9

THERE’S HAIR IN MY FACE.

I take a halting breath, and it goes in my mouth, tasting of lavender. I spit it out. My hands and feet burn, and I can’t tell if I’m able to wiggle them or not. I’m on my side, and there’s something heavy holding me down. For a moment I panic and squiggle: I’m in the worst nightmare of my life. But when my eyes focus, I don’t see the moon, and I’m not lying in the snow in my bathing suit. Instead I see thick wooden beams high overhead.

Someone is humming.

“You’re awake,” a voice whispers in my ear. Right in my ear. I jump, but since I’m unable to move, it’s more like a jolt. Brayden? So close—I tense up, but inadvertently lean back into his body, feel his enveloping heat. Two arms clutch around me and squeeze me in, and I recognize the calculator watch and suddenly I’m juggling warmth and disappointment with the best happiness I’ve ever felt.

“Rob!”

“Don’t move—you’re okay. We’re in the equestrian barn, huddling for warmth.” He pauses. “It’s my idea.”

“What happened?” But I remember what happened. I swam into nothing and came out alive. I’m an idiot—what a stupid plan.

“I don’t recommend finding your best friend in a Speedo lying in the snow. You were blue, completely. Totally matched the bathing suit. We threw a blanket over you and rubbed you, but Brayden”—here his voice twists a touch in admiration—“he said we had to get you to a heated place fast.”

That’s right, the barn. I’m glad they thought of it. Off campus about a half-mile into the woods on a winding road. The equestrian team at Westbrook is aces, best around. The horses are kept in a state-of-the-art facility across the water, heated in the winter, cooled in the summer. A perfect place to take me. I lift my neck to look for Brayden but can’t see much.

I’m spooning Jo, and she pushes against me and says, “Shhh, stop moving. We have to make sure you’re warm enough.” She moves her hair out of my face, and I can see the necklace I made for her. I pull gently on it.

“But we have to keep moving.”

“We will, soon,” she says. “Let’s just make sure you’re safe and feel better.” She’s not wrong. My feet burn, and my head aches.

Rob keeps going, his voice muffled in my ear, the heat of his breath a surprisingly nice thing to feel—I guess you almost freeze to death, and what used to be gross is now a godsend. “Jimmy picked you up and said you were a block of ice, and I swore we lost you. But when we got here, the heat was working, no one was around, and there was hot water, so we doused you in it and . . . It’s been a couple hours. You don’t remember that?”

“No,” I say. I don’t remember a thing. Did all five of them stand over me as they poured warm water over my body? Did they strip me naked to do that? I can feel myself dressed now, nothing wet, so they must have. The idea of the boys watching makes my defrosting extremities feel even worse.

“Well, you started shivering like crazy, but that’s better than before, when nothing was going on, so we dried you off and put you in clothes—well, Jo and Odessa did, real quick—and then Jo and I huddled against you until you fell asleep. You snored pretty badly.” His voice goes sheepish. “I’m glad you’re okay.”

I feel a tug at the tone of his voice. I knew Rob was a friend; he has always been. But he’s not really one for emotions, and to hear it, to feel him pressing against me to raise my body temperature, it’s a simple reminder that he’s truly in my corner.

“I snore because I broke my nose falling down a well,” I say, though I’m pretty sure he knew that. “Thanks, Rob. I mean it.”

“Hey,” Jo protests, “I’m glad you’re okay too!”

I laugh. “Aww, Jo? Jells of Rob, are you? Can we please sit up? I feel like I’m trapped in a cocoon.”

We all move at the same time and pull in different directions, making it impossible to free ourselves and causing us to laugh more, like we’re kids in sleeping bags on my bedroom floor.

“Wrestling time?” Jimmy says, suddenly looming over us with a crooked smile. “Don’t mind if I do.” And he proceeds to flop down on us, his massive frame covering me completely, pushing air from my body—and a groan-giggle that leaves me helpless.

“Get offfff,” moans Jo, and he does, holding out his hands to pull each of us to our feet. I’m first, and when I stand, my legs feel like they’re asleep. Pain shoots up to my thighs, my legs buckle and I almost fall, but Jimmy holds me steady.

“You okay, Mia?” Jo asks, a mother hen. “Jimmy, let her go.”

