“He knows,” I pant.
“Knows what?” Delaney says.
“That we came from the silo.”
“What? How?”
“There’s an exit to the garage on the north side,” Chase says.
North. I glance at the window as I run past a room. See the set of doors at the end of the hall. Seize the edge of a rolling tray serving as part of a tarp shelter and knock it to the floor behind me. Same thing with a metal chair. One of the guys goes down. Someone screams. I don’t know who, am too busy tearing off a tarp, throwing a crate of knickknacks—anything I can reach—down in my wake.
I get to the doors, fumble with the lock as one of the guys grabs my hair.
My head snaps back.
“You ain’t leavin’ yet,” Vin says.
I step back to keep from falling. Pivot round, nearly going to a knee.
Ram my fist into his groin.
A second later, I’m running past an elevator.
A metallic thud sounds down the corridor like someone banging an aluminum bat against a wall.
“Is that you?” I say, breathing hard.
“Yes. Keep coming,” Chase says, striking faster.
I reach a set of double doors. See Chase through one of the small windows, Otto behind him, sketchbook under his arm. I unlatch the door to the right and shove it open.
Chase slams it closed behind me and rams a lug wrench through the handles.
“Where’d you get that?” I say. He nods toward a nearby car—an old silver Honda with a broken driver’s side window. It’s one of at least twenty cars on this level. Our packs and the gas can sit beside it.
Movement through the window. Vin and the doctor running toward the doors.
“Come on,” Chase says.
He goes to the Honda, loads the gas can in the trunk. The doors of the medical center rattle behind us.
Otto points to himself and then the front seat.
“Sure,” I say, grabbing our packs and climbing in back. The upholstery smells like mold and fast food. And sure enough, there’s a shriveled french fry on the floor.
Only then do I notice there’s a screwdriver protruding from the ignition. Chase turns the handle. The car starts.
“North Platte?” he says.
“Yeah.”
We head to the garage exits, one of which is blocked by a truck with its hood up. As we pass through the second, I notice a figure bent over the engine. A man.
He lifts his head as we drive past. Blood running down his chin, a hose in his mouth.
“Was he—” I stop.
“Eating car parts?” Chase says weirdly.
“So, guys,” Delaney says. “Preston’s calling a meeting to decide what to do.”
“What to do?” I say.
“We can’t stay here. Not if people think we have supplies. Better to take them with us than get killed for them.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, pulling off my gloves and rubbing my eyes. “This is my fault.”
“No, it’s not,” she says, sounding tired. “No one wants to see Julie die. But you’re going to have to figure out what to do when you get back. How you’re going to move her, where you’ll go.”
“We can’t,” I say. “Not till she’s better.”
But even as I say it I realize she won’t be better for days. Maybe longer.
“I don’t think you’ll have a choice,” she says. “A few of them are talking about heading out tonight.”
“Tonight? Where are they going to go? There’s no cars in Gurley, at least that we saw.”
“Karam’s organizing a search party to some nearby farms. To look for vehicles since we still have fuel. A few others are planning to walk to Dalton.”
But if Karam goes . . . “Rima isn’t leaving, though—is she? She can’t!”
“No. I don’t think so.”
“Tell them not to do anything till we get back,” I say. “The doctor at the med center only now figured it out. There’s no way any of them are going to get there until—” I try to calculate, but my brain isn’t working right. “At least five hours—six. Assuming they know where the Peterson place is. You’ve got enough people to patrol it and weapons to defend it. Even without electricity there’s no reason to leave yet.”
“There’s something else,” she says.
“What?” I snap.
“Ezra’s sick.”
I look blankly around me in the backseat. “Sick . . . ”
“He has it. Sha’Neal’s beside herself.”
“How’s that even possible?” Chase says.
But then I know. The crash site. The pilot’s blood was all over it at one point.
My hands go cold.
Ezra was in the infirmary.
“Where is he now?” I ask. “Where are the girls? You have to move them. You have to tell them not to touch—”
“Rima quarantined his bay and moved Julie to the women’s dorm. The girls are with her upstairs. They’re moving all the medical supplies upstairs.” Delaney hesitates a moment and says, “They’re talking about leaving him.”
“How? Locked in the infirmary?” Chase says.
“With a gun.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose. “Tell them not to do anything until—actually, let me talk to Preston.”
“Hold on.”
