Or maybe only I’m doing that.
The thunder gets a little louder as the eyewall approaches the shore. The wind kicks up and we head back inside.
Once we’re downstairs, I reach out and grab his wrist. “Hey, hold on a sec.” He stops and turns to me as Cara and the rest of Team Orphan continue into the gym. I motion toward the hallway at the end of the front hall. “Can we try again? Talking, I mean?”
He nods and lets me lead him to a quiet, vacant area.
I sit down against the wall, and he settles next to me. Maybe it’s easier to talk when we don’t have to look at each other.
“You were right earlier,” I say. “About me not wanting to go back to the cabin.”
I see him nod out of the corner of my eye. “I figured.” He still sounds disappointed, so I reach out and take his hand.
“I want to be clear. I don’t want you to go back either.” I turn to see that he’s looking at me now. But he still seems sad. “I like the home we’re making here.”
He stares at the floor as though it hurts him to look me in the eye.
Finally, I ask him what’s been on my mind since I first got kicked off the boat. “Why don’t you?”
“I like it here, Andrew—”
“Then why do you want to leave so bad?”
“Why do you want to stay?”
“Because wearemaking a life here. We have friends. I’d call them a family.” I turn my body toward him. It was easier to start this conversation not looking at each other, but I need to see him now, hisface, his reactions. I need to know what he’s thinking. Or at least try to. “We lost everyone in our old lives to the bug, and now we have a chance to start over and make our own family.”
If he wants me to know what he’s thinking, he’s doing it all wrong because his face remains stoic and unreadable.
“We talked about this,” he says. “Every night for weeks we talked about this. The last time we found a settlement this big, they hunted us down and shot us. Cara ran away from them.”
“But she’s still here.”
“Now.She’s still herenow. You think if the Keys turn authoritarian, she wouldn’t want to leave, too?”
“But this isn’t like Fort Caroline.”
“Rightnowit isn’t, Andrew. That’s what we talked about. What would happen if things went bad here or if Fort Caroline found this settlement? Yeah, Daphne, Amy, Rocky Horror, they would side with us. The people we like would obviously try to protect us, but aside from Cara, who wouldfightfor us?”
I can’t believe he’s saying this. It’s so not like him, and I don’t know where it’s coming from. Jamie saved my life when I was injured, and he didn’t have to. He shared his medicine and took care of me. Then he followed me when I left. He leaves messages on trucks for passing strangers, letting them know there’s still supplies in there. He killed someone to protect me. He sees the good in people more than the bad.
“All those people you mentioned would fight for us. If we make this place our home, theywillfight for us.”
“You’re wrong.” He reaches out and takes my face in his hands. “There are over two thousand people here—two thousand peoplewho don’t know us. And the world has changed. We’ve been lucky down here, but all it takes is a bad couple of days and they could turn on us. I don’t want that to even be an option, so yes, I think we’re safer on our own at the cabin. Where we can take care of each other and make our own decisions.”
“What about the people who came to the cabin to rob us?”
His face darkens. “I told you I would fight for you.”
My stomach turns and tears burn my eyes. I open my mouth to tell him I don’t want that. To tell him his kindness is what I love. That here, we don’t need to fight for our lives, we can just live. But something cold hits me, sending a chill up my back. I cry out, sitting up as water floods past us.
Jamie jumps up, too, and we follow the flow to one of the doors leading to the school parking lot. The sandbags go halfway up the doors, but the floodwater must have passed that point, because it’s spilling through the cracks on all sides.
Behind us, toward the gym, someone shouts. Jamie spins and looks at me as though he’s asking permission for us to go check it out. If the water is coming through everywhere, we might need to get everyone up to the second floor sooner rather than later.
I nod and we head down the hallway.
Water flows through the seams of the school’s front doors. Outside, the rain and wind have picked up—if the eye hasn’t already passed us, it’s about to. I have just enough time to wonder how much pressure the glass doors can take when my thoughts are interrupted by someone shouting out orders near the cafeteria. More water flows from the caf, and the hallway is full up to our ankles. A guy I recognize runs past us.
