbles towards the back of our car, sliding across the roof and diving off our car. I turn and watch as he slams into the asphalt headfirst. We don't stop to see if he's dead or not though, Rosé keeps driving until we're a very, very safe distance away. She pulls into an alleyway, turns the car off, and collapses into her chair. After a moment of silence, she turns to me.

"Let's eat."

She never ceases to amaze me.