A hundred and twenty miles. Nearly two hours to get to North Platte. That’s four hours total, assuming we find the VNA quickly. A half hour to find and get to the VNA, then. Four and a half hours—and that’s with a car.
“What kind of gas mileage does a car like this get?” I ask.
“Thirty, thirty-five miles per gallon, maybe?” Chase says.
I run through the math, head spinning. It’s a five-gallon can. It looked full when we left. A hundred and twenty miles at thirty-five miles per gallon is 3.4 gallons—call it 3.5, margin of error.
“That leaves us a gallon and a half for the trip back.” Which won’t get us even halfway back to Sidney—not to mention the fourteen miles from there to the silo.
I fight down a wave of panic. Where are we going to find two more gallons of gas? It was hard enough to find fuel six months ago. Anything with gas in it will have been scavenged by now.
“Hey,” Preston says.
“Preston, tell everyone to hang tight till we get back. Okay?”
“That’s going to be hard. People are afraid of getting sick. None of us locked ourselves underground for six months just to catch the disease the day after the door opened.”
“Where are they going to go?”
“A few of them are talking about setting up camp on the river, where they can at least put out throw lines for fish, or Lake McConaughy. Others want to go north, to Canada.”
“They have a much better chance of getting sick anywhere there’s people,” I say. “And of getting shot by Canadian border patrol.”
“I’m just telling you what’s being said.”
“Well tell them what I said!”
“I will. But I can’t guarantee none of them will leave after we finish burying Piper and Jax. You want us to put your name on one of the markers? I don’t know if it would help, but we can. Chase, too. After all, there’s two bodies, male and female.”
I shudder.
“What I want is to know who’s going to stay with the girls till we get back!” I yell. “It can’t be Rima. She’s been around Ezra.” I feel bad saying it but can’t afford to be diplomatic.
“Rima quarantined herself just in case. They’re with Sabine right now, keeping Evie occupied so she can pack.”
“What if Sabine leaves before I’m back?” I say, on the verge of hysteria.
“How long do you think you’ll be?”
Four and a half hours. An hour to find gas. We have no other option. “We should be back tonight. By morning at the latest.”
“Worst-case scenario we don’t find any fuel and have to get creative,” Chase says.
“So, what—two days, tops?” Preston says.
If we’re not back in two days Julie will be dead and this will have all been pointless.
“Two days, tops.”
“Okay, I’m sorry to ask this, but if you’re not back by then and everyone’s leaving . . . do you want the girls to stay behind and wait for you? Because Nelise and Irwin said they’d be willing to take them.”
My first reaction is to say no. No way.
But what if something does happen to us?
Truly’s six and Lauren doesn’t know how to defend herself, let alone another person. Nelise knows how to handle a weapon and make anything grow, and Irwin can make anything run.
I feel ill.
I would’ve wanted them to be with Rima and Karam, but she won’t even know in two days if she’s infected or not.
“Where are they going?” I ask, throat dry.
“They were talking about heading south. That’s all I know.”
They could disappear with the girls and I might never see either one of them again.
I cover my face. Draw a shaky breath.
“If we’re not back by this time in two days . . . tell them to take the girls and go.”
“Okay,” Preston says. “I’ll relay the—”
Static on the other end.
“Hello? Preston?”
No answer.
“Delaney?” I wonder if she leaned up against something and pressed her button, inadvertently taking over the channel. I reach back to check the unit on my belt, in case it’s me.
“Chase, can you check that you’re not pushing your button?”
“It’s not the button,” he says, reaching back to unhook the unit. He lays it on the weathered console followed by his headset.
“Delaney! Preston. Hello?”
“Wynter, we’re out of range.”
I panic. “I didn’t get to say good-bye! Chase, turn around. I didn’t say good-bye to Truly or Lauren.”
He pulls into the next crossover and makes a U-turn. And then we’re accelerating back toward Sidney. The wrong way.
“Hello?” I say. I wait a few seconds. There—I recognize those grain bins in the distance, had been staring at them as Preston said he’d relay the message.
“Preston. Delaney.”
Chase glances at me in the rearview mirror.
“What?”
“We can’t afford to burn any more gas if we want to get there. Or time if we want to get back.”
I close my eyes.
“If you can hear me,” I say softly, touching the button. “Tell the girls I love them.”
• • •
I DOZE OFF recalculating gas mileage. For thirty-one miles per gallon. Thirty-eight. Forty. Until the numbers run together, the answer is always the same:
Not enough.