Andrew points to Cara’s bag. “You’d been planning to leave for a while, hadn’t you? That’s why you have all this food.”
She doesn’t answer for a moment, then nods.
“How come?”
“They can’t be trusted.”
“Then why did you wait so long to leave?”
Again she doesn’t answer and after twenty seconds of silence, I assume she’s not going to.
“Still not good enough.” I reach over and grab the handgun from Andrew, pointing it right at her. She flinches and her hands go up. Tears stream down her face as Andrew screams at me to stop.
My stomach threatens to empty its contents on the table between us, but Harvey’s voice echoes in my mind. His threats and his disgusting smile. I refuse to let them hurt Andrew and... I will kill her to protect him.
“Where are they?”
“I don’t know!” She’s trying so hard not to look at me. A thin strand of snot hangs from her nose as tears drip onto the tabletop.
“How can we trust you?” I ask.
“Jamie, stop it!”
I ignore him. “Fort Caroline sent people to find us because we stole their food. And you’re helping them.”
“I’m not.” Her voice is barely audible. She’s probably been faking this shy act and is here to get us to drop our guard. They think we’ll just let her join up with us because she has food and she’s playing nice.
“Put the gun down!” Andrew’s hand is on my arm and I realize it’s shaking. But no, not yet. I’m not letting this go until I know we’re safe. I’ll do anything to protect Andrew. I’ve done it before and I can do it again. I flick the safety off.
Cara flinches, putting her hands up.
“Jamie, no!”
The fear in Andrew’s voice is enough so my finger instinctively moves off the trigger. And I have a moment to realize what could have happened. Cara buries her face in her hands as I put the gun down on the table, slowly. Andrew moves around to her side of the booth and tries to comfort her but she moves away, pressing herself to the window.
He gives me a what-the-hell-is-wrong-with-you look and I feel nothing but shame. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, how I’ve changed this much. Seven months ago I was terrified of using a gun and now I’m pointing one at an unarmed girl who helped us.
I fold my trembling hands in front of me. Andrew spends a few minutes whispering to Cara, trying to calm her.
For a moment I think that’s it, she won’t say anything else. When she finally speaks, her voice is so quiet, so broken, I have to strain to hear it.
“Everyone in my family is dead.”
Andrew looks across the table at me.
“They were killed. Not by the flu. By people likethem.” She doesn’t have to clarify that she means Fort Caroline.
“Then why did you stay there?” I ask.
“Why did you leave?” She looks at me; her eyes are red and glassy but she seems more confident for a moment, like this is something she’s thought about for some time. Neither Andrew nor myself answer her and when she speaks again that indignation is back. “You figured it out faster than me. By the time I did, it was too late. So I stayed because I didn’t have anywhere else to go. But the two of you didn’t stay.”
“We don’t know what’s waiting for us in the Keys,” Andrew says.
She nods and once again turns her attention back to me. “That’s fine. I didn’t know what was waiting for me when I left home, but now I know what I don’t want to find. I don’t want to meet people like them again. They think they’re righteous but they aren’t. They’re poison, and they spread it to other people who don’t know better, and then bad things happen.”
“What makes you think we’re any better?” I ask. She doesn’t answer, so I tell her what happened before she showed up. “I killed Harvey Rosewood. And probably his friend Walt.”
She looks at me, her eyes wide with surprise.
