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“Probably. Maybe he was planning on quieting Michelle and the others, but he was too badly torn up. I think he realized that he was about to die, and he did what he thought was best to try and protect the girls.”
“He shot himself?” asked Nix, horrified.
Tom nodded. “Right at the top of the stairs, so his body would block the others from getting at the girls. Jack must have been too weak to hold the gun right; his bullet missed the motor cortex and the brain stem. All he did was speed up how fast he came back. When we came in, he was just about to break into the girls’ bedroom.”
Nix sniffed and wiped tears from her eyes.
“All those people,” Benny said softly. “And those two little girls.”
“More orphans.”
It was Lilah who spoke, and everyone turned to her. Her stern expression had softened, and it was clear that she was looking into her own memories. Like Nix, Lilah was an orphan. And like Nix and the little girls, Lilah had lost her sibling as well: Annie, a little sister who was born on First Night and who had died trying to escape the zombie pits at Gameland.
Chong said, “What will happen to them?”
“The girls?” Tom asked. “I think there’s an aunt somewhere. In Hillcrest, maybe.”
That town was four days’ ride to the north, and the route went through some of the worst zombie-infested lands. It was a terrible thing. The girls would go off to another town—and as travel between the few towns left in the Ruin was rare, usually only the bounty hunters and traders risked the journey. Benny knew that people here in Mountainside would never see Faith and Hope again. Probably never even hear about them again, as if they had been erased from the world as so many other people had been erased.
The thought of so much death and loss hit him like a punch to the heart.
Nix, however, was furious, and she pounded her thigh with a small, hard fist. “God! I can’t wait to leave this place. I want to get out of here and never come back.”
Tom looked at her and then turned his face to the east and gave a slow nod.
“I wish we could leave now,” Nix growled, then elbowed Benny. “Right?”
“Absolutely,” he said, though he had to force the enthusiasm. At the moment all he wanted to do was go lock himself in his room and sleep until the horror went away.
“I still can’t believe you’re really going,” said Chong softly, but although he spoke to Benny and Nix, his eyes kept darting toward Lilah. “I wish I could go.”
“Me too,” muttered Nix. “We should all leave. God, I hate this town. I hate the way people think here. No one talks about First Night. Everyone’s afraid to even discuss the possibility of reclaiming the world. They won’t even expand the town.”
“They’re scared,” said Morgie.
“So what?” she snapped. “There’s always been something to be scared of. Between wild animals, earthquakes, volcanoes, viruses, wars … Yet look at what people did! They built cities and countries. They fought off their enemies. They stopped being scared and started being strong!”
“No,” said Lilah. “Even the strong are afraid.”
Nix turned to her. “Okay, then they learned how to be brave.”
“Yes,” said Tom. “They also learned how to work together. That mattered then and it’ll matter now. None of us could do this alone. I know I couldn’t. Not going across the whole country.”
“I thought you liked being alone,” said Benny, half joking. “The Zen master and all that.”
Tom shook his head. “I can handle loneliness, but I don’t like it. Every time I was out on a long job I even looked forward to coming home to you. An ugly, smelly, bratty little brother.”
“Who will smother you in your sleep,” suggested Benny.
“Point taken.”
“I want to go,” said Lilah abruptly. “Being alone … being lonely …” She didn’t finish and simply shook her head.
Since she’d first come here last year, Lilah had gone back into the forests and up into the mountains dozens of times, and often to the cave where she used to live, bringing back sacks filled with her precious books. Benny, Tom, and Nix had gone with her several times. However, no one commented on her statement. None of them understood loneliness a tenth as well as the Lost Girl.
“I really wish I could go,” repeated Chong wistfully, still looking at Lilah while trying not to appear that he was.
“Parents won’t cave?” Benny asked.
