“I love making you blush.”
And he’s very good at it.
We head back to the camp as fast as we can. As we turn the last corner a chill runs up my spine.
There are four vehicles by the camp.
From where we are, we can see everyone is okay. They’re all sitting together on the ground with the kids. The people from the cars are standing by the road; there’s about a dozen or more of them. And one of them is Admiral Hickey.
They found us.
Hickey turns and gives me a nod as the others point their guns at us.
Andrew
ALL THE KIDS SEEM TO BE PHYSICALLYokay, but they look scared. Which, I mean, yeah, of course they would be. They’ve been on the road for several days, barely resting, and now people with guns show up.
“Both of you, on your knees,” Hickey says.
Sure, Hickey, but let’s see how many innuendos I can make. “Buy us dinner first.” I expect Jamie to scold me, but when I glance over at him he’s smirking as he drops to his knees. I follow his lead and we put our hands up while two men take off our backpacks and grab our guns.
“We’re not going to tie you up,” Hickey says as they check our pockets.
Two.
Jamie snorts beside me because he knows I’ll keep going and, yeah, I can’t wait to say it.
I pretend to be disappointed. “Aw, man, it’s the one thing I was looking forward to during this whole thing.”
Hickey’s jaw tightens as behind him Daphne speaks.
“Andrew. There are children present.” She scolds me like a mom.
“They don’t get the innuendo, Daph.”
“Some of us do,” mutters Taylor, just loud enough for me to hear.
“You’re not a child, Taylor.” When I say that she actually smiles and seems a little proud.
Hickey focuses his gaze on me. “You realize if Fort Caroline showed up for Jamie and we didn’t have him, they’d kill us, right?”
“They’d kill him, too, what’s your point?” I ask.
“What was your plan? Just run?”
“Yes,” says Jamie. “And then hopefully you’d lose us in the vast, empty openness of postapocalyptic America.”
“If we didn’t find you here, we’d find you in Bethesda.” It’s Trevor who says this, and it chills me to the bone. He turns and looks back at Amy. “That’s where you’re heading, after all.”
Jamie shakes his head, playing it off better than I could. “Sheis going to Bethesda. The rest of us were just trying to find a new place.”
“And if they find you there?” Hickey asks. “We’re going to make an effort to protect you. Demand that you get a fair trial, that a jury made up of both their people and ours hears what really happened.”
“You don’t really believe they’ll do that, right?” I ask. “You can’t be that dumb.”
Hickey just stares at me.
They pull us up, and one of them gives me a light shove toward the others. Daria avoids our gazes; she’s the only one who doesn’t have her rifle pointed at us. I stop as we get closer to the kids, locking eyes with the six people pointing their guns in our direction.
