Lucien's dreams were formless. There was only darkness and the distant sound of moaning, which might have been walkers or might have come from his own subconscious. The magic drain had pulled him into a deep sleep, and he probably would have slept for hours longer if someone had not grabbed his shoulder and started shaking him.
"Lucien. Lucien! Wake up!"
He jerked awake, disoriented, his hand instinctively reaching for his wand before he remembered where he was.
Shane was looming over him.
"What..." Lucien sat up, rubbing his eyes. "What's wrong?"
Then he felt it. That warm sensation in his chest, the fullness that meant his magic had recovered while he slept. The hollow exhaustion from last night was gone.
At least something had gone right.
"We've got a problem." Shane jerked his head toward the window. "See for yourself."
Lucien scrambled off the sofa and moved to the grimy glass.
The walkers had come back.
There were far more of them this time. Yesterday, maybe twenty or thirty had wandered the building's perimeter, now there were dozens. Maybe a hundred. They packed the street in a dense, shuffling mass, filling every gap between abandoned cars, pressing against storefronts, wandering in aimless circles that somehow always brought them back to the office building.
"How..." Lucien's mouth went dry. "How did this happen?"
"Fucking car alarm." Shane's hands clenched into fists. "About half an hour ago. Some asshole over on the east block..." He pointed toward a cluster of buildings a few streets over. "... triggered a car alarm. It went off for maybe five minutes before it stopped. But by then..."
He gestured at the street below, where walkers continued to converge.
"Every walker in a six-block radius heard it and came running. Some dumbass was probably looting, set off the alarm, and then ran. They didn't give a shit that they were pulling every walker in the area straight to us."
Lucien watched the horde below. They were getting denser, pressing closer together as more arrived. Some were beating against the boarded-up windows of the ground floor. Others just wandered, but even their random movements seemed to keep them near the building, like moths circling a light they couldn't quite reach.
"We're trapped," Lucien said quietly.
"Yeah." Shane's laugh was bitter. "Yeah, we're fucking trapped."
He started pacing. Three steps one way, pivot, three steps back. The office was too small for the energy radiating off him.
Lucien had seen caged animals at the zoo once, in his previous life. Big cats that paced their enclosures with that same restless, desperate movement. Shane looked like that now.
"Three days," Shane muttered, more to himself than to Lucien. "We've been stuck in this goddamn building for three days. I really thought we'd get out today. I thought the herd would thin out, that we'd make a break for it and get to…"
He cut himself off.
"Get to where?" Lucien asked, even though he had a pretty good idea.
Shane stopped pacing and stood there with his back to Lucien.
"My people," he said finally. "They're out there somewhere. Rick... he's..." Shane's hands opened and closed at his sides. "He was in the hospital in a coma when everything went to shit. I had to get to Lori and Carl and keep them safe, like I promised I would."
Lucien stayed quiet and let Shane talk. This felt important. It felt like something the deputy needed to get out before it ate him alive from the inside.
"But we got trapped here instead." Shane turned around, and Lucien was startled by how lost he looked. "It's been three days. I don't know where they are. I don't even know if they're safe. And I don't even know if they're…"
He couldn't finish the sentence.
"I can't even keep you safe. There are a hundred walkers downstairs ready to break in the second our barricades fail, and we don't know how long the food will last... I keep thinking about all the things that could've happened. They were at home when I left. Did they stay there? Did they run? Are they trapped somewhere like we are, waiting for help that's not coming? Carl's twelve years old. And Lori... she's tough, but she's never had to deal with anything like this. What if they ran into walkers? What if they're hurt, or—"
"They're probably fine," Lucien interrupted.
It came out more blunt than he'd intended, but Shane's spiral was picking up speed and someone needed to stop it before the deputy worked himself into a complete breakdown.
Shane stared at him.
"I mean it." Lucien crossed the room until he was standing in front of Shane. He had to crane his neck to look up at the deputy, but he held eye contact. "You said your friend's wife is tough, yeah? And you were going to them when this started. They probably did the same thing. They went looking for you or went somewhere safe. The world's gone to hell, but it's only been three days. People are still alive."
"You don't know that."
"No," Lucien admitted. "But you don't know they're not. Sitting here imagining the worst isn't helping anyone. You're not the type to give up, right? And if you're that determined to get to them, then you will. People like you don't just quit."
Shane let out a long breath. Some of the manic energy drained out of him, leaving him looking just tired.
"When did you get so smart?" he asked, attempting a smile that didn't quite work.
"I've always been brilliant," Lucien said with a straight face. "You just weren't paying attention."
That got a real laugh out of Shane.
"You're right. Panicking doesn't help. I hate feeling useless."
"You're not useless," Lucien said. "You saved my life. You're keeping us both alive."
Shane looked at him for a moment. "You're a good kid, Lucien. Your parents would've been proud of you."
The words hit harder than Lucien expected. He had to look away.
"Thanks," he managed.
An awkward silence fell. Shane seemed to realize he'd touched a nerve and cleared his throat.
"I'm gonna check the barricades and make sure everything's still secure."
He moved toward the door, paused with his hand on the knob, and looked back.
"Thanks."
Then he was gone, leaving Lucien alone in the office.
---
Lucien stood there for a moment.
He felt bad for Shane. The guy was clearly tearing himself apart over Rick's family, and being trapped here was making it worse with every hour that passed.
But sympathy aside, this situation was getting dangerous.
Not just the walkers, though they were definitely a problem. But Shane was cracking. Lucien had seen it in his eyes. The deputy was holding it together, but barely. One more setback, and he might do something desperate.
And desperate people made stupid decisions.
He needed to get out of here. Supplies, weapons, and a real plan for survival were necessary, especially if he was going to stop relying on an increasingly unstable cop.
With the Invisibility Cloak, he could move through the city unseen. But he couldn't just leave. For one thing, Shane would try to stop him. He would never let a kid wander out into a walker-infested city alone. For another, he wasn't that callous. He did care about Shane, as much as his pragmatic survival instincts tried to suppress that.
If he was going to separate from Shane, it needed to be for a good reason. Something that helped both of them.
His mind started working through the problem.
Variables:
1. They were trapped by walkers
2. Shane needed to get to Rick's family
3. He needed freedom to operate independently
3. They both needed supplies
5. The walkers weren't leaving on their own
Therefore, what they needed was a distraction. Something to draw the walkers away from the building, clear a path for escape.
But how? Noise had brought them here. More noise might pull them somewhere else. But creating noise would require someone going out there, putting themselves at risk...
Wait.
His eyes widened as the pieces clicked together.
Someone with the Invisibility Cloak could move through the walker horde without being detected. They could reach one of the cars on the street, trigger the alarm from a safe distance, and draw the walkers away from the building.
Then Shane could escape and get to Lori and Carl.
They'd both get what they needed.
The plan formed in his head. It was risky. But it was also achievable. And it gave him the freedom he needed while also helping Shane.
Best of both worlds.
The only problem was the cloak itself. He couldn't let Shane know about it. Once he saw what it could do, he'd have questions. Questions about how it worked, where it came from, and why Lucien hadn't mentioned it before.
Questions that would lead back to magic.
And that was a secret Lucien could not reveal, right?
So he'd have to be careful.
It would work. It had to work.
Because staying here was not an option. And he had never been good at waiting for someone else to save him.
He looked toward the door Shane had left through, then at his trunk in the corner where the Invisibility Cloak lay hidden.
Tomorrow, he'd set them both free.