Jules and I stuck to the plan.

  And by "the plan," I mean the part where we sneak through abandoned Cleveland like a pair of budget-tier burglars cracking wise while looting the apocalypse.

  Our first stop was a local bookstore. The glass door had long since been shattered, and the smell of wet paper and mildew hit us like a truck. It was paradise.

  “Well,” I said, stepping over a fallen “Employee Picks” shelf, “guess it’s finally time to read War and Peace.”

  Jules snorted. “Only if you read it out loud. Every night. Until Gail kills you.”

  I flipped through a battered engineering textbook. “Alex will love this. Might even stop zapping Gail in his sleep.”

  “Where’s the fun in that?” she murmured, pulling down a botany guide. “Think Harun could be convinced to grow potatoes?”

  “Only if we promise him he can name them.”

  By the end of the bookstore raid, our packs were stuffed: Engineering books for Jules and Alex, a stack of botany guides, two gun manuals (Gail would kiss us if he knew how), and five different cookbooks, one of which was titled Apocalypse Soufflé (it's weird that there's a lot of apocalypse-themed help books, not just cookbooks)

  I also slipped a joke book into my pack when Jules wasn’t looking. Then I saw a second one peeking out of hers.

  “Is that a-”

  “Nope,” she said, too fast.

  We didn’t talk about it.

  ---

  Our next stop was a strip of nearby stores. Clothing store first, most of it ransacked, but Jules found a decent leather jacket that somehow made her look cooler and more intimidating.

  Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.

  “You sure it’s not cursed?” I asked.

  “Only one way to find out,” she said, zipping it up. “Stand still.” And pointing her gun at me, not firing, of course. Didn't stop me from shaking hard.

  Hardware store gave us batteries, some tools, and a screwdriver I named "Stabby." I got attached too quickly.

  Then a tech store. Mostly useless, but we did find some solar-powered chargers and a decent radio.

  Groceries were trickier, most canned goods were gone, but we managed to grab rice, instant noodles, a box of mysterious freeze-dried meals, and enough canned beans to destroy Harun’s social life for a week.

  “I don’t think these are still good,” Jules muttered, poking a can that hissed when touched.

  “We’re stealing joke books from the end of civilization. Let’s not get picky.”

  We ended the run by siphoning gas from abandoned cars. We avoided the ones that set off alarms, harder than you'd think, considering some alarms still worked after the world ended. Go figure.

  By the time we looped back to the Peachmobile, the sun was heading down and the Peach glowed like a victorious warhorse in a Lisa Frank dream.

  Alex and Gail were already back, loading up their haul. She was smiling, poking his arm playfully. Gail, to his credit, didn’t look like he wanted to die. He just stood there like a mildly grumpy tree while she apologized for electrocuting him.

  “You shocked him again?” I asked.

  “It was a small zap,” she said. “You’d survive it. Probably. Wanna try?"

  "Hell no."

  Gail nodded like this was just the price of love.

  We tossed our haul in the back, climbed inside, and took off toward home, the Peachmobile wheezing and rattling down the cracked road.

  “We did good,” Jules said beside me, quietly.

  “Yeah,” I said. “We did.”

  And for a minute, it felt like we weren’t just surviving.

  We were living.

  ---

  When we got back to The Fortress, the scent hit us before the door even finished creaking open.

  “Oh my god,” Alex whispered. “Is that…?”

  “I think I’m crying,” I said, blinking rapidly.

  We all marched in like a group of starving orphans who’d just smelled bakery bread for the first time. And there, in the kitchen—apron on, ladle in hand, halo of steam surrounding him like he was sent from the heavens, stood Harun.

  “Dinner,” he said with a proud grin. “Spaghetti and meatballs.”

  “Did you rob an Olive Garden?” Jules asked, stunned.

  Harun chuckled. “No. I raided our supplies.”

  He served it up like he was auditioning for MasterChef: pasta boiled perfectly, miracle one. Sauce thick and rich despite being made from tomato soup, miracle two. The “meatballs” were suspiciously shaped, and we later learned they were crafted from a combination of canned corned beef, canned corned chicken, some oats to bind it all, and Harun’s unwavering optimism.

  It was incredible.

  Not “we’re-in-the-apocalypse-and-anything-warm-tastes-good” incredible. No. This was actually good. Like, “Alex moaned and nearly dropped her fork” good.

  “I want to marry this plate,” she muttered, mouth full.

  Gail just grunted in approval, which for him was the equivalent of a standing ovation.

  “Harun,” I said after two helpings and contemplating a third, “you’re a genius.”

  “Thank you. I followed four different recipe books and ignored most of what they said.”

  “That’s the most you thing you could’ve done,” Jules said, raising her fork in salute.

  He beamed.

  ---

  After dinner, we all just… existed. Stomachs full, for once. Safe, for now. Joking, groaning about food babies, and arguing about who had the best haul today. The kind of evening we hadn’t had in weeks. Maybe longer.

  Tomorrow, it’d be back to training, scavenging, planning, and surviving.

  But tonight?

  Tonight was pasta, laughter, and the best damn meatballs this side of the end of the world.