Lives We Lost,The (11 page)

After Hilary called in to us that it was safe again and we’d crawled out from under the bed, I sat Meredith down on the mattress. She stared up at me with still-frightened eyes. Of all the choices I’d had to make since the epidemic started, this was one of the easiest, but that didn’t make seeing it through less hard. I swallowed and said, “What would you think if I said you could stay here?”

“What about the vaccine?” Meredith said. “If we stay, no one will get to use it.”
“Not
we
,” I said. “Just you. And Tessa. I’ll have to talk to her, but I think she’ll be okay with keeping an eye on you while I’m gone. It’s pretty safe here, right? You’ll have lots of food and somewhere warm to sleep. And when I find someone who can work with the vaccine, I’ll come right back and get you. Okay?”
Her chin wobbled. “You don’t want me to come?”
“Mere.” I knelt down in front of her. “I don’t like leaving you. But the people who came today are going to keep looking for us. You remember how mean the gang on the island was? Leo says these people could be even worse.”
“What if they hurt you?”
“We’ll be careful,” I said. “Tobias is a soldier, remember? He knows how to protect people. But it’s easier when there aren’t so many of us to protect.”
“I could look after myself!” she said. “I’m a lot more brave now than I used to be.” And then she burst into tears.
“Mere,” I said, pulling her into my arms. For a second, I doubted my decision. “Hey, hey, it’ll be okay.”
“I’m trying to be brave,” she said between gulps, “and strong, so I can help, but I’m scared, Kaelyn. I’m scared something bad will happen to you.”
A lump rose in my throat, and my own eyes prickled with tears. “You are brave, and strong,” I said. “Even strong brave people get scared. It’ll be easier for me to look after myself if I know you’re somewhere safe, I promise. Waiting for me and doing your best not to worry means being brave too. Do you think you can do that?”
She choked back a sob, and then nodded. “I like it here,” she said. “But you’ll come back soon, right?”
“Fast as I can,” I said.

She beamed at me as she crouched over a bed of seedlings in the greenhouse. Her knees and fingers were smudged with soil, and she looked totally at home. I couldn’t be angry at her for wanting that, but I felt like I had to say something.

“Seems strange,” I said. “Going off without you. We’ve stuck it out together for so long.”
“You’re not leaving me here,” Tessa pointed out. “I’m choosing to stay behind. Like I would have stayed on the island with Meredith, if it wasn’t for the bombing.”
I’d almost forgotten the original plan. It had started to feel so normal for all of us to be traveling together. But this wasn’t quite the same. She was planning on staying here as long as they needed her, I could tell. And when I came back, I’d only stop in long enough to pick up Meredith. We were parting ways permanently.
The weight of all the things she didn’t know sank into my gut: my jealousy toward her when I’d still been pining over Leo, the kiss in the garage, the tension between him and me that we’d only just resolved.
“I want you to know I never thought you were just an extra mouth, okay?” I said. “I was glad to have you there.”
“I’m glad I was there too,” she said. “Deciding to stay here—it’s really only about me, Kaelyn. Since we lost the greenhouse on the island, and then my parents didn’t make it back when Leo did, I’ve felt . . . lost, I guess. I hardly wanted to move. And then we got here, and it’s the first time I’ve really had the urge to dive in, to get to work, in so long. I can’t let that go. I know you understand—it’s like the vaccine for you.”
It felt so strange, being choked up and wanting to smile at the same time. But I did. “Yeah,” I said. “I get that.”
We didn’t hug, because we never did, but I reached out and she took my hand and gripped it just for a moment.

With the people from the van possibly still in the area, it didn’t seem safe to leave right away. So when Hilary invited us to stay until the next morning, I thanked her. But I hardly slept.

I’d told Meredith I’d be back soon, but that might not be true. This night could be the last time I spent with her, if the woman in the red hat caught up with us, if a blizzard took us unawares too far from shelter, if we ran out of food before we found a working car.

So many ifs. So many of them awful.
But if I was leaving for all the people who needed the vaccine, then I was leaving for Meredith too. Without a way to fight the virus, the world would stay like this forever. Probably it would get even worse. How could we rebuild if every time people came together, they had to worry about getting infected? By going, I was trying to protect her not just now, but for her whole life. As scared as I was, I wanted to be that strong, brave person she saw when she looked at me. So I would be that person, for as long as I needed to be.