“No,” I say, looking around for the first time. “We don’t have time; we’ve been here too long already.” I grit my teeth and force myself straight, and am rewarded with the gradual disappearance of pain. “Where’s Brayden?”

“He’s gone,” Odessa says grimly, not bothering to move from her perch near the window. There’s a noise, a clanking and shuffling that’s unfamiliar, but it finally connects: horse hooves on the floors of the stalls. An odd background music.

“Where’d he go?”

“He’s been gone for over an hour,” Odessa says. The sky is still dark, but even under cover of night, we’re lucky they haven’t found us. Odessa sits right underneath one of the barn’s lights, and I can see her sweaty cheeks, her freckles glaring. Her red hair is breaking into its frizzy parts. As if she heard my thoughts, she retwists it.

“Relax,” Jimmy says, slapping Odessa playfully on the leg, the only part of her body he can reach. “Your boyfriend will get back soon enough.” He’s joking, of course; you can tell by the way his jaw tightens—I know that, we all know he likes Odessa. But the thought of her thinking of Brayden like that still makes my stomach churn.

Jo takes my hands and holds them up to her face. “Let me see.” They are pale and dry. Unfamiliar. Jo doesn’t say anything, though, and she pushes me back down to the ground, and then pulls off the pair of socks I’m wearing, which someone must have sacrificed for me. Stuffed inside the socks are a couple of the hand warmers I had asked them to get from the locker room. But despite the help, my feet tell a different story than my hands. The skin is red, bursting angry red that shifts toward a darker shade of purple at my toes.

“Wiggle,” Jo commands, her brow lined with worry.

I do, and wince at the pain. She prods each toe to find which provokes what degree of wincing, and all of a sudden, I have something else to worry about. My pinkie toes on both feet and the middle toe on my left don’t feel a thing when she prods. The big toe on my left is darker than the rest. When she bends it, it feels like someone’s giving me an Indian sunburn on an actual sunburn. I bite my lip, and Jo’s blue eyes flick up.

“We have to get to a doctor.”

“What doctor?”

“I don’t know why your dad wants us to go to the aqueduct when we could just get to Fenton and to a doctor and warn everyone what’s going on. I mean, what if there’s a huge viral outbreak?”

“Jo,” Rob says, his thin frame seemingly smaller than usual, hiding behind his voice, “we have to trust Mia’s dad. He knew something was going on—if it is a virus, either he’ll help us or not. Either way, we can warn the town and the authorities about what’s going on then.”

“And see our parents,” Odessa throws in.

Jo’s face swerves into a grimace that she recovers from admirably. “Yes, and that too. But I say we can do all that way better in Fenton.”

I shake my head. I want to recover that undeniable childhood feeling that Dad knows everything. If he tells me to go to the aqueduct, then to the Cave, that’s where we should go. “Listen, I’m not just making this up. There’s a reason why Dad is pointing us this way.” I look at Jimmy, who’s got a skeptical look on his enormous face. “Jimmy, Odessa, you decided to come with us, and I know you could leave at any time, but you should stay. We can’t risk running into others and passing on whatever it is that’s infecting the teachers. Dad knows what he’s doing. Just help me get these wrapped again and let’s get to the Cave. He’ll tell us what to do.”

I flash back to the sight of Sutton walking the hallway, and then the sound of his voice on the intercom. He doesn’t just want to speak to me. He needs me for something. And all of that at the same moment of this infection? Dad told me to stay away, he told me to go to the aqueduct. And we will.

There’s a knock on the door, a great metal sliding thing that has a chain on it but no lock. The chain is secured by a wooden board stuck through the links. Jimmy picks up the baseball bat and stands near the door, arm raised, ready to break open whoever comes through. Rob is off to the side, breathing hard, a rake in hand, waiting for Jimmy’s word. Even Odessa takes part, climbing high into the loft where they store the extra hay and peeking through the window to get a better angle.

Like a sailor in a crow’s nest she calls, “All clear. Only Brayden. He’s got stuff with him.”

“What stuff?” Jimmy shouts back.

“Open the door, Jimmy,” I say, a bit louder than I intend. But no one seems to mind, because they’re thinking the same thing. Jimmy pulls the wooden board out and lets the chain fall to the floor.

