You finish up just in time. Griggs is back with the coffee.

Yvette’s office door shuts with the quiet authority of someone used to leaving messes behind and not being the one to clean them.

You give it a full two Mississippi before straightening your shirt, smoothing your hair, and trying not to look like a man who just made some bad decisions on a Monday morning.

Then the front door swings open with a gust of cold air and a low, annoyed grunt.

Griggs shuffles in like a man personally betrayed by gravity. He’s holding a tray with four coffees and a small paper bag crushed between his elbow and his ribcage.

You whistle appreciatively.

“Smells like salvation,” you say. “Can I have one?”

He growls around the bag, spits it into his hand, and mutters, “Go suck a cactus.”

Then he hands you a cup anyway.

You take a sip. “You’re a sweetheart, Griggs.”

“Yeah, yeah. Keep your emotions in your pants.”

The coffee warms your insides. The cardamom hits first, like Yvette’s favorite perfume decided to punch you in the mouth and then whisper something dirty about clove. Good stuff.

Griggs watches you over the rim of his cup. “Don’t think I haven’t noticed.”

You lift an eyebrow.

“She doesn’t talk to anyone like that. Not like she talks to you.”

You blink innocently.

He points a stubby finger. “Don’t play dumb with me, Pantene Pro-V. She never bats those lashes at me. Never asks me how I slept. You? You get winks. She brushes lint off your jacket like she gives a shit.”

You shrug. “I’ve just got a way with women.”

“Bullshit,” he grunts. “Yvette’s the biggest dyke in all of dykedom. If lesbians had a kingdom, she’d be queen bitch of them all. Full chainmail. Dual-wielding spite and scorn. That woman doesn’t flirt, she hunts.”

You almost **** on your coffee. “Jesus.”

“But you,” he points a finger like he’s accusing you of witchcraft, “she gets cute with. You get smirks. Elbow touches. Fucking coffee orders. I don’t get it.”

“Maybe I remind her of her younger self.”

He squints.

“Maybe you remind her of a pretty girl,” he shoots back. “You ever think of that, pretty boy? You got those cheekbones. Soft little mouth. Could pass for a real cute thing in the right lighting.”

You sip your coffee. “Thems fightin' words.”

He snorts derisively. “Son, a light breeze could knock you flat. I’ve taken shits with more upper body strength. If some smooth-skinned city fairy ever beats me in a fight, I’ll walk back to Georgia wearing nothing but shame and flip-flops.”

“I grew up on a farm in Minnesota, jackass."

"I don't give a fuck where you're from. You're a city fairy now."

You grin. “Speak for yourself. You wouldn’t last five minutes back home. You’ve gone soft. Gotten too used to all them big city luxuries.”

He narrows his eyes. “Like what?”

“Running water. Indoor toilets. Shoes. We all know you don't got no shoes in Georgia.”

That gets him. He laughs a full-bodied wheeze that rattles like a pickup truck with emphysema.

And then Yvette’s voice slices through the lobby like a scalpel.

“Griggs.”

You both freeze.

She doesn’t raise her voice. Doesn’t need to. You can hear her just fine through the door of her office.

“If I hear one more word about your ruminations regarding my sexual orientation, I swear to God I will personally remove your vocal cords with a melon baller.”

Griggs winces. “Shit.”

“And yes,” she continues, her voice already sounding bored, “the walls are thin. They’re supposed to be. Keeps the rats honest.”

You glance over. Her office door is still shut. But somehow you know she’s smirking behind it.

Griggs mutters, “I liked it better when I worked with people who weren’t clairvoyant.”

You clap him on the back. “Drink your coffee, old man.”

“I will. Then I’m filing for workplace ****.”

You scoop up the silver case Yvette left and head for the front door.

Houston’s a straight shot if you don’t run into roadblocks or raiders. Three hours there and three back.

Assuming nothing goes sideways.

Which it always does.

You exhale. “Okay. Let’s dance.”

10:04 AM — Somewhere past Bastrop

The highway unspools ahead of you in long, bleached strips. Asphalt cracked like an old knuckle. It’s empty this time of day. Just you and the occasional long-haul drone humming overhead, and the rattling symphony of the dying suspension system on the ancient Chevy Volt.

The case is resting under your seat in a secret compartment. No markings, no hint of what’s inside. Just that red tamper proof seal that reminds you of a blood blister.

You know you don’t ask questions. That’s the job. Curiosity killing cats and all that.

You should open it.

You should just pry the latch and see what made Yvette’s voice go soft when she handed it over. See what was worth three hours through collapsed roads and lawless ruins.