That thought settled over me like a sort of calm, and I finally drifted off.
We ate an early breakfast of stale Cheerios and powdered milk— Leo, Tessa, Meredith, and I—alone in the dining room. I hugged Meredith and kissed her on the cheek. After we said our good-byes, Hilary walked with me and Leo to the quarantine cabin, carrying a tray with cereal for Gav and Tobias. No one else had come to see us off—not even Justin. I wondered if he was on watch again.
Gav was sitting on the bed, coat zipped and hood up, like he was ready to head off that very second. But he pulled off his gloves to accept the bowl. I knew him well enough to recognize the tension in his shoulders, the slight stiffness in his expression that betrayed his apprehension. Guilt curdled in my stomach. It was my fault he was starting to feel trapped, useless. He’d come all this way for me, and I didn’t know how to make the journey easier for him. All I knew how to do was keep going.
Tobias was fiddling with the radio transceiver on the floor. He’d asked me to bring it in from the sled for him yesterday so he could give it another shot.
“Anything?” I asked him.
He shook his head. “Just a lot of static.”
Hilary hovered while they gulped down the cereal, and then collected the dishes. She paused in the doorway.
“I wish we could offer you some food for the road,” she said. “I’m afraid we’re just not at the point where we can safely spare any. But you’ll always be welcome back. Just, please, don’t mention to anyone that we’re here. And take care!”
Gav stood up, stretching, after the door closed behind her. “I have the feeling they’re just glad to get rid of us,” he said.
Leo shrugged. “They didn’t have to help us at all.”
I swapped the ice packs in the cold box for the ones I’d left outside to refreeze overnight. Tobias wrapped the radio in its plastic casing, and we stepped into the forest where our sleds had been stashed.
“There’s only five,” Tobias said.
“The blizzard,” I said. “Tessa fell and lost hers, between here and the freeway. What did she have?”
He studied our supplies. “The second box of rations, the one that was full,” he said. “Nothing else important that I can tell.”
“We might as well look for it while we’re heading that way,” Gav said. “But I don’t think we should hang around too long.”
We shifted our supplies so we could fit the blankets and empty gasoline jugs from Meredith’s sled onto the other four. Then we set off toward the freeway. As we pulled out into the field we’d crossed in the blizzard, I scanned the drifts for any sign of Tessa’s sled. A lot of snow had come down that night. It was fluffy, puffing out as I pushed through it, but it would have buried anything on the ground.
When we came to the thin stretch of trees that bordered the freeway, I hesitated. I could see the deep tracks the van’s wheels had cut through the snowy road. We could spend all day searching the field and maybe still find nothing, or we could spend it putting more distance between us and the people with the rifle.
“I’m not sure exactly where we are,” I said, checking the map book. “But as long as we’re near the freeway, I can figure it out as soon as we get to another town.”
“Let’s keep moving, then,” Gav said.
We marched along in silence, the sky brightening as the sun rose over the tops of the hills to our right. The sleds whispered over the loose snow. Every now and then one of us would hold up a hand and we’d all stop, listening. But we didn’t hear a single engine. A flock of chickadees chattered at us from the branches of a juniper tree. Occasionally, the wind rose enough to rattle the bare twigs. Otherwise, the only noise was our feet.
Gav and Leo started discussing the possibility of using the snares when we stopped for the night, and Tobias asked me a few questions about Dad’s work. The memories didn’t sting quite as much as they used to. We paused at the crest of a slope, the rooftops of a small town visible up ahead, and pushed the sleds down before following.
I went first. About halfway to the lower ground, my feet caught on a slick patch beneath the snow and whipped out from under me. I fell on my butt, sliding the rest of the way down.
“You okay?” Gav called. An instant later, he yelped and whooshed down beside me. As I got up, wincing and brushing the snow off my jeans, Leo skidded down sideways as if on an invisible snowboard.
“Dancer’s reflexes,” I said, pointing at him. “That’s cheating.”
A mischievous glint I hadn’t seen in ages lit in his eyes. “No,” he said, “it’d be cheating if I did this.” He scooped up a handful of snow, gave it a quick squeeze, and tossed the hasty snowball my way. It hit me square in the chest.
“All right,” Gav said, scrambling to his feet. “This is war.”
“Come on, Tobias,” I said. He was still standing at the top of the slope, glancing back the way we’d come. “We need the soldier on our side.”
“Three against one?” Leo protested, and Gav and I both pelted him with snow.
“You started it!” I said.
Tobias didn’t move. His forehead had knit. As Leo balled up another handful of snow, I wavered. “Tobias?”
He turned and said, evenly, “There’s someone following us.”

