Foxface Maplesap's Arc

Chapter 7 of 7

Foxface pulled her charcoal and parchment from her pack, still catching her breath from the sprint. The gateway stood behind her, marking the boundary she'd crossed. Ahead, the dead zone stretched into the ruins—bare concrete and steel without a single red bloom. She started sketching the route they'd taken, marking the overpass and the camera positions, but her charcoal slowed when she checked the angles against the official path map she'd copied back at the grove. The boundary didn't match. Not by a few paces—by entire city blocks. The NOR City Path Map showed the dead zone ending three streets west, placing it squarely in a camera-monitored kill zone. Someone had charted this boundary deliberately wrong, ensuring anyone who followed the official routes would never reach safety. Foxface stared at both maps, her paws shaking. This wasn't a mistake. Someone wanted travelers to avoid this place. She tucked the maps away and moved deeper into the dead zone, following a clear path through the rubble. The silence felt wrong after days of listening for The Red's spreading crackle. An old gazebo appeared ahead, its wooden frame wrapped in green vines instead of fungus. Foxface approached slowly, then stopped. A weathered mattress lay inside, its surface pressed into a body-shaped indent. Cigarette butts scattered across the fabric, fresh enough that rain hadn't washed them away. Someone had been sleeping here. Recently. Foxface crouched beside the mattress, studying the way the vines grew around the gazebo in careful patterns—pruned, not wild. Whoever lived here had been tending this space, keeping it hidden and habitable inside a zone marked deadly on every official map. She pulled out her parchment again, hands steadier now, and began sketching the gazebo's position with precise measurements. If someone had falsified the dead zone's location to keep others away, then they'd found something worth protecting. And if they'd been watching from here, they'd seen her party cross the gateway. They knew she'd found their secret.