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The four of them got to their feet and told Morgie and Riot everything.
“What do we do now?” asked Nix.
“It’s not our problem,” said Morgie. “It’s not our town. If there’s an army out there, we have to get away from here right now.”
“How can we just go?” demanded Chong.
“How can we stay?” Morgie countered. “If we do this, we might never get to Asheville. Come on, Chong, you of all people have to see that. You’re going to run out of pills if we don’t keep moving.”
Lilah turned to Chong. “He’s right. We have to go.”
“Kind of agree,” said Riot. “We don’t have a dog in this fight.”
Chong walked a few feet away and stopped, his hands pressed to the sides of his head as if keeping it from cracking open.
Benny leaned close to the others and spoke in an urgent whisper. “We can’t go to Asheville. Not now. Not after what he said.”
“We have to,” snarled Lilah, her voice lowered but intense. “Chong can’t risk it.”
“Look, this isn’t only about Chong,” said Benny, and before Lilah could say anything, or possibly stab him, he continued. “It’s not about any of us, or even all of us. This is a whole town full of people. We have to at least warn them. We can’t just let them die.”
“You don’t even know if that man was telling the truth,” said Nix with quiet ferocity.
“Come on,” said Benny, “you think he was going to use his last breath to mess with us?”
“He said he was a bad guy, Benny. He admitted that he lied to people. He could have been lying to us. Or maybe he was just out of his mind.”
Benny shook his head. “I can’t take that chance.”
“Why not?” she demanded.
“Because he has a soul,” said Chong. They all looked at him. He turned slowly to face them. “You guys can’t whisper worth crap.”
“Chong, I—” began Nix, but he shook his head.
“Let me talk,” he said. “Morgie, Riot . . . you’re right. Lilah? You’re right. This isn’t our problem. This isn’t our fight. We don’t know these people and we have other responsibilities.”
“That’s what I mean,” began Morgie, but again Chong shook his head.
“I’m infected and, yeah, I really want those pills.” He smiled. “We all know that even with those pills I’m not going to live as long as you guys. Doc McReady said I could have ten or twenty good years. Okay. So, maybe I’ll make it to my fortieth birthday. Maybe I won’t. You always joke about how I’m half-dead already,
Morg. You’re not wrong. But listen to me, okay? Asheville is a long way from here. From what that man said, this New Alamo place is about an hour away by quad. If we turn and sneak off, then that defines who we are.”
“The people in Asheville need us too,” said Riot.
Chong frowned. “Do they? I mean, really—what can six of us do if Asheville is overrun? Other than sneak in, get my pills, and sneak out again, what are we really hoping to do? We never found Captain Ledger. We probably won’t. We’ve nearly died a bunch of times already. One of these times we will die. You know it as well as I do.”
No one spoke.
Chong nodded. “So, given a choice between going on a possibly suicidal and definitely selfish trip to Asheville or taking a chance of helping a whole town full of people who are still alive, then is that really a choice? That man gave us information those people need to know. I can’t speak for anyone else, and I’m not going to ask any of you to go with me, but I am taking my quad and going to find New Alamo.”
“What if it’s overrun?” asked Riot.
“Then it’s overrun. If we can get away, we will. But what if it’s not yet overrun?”
“What if we get stuck there when this Night Army attacks?” asked Morgie.
“We have all the weapons we took from the prison,” said Benny.