We all went still the second Tobias spoke. “The van?” I said. Tobias shook his head. “No. One person, on foot.” He unsnapped a couple of the buttons partway down his coat,

sliding his hand inside as he watched. I braced my foot against a solid chunk of snow and craned my neck, trying to see over the top of the slope. Then Tobias relaxed.

We scrambled back up. A figure in a black coat was trudging along the path we’d trampled, his face turned toward us, the sled that had been Meredith’s dragging behind him. His orange hat was a blaze of color amid the snow.

When he saw us all staring, Justin waved and trudged faster. He ran the last short distance to the edge of the slope, his breath coming in huffs.

“You walk faster than I thought you would,” he said. “Is something wrong?” I said. Meredith, or Tessa—“Everything’s good,” Justin said. “I’m coming with you. Wherever you’re going now.”
For a second we all just eyed each other.
“You didn’t think your mom would let you come,” Leo said, breaking the silence. “So you snuck off instead of talking to us about it up front. Yeah?”
Justin flushed. “She doesn’t get it,” he said. “I’m tired of . . . of hiding all the time while pricks like those guys in the van walk in, looking to take our stuff, to mess with us. It’s stupid. I don’t want to sit around and pick beans and cook oatmeal and pretend it’s okay. It isn’t. It sucks. I want to
do
something, like you.”
“But your mom must be freaking out,” I said.
“She’ll know where I am,” Justin said obstinately. “I left a note.”
Which might have helped a little more if
we
knew where we were going to be, between here and Toronto. Or if we were even going to get there.
“How old are you, anyway?” Tobias asked.
“Fifteen,” Justin said, and paused. “Next month.”
I winced, but Gav was studying him. “That’s not
that
much younger than us,” he said.
“There’s a pretty big difference between sixteen or seventeen and fourteen,” Leo said. “And that’s not the point. The point is he didn’t talk to anyone, he just took off.” He glanced at Justin. “If you’d talked to us first, I might feel okay about it. But not like this. Do you have any idea what this is going to do to your mom, how much she’s going to worry about you?”
“You don’t think he should get a few points for determination?” Gav said. “He’s here now. It’s not like we can make him go home, unless you want to haul him all the way back. We might as well keep going and give him a chance.”
“You want to be responsible for him?” Tobias put in.
“I can take care of myself,” Justin protested. “Who’s in charge here? Just tell me what I’ve got to do to prove it, and I will.”
Leo and Tobias both looked at me, as if it was my decision. Why should it be up to me? There were four of us.
“I think we all have to agree,” I said. “It involves all of us.”
“So what do you think, Kae?” Gav said.
I hesitated. Hilary had trusted us enough to take us in, feed us, and shelter us. She’d accepted Tessa and Meredith into the colony. I didn’t like the idea of repaying her by helping her son run away. Fourteen . . . Fourteen was young. Three years ago, I couldn’t have imagined going on a road trip without my parents, let alone walking across the country in the middle of winter.
But then, I couldn’t have imagined that six months ago, either. The virus had changed all of our lives. Maybe, these days, fourteen wasn’t so young after all.
“Are you really okay with what you’re putting your mom through?” I asked. “We don’t know how long it’ll be before we can come back. We don’t know if we’ll be able to make it back at all.”
For a second, Justin looked like a scared kid, even younger than the almost-fifteen he claimed to be. Then his mouth set. “Yeah,” he said. “I got it. Anything happens to me, it’s on my shoulders, not yours. It’s my life.”
It wasn’t, though. What he did could affect all of us, as long as he was with us. But Gav was right. We didn’t have any way of stopping him from following, not unless we gave up a whole day of traveling to take him back. And even then, who was to say he wouldn’t come running after us again?
“Fine,” I said.
Tobias shrugged. “As long as he carries his own weight.”
Leo was frowning. I caught myself hoping he was going to come out with some reasoning so perfect it would convince Justin this wasn’t a good idea. But he just sighed and said, “All right. I don’t like it, but I can live with it if you can.”
We moved some of the supplies back onto the fifth sled and set off across the snow. As Justin hurried to join Gav in the lead, an uneasy feeling welled up inside me.
One more person’s life was on the line because of Dad’s and my unproven vaccine.