“It’s her aunt, she’s frozen.”

   Disappointment and hurt for Jenna filled me, but there was also something else. Something that nagged at the back of my mind for a brief moment, something was wrong. I buried the niggling doubt beneath the returning hope that what I held was good news. There was always something wrong now. “She needs to see this.”

   Bret nodded as he turned away from me. He moved slowly back to the bedroom, looking hesitant as he stepped through the doorway and spoke softly with Jenna. Lloyd had crept up the stairs, only making a sound as he stepped off the last step and into the landing behind me. I lifted the note for him to see, but he didn’t ask any questions, and I didn’t offer any information as Jenna emerged from the room. She looked broken, drawn. Her eyes were red rimmed, her face streaked with the tears that had slipped down her pale cheeks.

   I held my breath as I handed the note out to her. It has to be good news, it has to be good news, I prayed silently. I twisted my hands eagerly before me hoping that the note held something that would help ease the broken look on her face. Jenna frowned at me but slipped the now crumpled paper from my grasp. She pulled it open, her eyes widening as she spotted her name, and the words.

   “It’s from my mom,” she breathed.

   I inhaled a shaky breath, fighting back the sudden rush of tears that sprang to my eyes. Hope tore through me, happiness and relief filled me as Jenna’s face lit with pure joy and her bright green eyes shone with tears of happiness this time. “They’re alive, they bothare. Or at least they were a week ago. She says they waited a week for me, but there were other survivors moving through and they realized they had to move also. They are heading into Boston, in hopes that there will be more survivors and protection there. She’s not sure exactly where they will be. No matter what, as long as one of them is still alive, they will leave me a note either at my grandmother’s house, the science museum, Paul Revere’s house, or in a mailbox at a home on Beacon hill. She says they love me and miss me. There are tear marks on the paper.”

   Jenna was also crying by the time she was done giving us the details of the note. I didn’t think she realized this though as she was smiling radiantly and didn’t wipe the tears from her face. “Why so many places?” Bret asked softly.

   “In case one or all of the others are destroyed,” Lloyd answered. “Or in case they don’t make it near any of the others.”

   “They will go to my grandmother’s, no matter what,” Jenna insisted.

   “But there is no guarantee your grandmother’s house will still be standing.”

   Though the words were harsh and clipped, Jenna didn’t flinch from the truth of them. I felt she was too happy to acknowledge the pain those words would have normally inflicted. “It’s ok, they’re alive,” she breathed. “I will find them, no matter what, and that is all that matters.”

   I nodded my agreement. She had come this far, her parents had come this far, I firmly believed they would be reunited again, and I was going to do everything I could to make that happen. “I should have left a note,” Bret mumbled.

   I rested my hand on his arm, squeezing it gently. “You couldn’t have known that your mother probably wasn’t affected.”

   “I still should have done it; I just assumed that we would be able to get back…”

   His voice trailed off, his strong jaw clenched as he turned away from me. I could sense his anguish, his frustration, even though he was trying to keep it buried. “There are plenty of us that wish we could have done things differently, unfortunately there is no changing the past. We have each other, we have our lives, and we need to keep moving forward,” Lloyd said briskly.

   I didn’t ask what had happened to his family; he probably didn’t know and none of us liked to be reminded of the loved ones we’d lost. “There’s always hope,” I whispered, briefly recalling my dream of Cade earlier.

   Bret’s forest colored, beautiful green eyes came slowly back to me. For one brief, highly alarming moment, I saw only despair in a gaze that had always been so full of wonder and joy. And then, much to my relief, he managed a small smile and squeezed my hand tightly. “Yes, there is.”

   I realized too late that he might have taken my words the wrong way. That he may think that I meant hope for him and I again, when that was the last thing in the world I’d meant. I glanced at Jenna, not wanting her to think I had changed my mind about Bret. We’d just become tenuous friends, I didn’t want to ruin that, but she was still staring in wonder at the paper in her hands. I jumped slightly when Bret’s thumb stroked over my hand.

   “Your parents may still be out there, there is a chance you will see them again,” I elaborated, gently pulling my hand away from Bret’s. “At least we know there were other survivors that moved through this town.”

   “And we had better get moving too,” Lloyd said. “If we want to try and get to the hospital before sunset.”

   “Just let me say goodbye to my aunt,” Jenna said, spinning swiftly on her heel.

   “Who?” Lloyd asked in surprise.

   “Her aunt. She’s frozen,” I explained.

   Lloyd’s eyes widened, his mouth dropped as he gaped at me. “ Whatis she!?” he demanded sharply.

   I glanced nervously at Bret, thinking that Lloyd had flipped, that perhaps something in his mind had snapped. Lloyd knew about the frozen people, we had done nothing but encounter them for the past month. Hell, they had been nearly impossible to avoid, in the beginning, if we moved further than five feet at a time. How could Lloyd possibly have forgotten about that, and why was he looking at me as if he was about to strangle the life from me?

   I took a frightened step back. I had become more competent with weapons, and fighting over the past few weeks, but I sure as hell didn’t want to take on a man that was highly trained by the army for at least a year. “ Whatis she!?” Lloyd demanded again, but this time his voice was low and gravelly.

   “She’s frozen, you know one of the frozen people,” Bret said slowly obviously as weary about Lloyd’s strange reaction as I was.

   Lloyd let loose with a flurry of curses that would have caused even the most hardened truck driver to blush. They sure as hell made me gape, and even question what a few of the things he said meant. “We need to go!” he declared sharply at the end.

   “We’re going in a moment,” Bret told him.

   “No! Now! We need to go now!”

   Lloyd shoved roughly past me, he stormed down the hall at a rapid pace that left Bret and I staring after him in disbelief. “What the hell was that?” I whispered.

   “No idea,” Bret responded, shaking his head slowly. “Let’s hope our trained killer hasn’t flipped his lid though.”

   “Bret…”

   My words were cut off as Jenna began to protest vehemently from the bedroom. Lloyd ignored her protests as he pulled her forcefully from the room. His hand was wrapped firmly around her upper arm as he began to drag her down the hall toward us. “Move out!” he snapped.

   “Lloyd what is going on?” I demanded. I was unwilling to go anywhere with him until I knew where his sudden, and seemingly irrational, fear had come from.

   “We can talk as we move. Now move!”

   I turned and hurried down the hall, more frightened by the look in his eyes than by his behavior. He was speaking like he was angry, like he was on the verge of snapping completely, but there was pure terror blazing from his eyes. I fled down the stairs, Lloyd’s fear propelling me rapidly forward. Bret followed close behind and Jenna had stopped protesting by the time I reached the bottom floor.

   I rushed into the kitchen, realizing only belatedly that I had been too distracted by the note to check inside the fridge. I didn’t think there was much hope for anything in there, but it was worth a peek. I flung the door open and froze. The power hadn’t gone out in this area of town so some of the food had managed to stay good, but there was green ooze seeping from the crisper and an awful smell assaulted me. There were also two boxes of Cheerios, one of Special K, and a Raisin bran sitting on the shelf amongst the mess. In front of them was a post-it that read Jenna.