Pike plunked a can of sugar-laden cold coffee down on the counter as Lauren dragged a needle and thread through Bayler’s throat, trying to stitch together thoroughly mangled flesh. “It would be easier if we just cut some away, got a clean edge to work with…”

Bayler flicked his hand in the negative. No losing any more skin than he’d already given up.

“You’d better get a real tight stitch on that, or he’s going to spill that coffee right back up.” Pike giggled, moving constantly at the edge of the conversation. Bayler already disliked the man; he was just visibly off in some vital way, always pacing, moving from one window to the next to peer out into the half-light.

Sun was rare now that the barriers had blocked off the horizons. Only a few hours of noonlight, when it was directly overhead, lit up the sinking remains of the city.

As he came back to the table, Bayler reached his hand out and turned it over to show the tattooed design on the forearm. Grasping his meaning, Pike licked his lips and set his arm down alongside Bayler’s to compare their Epitaphs.

On Pike’s arm was the word Steadfast. “This means I see everything that goes on in my house, my little territory. Everything. And I got a second one, one that says while you’re here, you can’t lie. Flat out can’t lie to me no matter how you try. So, once she gets your neck back to working, we’re gonna chat.”

For his part, Bayler just pointed to his torn-out throat and shrugged. Still alive.

“Yeah well, you win I guess.” Pike grumbled, popping open another can. He didn’t seem to go two minutes without slurping down more coffee. “How’d you get two, anyway?”

Again, Bayler shrugged.

Lauren slapped him on the shoulders. “Cut that out and hold still. You two can measure up once I’m done.” The needle pricked into him again, wriggling through his skin, and his arms tensed against the rests of his chair as he fought to be still.

It had never been his specialty.

In the background, Cayden groaned. They’d tied him up on the couch, holding him down as he thrashed and writhed in pain, his face slick with sweat. Something was wrong with him worse than the pills they shoveled down his throat could hope to fix.

Tomorrow, Bayler planned to ask the spider how to help him. One question out of three was a small enough price to save one of the only three humans he’d met. And of those, he only liked two.

“Done.” Lauren declared, cinching the last stitch tight.

“So…” Pike said, the moment she’d pulled the needle out of him. “Why are you modeling the zombie look, buddy?”

“Coma. A long, long coma..” His voice was an awful croak. Finally, he sounded like he looked, a thing that had dragged itself out of the grave. “My brother put me there.”

“I hadn’t seen him for years. Hadn’t been to the States for years. I saved up, bought a sailboat, bummed around the coast of Europe. When the Golds took over, I just fell into the riots by acquaintance. Ended up being a smuggler for a bit when Greece was on embargo.”

He had to put the pieces of his memory back together as he spoke, pausing often, working his tongue over his teeth. Recollection came in pieces, a flash of a pub conversation, or an image of the waves rushing up at the side of his boat.

But more often than not, he simply came to a blank spot. Bits of his life were simply gone.

“I came back because my brother got involved in a cult.” Cults, radical fringe groups, the world was on fire and people were being pushed to the wild edges of society. “Drugged up, waiting for the apocalypse. He must be having a ball now if he’s still alive.”

Either way, he was dead to Bayler.

Or- No, no that was a lie. He rubbed the scar on his forehead, still there after all these years. The honest truth was, no matter how bad Joseph fucked up, Bayler would be there for him in a heartbeat if the stupid idiot could just bring himself to ask for help.

Even after-

“Joseph called me, asking for help. I went halfway across the world, snuck in, got him- didn’t get out. He turned on me the moment they caught us. Helped them kick the shit out of me. All I really saw was the underside of their boots but he was in there.”

There was an ugly air in the room when he finished, an awkward silence. At first Bayler thought they just felt awkward hearing his shitty family drama so casually aired out. But as seconds ticked by, and the odds of it being something that small dwindled away, a hard knot of worry formed in his guts.

“Spit out.” He growled.

Even Pike, who had about as much manners as the average cockroach, couldn’t quite come at the issue straight on. “So uh, you said his name was Joseph. Joseph Shrike?”

“Yeah?”

“Woooo.” Pike whistled, shaking his head.

“Will somebody tell me what my brother did.” The hard edge of tension in his voice made them both flinch, as he gripped the table so hard his knuckles turned white.

“Uhm, Bayler, your brother-” Lauren was staring at him.

“Goddamnit.” His face sunk into his hands.

“Killed people. He killed a lot of people. The cult you were talking about, it was the Followers of the World, right?” She said, watching him carefully, in the way a doctor watches a patient they’re about to deliver a lethal prognosis. “They let loose a drug-resistant virus in Brazil. They- Your brother took credit personally. It got most of the country. The whole Amazon is a death zone for humans now.”

She was tearing up, but Bayler just looked blank. His mind bluntly refused to accept what she was saying as anything more than words, as anything that had actually happened. He could accept the world was dying. He refused to believe his brother was a killer even if he knew - he knew - Lauren wasn’t lying to him.

Moving slowly under the weight of the news, he stood up from the table.

“I’m going to go kill some monsters. Pike?”

“Yeah, yeah I’m right there with you. Wish I had a beer for you.”