You grip the wheel a little tighter.

Fifty miles out from Houston, the infrastructure starts to dissolve. First it’s potholes. Then shoulder washouts. Then whole bridges marked “Closed Indefinitely” like grief announcements.

The air smells different down here. Salt, mold, and something vaguely electrical. Like ozone trapped in hurricane bones.

The clouds hang low. Thick and yellow-gray, the unpredictable weather combined with rampant pollution has done a number on the local vegetation, creating regular dust storms that are a hazard for anyone and anything caught in it.

You flick on the filter vents. They wheeze at you like they resent being born.

A sign rattles past on your left. The letters are barely legible anymore, but you catch enough.

NOW ENTERING ZONE: HOUSTON METRO

Beneath it, in spray paint:

“ABANDON HOPE. OR DON’T. NOBODY GIVES A SHIT.”

Sounds about right.

You tap the brakes as you round a bend where the road’s more gravel than anything else. A half-collapsed overpass looms ahead, and past it, silhouettes of skeletal buildings rise like burnt matchsticks. The remains of a city that was once one of the biggest port cities in the good ol' US of A.

You pass a group of people on the side of the road. Three kids and a woman with a tarp slung over her shoulder like a makeshift cloak. No signs. No begging. Just watching. Hollow eyes tracking your car like it might grow fangs or drop food.

You know enough not to stop or make eye contact, but you feel something stirring just beneath your ribs.

You want to ask if they’ve eaten. If they’ve heard anything about checkpoints up ahead. Wants to crack open the window and risk it.

But it's not the time. Quiet. Fast. Don’t draw attention. Don't draw fire.

You exhale through your nose and keep driving.

Behind you, the kids disappear in the mirror, swallowed back into the blur.

Ten minutes later, you cut down onto a back road past what used to be a school. The roof’s gone. The walls are mostly mold and sunbleached graffiti.

You mutter to yourself, “Okay, Houston. Be gentle.”

The road’s less a road now and more a suggestion. Pavement's broken, edges crumbling into dirt and sunbleached rebar. Grass grows through the cracks, but it’s the wrong color. Too yellow and too stubborn.

You steer around a burnt-out SUV half-submerged in a drainage ditch. Someone tagged it with a crude spray-painted warning:

“YOU FLASH LIGHTS, YOU GET SHOT.”

You make sure your lights are off. Not like you need them. It’s mid-morning and overcast, but still. Symbolic gestures matter out here.

The Volt complains over every bump. A wheeze from the suspension. Something in the trunk rattles like a loose tooth. You ignore it.

Then you see them.

Two shapes up ahead, off to the right. Sitting on the hood of a gutted pickup, engine block rusted straight through. One has a rifle across his lap and the other’s chewing on something. Meat, probably. Could be rat. Could be squirrel. Could be not either of those.

They’re watching you.

Just watching.

You slow down.

Not stop. That’s how people end up as a cautionary tale.

That familiar feeling stirs low in your gut. It's alert now. Focused. Not afraid, but coiled and ready.

You give the men a nod through the windshield. Friendly. Measured. Nonchalant.

The one with the rifle nods back.

The other one smiles. Too wide. You don’t like it.

Your foot hovers over the gas. You check the mirror. Nothing behind you but road and ruin. They don't have backup.

The rifle guy spits in the dirt. The smiler stands. He’s tall. Wearing a mismatched vest of old camo armor plates and what looks like a football pad duct-taped over one shoulder. Homemade gear. Looks like he's been playing a lot of video games based on his cosplay outfit. Amateur hour.

But amateurs get ****.

You crack the windows just enough to hear.

He cups a hand around his mouth. “Nice wheels, friend!”

You don’t stop.

“Got anything to trade?”

You ease around a pothole the size of a bathtub and keep moving.

“C’mon, man! Just wanna talk!”

You exhale slow. Don’t feed it.

You keep driving.

Behind you, one of them shouts something you don’t catch. The other one laughs like he just watched a cat get hit by a bus.

They don’t follow.

Doesn’t mean they won’t circle back later.

You press harder on the gas. Not fast. Fast draws attention, but steady. Purposeful.

You tighten your grip on the wheel and mutter under your breath, “Almost there.”

The rendezvous point is a house in a suburban neighborhood. Not a ruin. Not a shack. An actual house. Which is a rare find out here.

Paint’s faded, roof patched with corrugated tin, but the porch is intact and the fence out front has been recently repaired with mismatched boards and actual nails. There's a garden out back, or what passes for one. Mostly dirt and buckets. A cracked kiddie pool collecting rain.

