They can kill us, even down to the last of us, but they can’t kill—can never kill—what lasts in us.

Cassie, do you want to fly?

Yes, Daddy. I want to fly.

12

THE SILVER HIGHWAY that faded into the black. The black seared by starlight unleashed. The leafless trees with arms upraised like thieves caught in the act. My brother’s breath congealing in the frigid air as he slept. The window fogging as I breathed. And, beyond the frosty glass, beside the silver highway in the searing starlight, a tiny figure darting beneath the upraised arms of the trees.

Oh, crap.

I launched across the room and smashed into the hall, where Poundcake whipped around, rifle up, Relax, big boy, then busted into Ben’s room, where Dumbo leaned against the windowsill and Ben sprawled on the bed closest to the door. Dumbo stood up. Ben sat up. And I spoke up: “Where’s Teacup?”

Dumbo pointed at the bed next to Ben’s. “Right here.” Giving me a look like This crazy chick’s lost it.

I went to the bed and whipped aside the mound of covers. Ben cursed and Dumbo backed up against the wall, his face turning red.

“I swear to God she was just there!”

“I saw her,” I told Ben. “Outside—”

“Outside?” He rolled his legs off the side of the bed, grunting with the effort.

“On the highway.”

Then he understood. “Ringer. She’s going after Ringer.” He slapped his open hand on the mattress. “Damn it!”

“I’ll go,” Dumbo said.

Ben held up his hand. “Poundcake!” he hollered. You could hear the big kid coming. The floor protested his passage. He stuck his head in the room, and Ben said, “Teacup took off. After Ringer. Go grab her little butt and bring it back here so I can whale on it.”

Poundcake lumbered off and the floor went Thanks a lot!

Ben was strapping on his holster. “What are you doing?” I asked.

“Taking Poundcake’s post until he gets back with that little shit. You stay with Nugget. I mean, Sam. Whoever. We need to pick one name and stick to it.”

His fingers were shaking. Fever. Fear. A little of both.

Dumbo’s mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out. Ben noticed. “At ease, Bo. Not your bad.”

“I’ll take the hall,” Dumbo said. “You stay here, Sarge. You shouldn’t be on your feet.”

He rushed from the room before Ben could stop him. Ben, now looking at me with sparkly eyes, fever bright. “I don’t think I told you,” he said. “After we went rogue in Dayton, Vosch dispatched two squads to hunt us down. If they were still in the field when the camp blew . . .”

He didn’t finish the thought. Either he thought he didn’t need to or he couldn’t. He stood up. Staggered. I went to him and he threw his arm around my shoulders without embarrassment. There’s no nice way to say this: Ben Parish smelled sick. The sour odor of infection and old sweat. For the first time since I realized he wasn’t a corpse, I thought he might be one soon.

“Get back in bed,” I told him. He shook his head, then his hand loosed on my shoulder and he fell back, hitting the edge of the mattress with his butt and sliding down to the floor.

“Dizzy,” he murmured. “Go get Nugget and bring him in here with us.”

“Sam. Can we go with Sam?” Whenever I heard Nugget, I thought of the McDonald’s drive-thru and hot French fries and strawberry-banana smoothies and McCafé Frappé Mochas topped with whipped cream and drizzled with chocolate.

Ben smiled. And it broke my heart, that luminous smile on that wasted face. “We’ll go with it,” he said.

Sam barely sighed when I pulled him from the bed and carried him into Ben’s room. I laid him in Teacup’s vacated bed, tucked him in, touched his cheek with the back of my hand, an old habit left over from the plague days. Ben was still sitting on the floor, head thrown back, staring at the ceiling. I started toward him, and he waved me back.

“Window,” he gasped. “Now we’re blind on one side. Thanks a lot, Teacup.”

“Why would she take off like—?”

“Ever since Dayton, she’s been latched on to Ringer like a pilot fish.”

“All I ever saw them do is fight.” Thinking of the chess brawl, the coin smacking Teacup in the head, and I hate your fucking guts!

Ben chuckled. “It’s a thin line.”

I glanced down at the parking lot. The asphalt shone like onyx. Latched on to her like a pilot fish. I thought of Evan lurking behind doors and around corners. I thought of the unblemished thing, the thing that lasts, and I thought the only thing with the power to save us also had the power to slay us.

“You really shouldn’t be on the floor like that,” I scolded him. “It’s warmer up on the bed.”

“A half of a half of a half of a degree, right. This is nothing, Sullivan. A head cold next to the plague.”

“You had the plague?”

“Oh, yeah. Refugee camp outside Wright-Patterson. After they took over the base, they hauled me in, pumped me full of antivirals, then put a rifle in my hand and told me to go kill some people. How about you?”

A crucifix clutched in a bloody hand. You can either finish me or help me. The soldier behind the beer coolers was the first. No. The first was the guy who shot Crisco in a pit of ashes. That’s two, and then there were the Silencers, the one I shot right before I found Sam and the one right before Evan found me. Four, then. Was I missing somebody? The bodies pile up and you lose track. Oh God, you lose track.

“I’ve killed people,” I said softly.

“I meant the plague.”

“No. My mom . . .”

“How about your dad?”

“Different kind of plague,” I said. He glanced over his shoulder at me. “Vosch. Vosch murdered him.”

I told him about Camp Ashpit. The Humvees and big flatbed full of troops. The surreal appearance of the school buses. Just the kids. Room only for the little ones. The gathering of the rest in the barracks and Dad sending me with my first victim to find Crisco. Then Dad in the dirt, Vosch towering over him, while I hid in the woods, and Dad mouthing Run.

“Weird that they didn’t put you on a bus,” Ben said. “If the point was to build an army of brainwashed kids.”

“I saw mostly little kids, Sam’s age, some even younger.”

“At camp, they separated anyone under five, kept them in the bunker . . .”

I nodded. “I found them.” In the safe room, their faces lifted up to mine as I hunted for Sam.

“Which makes you wonder: Why keep them?” Ben said. “Unless Vosch expects a very long war.” The way he said it, as if he doubted that that was the reason. He drummed his fingers on the mattress. “What the hell is going on with Teacup? They should be back by now.”

“I’ll go check,” I said.

“Like hell you will. This is turning into every horror movie ever made. You know? Getting picked off one by one. Uh-uh. Five more minutes.”

We fell silent, listening. But there was only the wind whispering in the poorly sealed window and the constant undercurrent of rats scratching in the walls. Teacup was obsessed with them. I listened to hours of her and Ringer plotting their demise. That annoying lecturing tone of Ringer’s, explaining how the population was out of control: The hotel had more rats than we had bullets.

“Rats,” Ben said, as if he read my mind. “Rats, rats, rats. Hundreds of rats. Thousands of rats. More rats than us now. Planet of the rats.” He laughed hoarsely. Maybe he was delirious. “You know what’s been bugging the hell out of me? Vosch telling us they’ve been watching us for centuries. Like, how is that possible? Oh, I get how it’s possible, but I don’t get why they didn’t attack us then. How many people were on Earth when we built the pyramids? Why would you wait until there’re seven billion of us spread out over every continent with technology a little more advanced than spears and clubs? You like a challenge? The time to exterminate the vermin in your new house isn’t after the vermin outnumber you. What about Evan? He say anything about that?”