The door slides and Brayden hauls in two garbage bags, which he tosses at Jimmy’s feet. “Put that down, J. You’ll poke someone’s eye out.” He sees me, and his face warms up, shooting crow’s-feet along his eyes and a single dimple on his left cheek. So that’s what he looks like happy. “You’re awake? That’s great. How’re you feeling?”

“I’m okay.”

Jo snorts, wipes the sweat off my forehead. “She’s got frostbite, probably.”

Brayden’s face crumples in concern.

“Well, almost okay. Where were you?” Did that sound demanding? I’m happy he’s back, but oddly sad he wasn’t here to be with me when I woke up. Or hadn’t wrapped his arms around me like Rob. Where was he?

Brayden looks amused. He doesn’t bother to answer and instead opens a bag, glances over at me and Jo and then says, “Jo—you like PB and J?” Her eyes light up, but then she gives a little shake of her head. “I’m allergic to peanuts,” she says.

He’s not fazed a bit and follows with, “Tuna?” She nods eagerly, and there’s a sandwich bag thrown through the air, which she rips into with a greed that makes my own stomach so jealous that I feel like I want to throw up. I have no idea when I last ate.

“Where’d you get all this?” Odessa asks, climbing down from the barn.

And I want to know too. Sandwiches? “Yeah, what did you do? Rob a picnic?”

He glances at me, doesn’t ask what I want, and tosses me a roast beef. “No, I took it from an empty house.”

There’s a cold silence at this. At the implications. My hands freeze on the sandwich bag wrapper, and I think of the town in the worst possible scenario. Empty, filled with stiff bodies, premature grandpas and grandmas. Has the virus spread somehow?

Reading our minds he says, “No, no, I don’t think so. The cars were gone, and we are sorta desperate. So I helped myself.” He sees us staring. “What? You don’t like your sandwiches?” He tosses more around.

“No,” I heckle, hobbling over to him. He meets me halfway and clutches my elbow. “But I think it’s pretty darn sweet that you broke into someone’s house and then stood there and made us sandwiches. Like our little mom.”

Brayden puts up his hands, not at all apologetic, then reaches back into the bag and starts tossing Lay’s Potato Chips, Funyuns, Gatorades and apples all around. We snatch them up, eating some, packing the others away. Rob starts to gather our things, and I sit to stretch my legs. Jo sidles by and whispers, “He brought us food—he’s a keeper.” The sandwich was good, too, but I guess no one here would realize that the best sandwich I’ve ever had in my life came to me in a lunchbox when I was down the well. But that’s just a haze. This is real. This is a pocket of warmth, a full stomach, and a group of determined friends. We made it out of the school, we’re all together. If we got this far, we can make it to the Cave. If we make it to the Cave, everything, somehow, will work out. I know it. I’m not an idiot; I know that Brayden took this food from an empty house. That there are soldiers nearby. That people are dying. But before, it was all the beginning of the end. Now, watching Jimmy gnaw an apple and then toss the core over his shoulder, I feel vaguely in control. I rise to my feet slowly, the ache still real, and hobble over to the stalls. The first horse is a black mare, pure black, no white spot between the eyes or anything. She huffs at me, and I hear her tail swish in the stall. I hand her my apple. I need it, but she might not see anyone else for a while, not with the students stuck across the lake. I place my hand on her forehead, the hair so short here it feels almost like skin. She pushes against my palm, like a cat, and I rub lightly, tenderly.

“We all ready?” Rob asks. And we are. Even Odessa’s already packed. We’ve been junked up on nerves and have barely slept, but we’re still ready to move and should really take advantage of the darkness. Jimmy coughs, and even though it doesn’t at all sound like Mr. Banner’s cough, or Devin’s cough, we all stop and stare. Even Jimmy freezes, like he’s been caught stealing or something. His face is white and suddenly, for the first time, the big guy looks scared. He rubs his fingers lightly on his thin mustache and tries to smile. I’m surprised when Odessa steps forward and gives him a playful push.

“Don’t scare us like that,” she says quietly, only for him, but we all hear it.

He stares at her, still lost in fear, and she pushes again. I see his face melt, a smile form, and he takes a breath. I test my foot—it moves okay, if a tad numbly—and heft my bag onto my shoulders. The others do the same. We take each other in, realizing this is going to be the last warm place we’ll have until we’re safe, and I feel something good grow between us all. It’s thick and tangible, and we bask in it together.