You park a block away and walk the rest. They get a little squirrely if you drive up too close without giving them a chance to clock your gear.

You approach slow. Not casual, not stiff. Just normal, and knock once.

A camera whirs above the door. Old model. Still works.

You wait.

Then the door opens three inches. Just enough for the barrel of a shotgun to say hello.

“Delivery,” you say.

The door creaks open without a word and they let you in.

The inside smells like rust and mildew. Not a bad smell. Just lived-in. Every window’s covered with blankets. There’s a soft hum coming from a generator out back. Must be too overcast for the solar panels to work. A little luxury in a dead zone.

The man who waved you in doesn’t speak. He gestures toward a doorway, metal scanner set into the frame. You drop your bag, step through, arms out. The device chirps twice. No weapons and no bugs.

They still pat you down just to be sure. Hands brisk. Professional.

You’re led into what used to be a kid’s bedroom. Posters of cartoon dinosaurs peeling off the walls. A bookshelf with half a dozen broken toys stacked neatly on top. One window’s been converted into a gun port.

You sit on the edge of a plastic chair that used to be lime green.

And you wait.

Ten minutes pass. Maybe twelve.

Then the door opens.

You recognize the person who enters. You’ve seen him before. Twice at different drops. Never spoke, never shook hands.

You don't exchange pleasantries. You don’t know their name and they don’t know yours.

That’s the deal.

He nods once.

You return the gesture, set the silver case on the table and push it forward.

They check the seal to make sure it's intact.

You both wait another beat just to be sure.

Then he speaks. First time you’ve heard his voice. It’s low, tired. Like gravel soaked in black coffee.

“Don’t take 10 through Columbus on your way back.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Trouble?”

“Too many checkpoints. Too many faces asking questions. Belville’s safer.”

You nod. “Appreciate it.”

They say nothing else and neither do you.

You stand. Stretch. No handshake. No confirmation code. No pleasantries.

As you head back through the living room, the man at the door’s still watching through the peephole, he glances at you then wordlessly opens the door for you.

You step through, and don’t look back when it shuts behind you once again.

Outside, the sun’s slid behind a curtain of haze. You walk back to the car with your hands in your pockets and your shoulders loose.

You keep your eyes on the shadows for movement and see nothing.

You get in, start the engine, and mutter:

“Belville it is.”

You pull out, slow and smooth, heading west out of the destroyed city and head home.

1:39 PM — Just Outside Katy

You catch them in the rearview first.

Three figures in the car. Too far back to make out any details.

Dust kicks up behind them like someone’s chasing payday.

You keep driving with one eye on them.

They’re in a rust-colored SUV. One of those old crossover models with half the back window missing and something bolted to the roof that might’ve once been a luggage rack. Now it looks like a mounted rail with a tarp strung half-assed across it.

Could be scavengers. Could be regular folks just trying to get somewhere.

But that’s not the kind of gamble you make out here.

You ease the Volt a little faster. Not enough to spook them, just enough to make it clear you’ve got somewhere to be.

They match speed.

Of course they do.

The road dips, weaving through the gutted husks of what used to be a strip mall. Signs long since bleached blank by sun. Windows gone, nature creeping in through the tiles.

Plenty of blind corners. Lots of places to get boxed.

You take the next left. It's not your planned route. Belville’s still north, but now you’re threading through a neighborhood where the street signs are tagged over and the mailboxes are gone.

You check the mirror again.

They’re still back there. Hanging a little farther now.

Either they’re losing interest or they’re setting something up.

Your fingers tighten on the wheel. The Volt whines at you for pushing it harder than it likes.

That mounted rack with the tarp on the roof… could be just a sunshade.

Could also be something worse.

You take a hard right through a gravel path behind a row of dead fast food joints. Dips between two dumpsters, cuts through a drainage easement. You fishtail for a second, tires spitting dust, then correct.

You know this trick.

You double back behind them. Loop to the east, cut north again.

Mirror’s empty now.

Doesn’t mean they’re gone. Just means they don’t have eyes on you.

You wait another five miles before relaxing.

You reset your navigator and double check the maps. You took a lot of twists and turns but the few road signs that are still standing confirm you're on the right track.

Still got hours to go, but now your pulse is normal again.

You didn't get ambushed. Didn’t get shot. Didn’t get dragged into a ditch and stripped for parts.

That’s what counts.

You turn up the old stereo, let some washed-out country static hum through the cabin like a heartbeat. Something human to fill the quiet.

You keep driving in silence.