“Well then, what do you think?”
He finally takes the plush from me and looks at it, holding it up next to Bobo. I expect him to say something like Cece or Bobo-Two, but instead he says, “Albie.”
I gasp. “I think that’s an amazing name! Now, aren’t you glad Santa brought him?”
The Kid’s smile drops again. “Are you and Andrew leaving?”
I turn and give Andrew the look, and he joins us. “Are you talking about me?”
“Are you leaving?” the Kid asks. He must have heard us when he was washing his hands yesterday. Andrew gives me an almost imperceptible glance before shaking his head.
“We’re all leaving. I’m not sure when, but don’t worry, we’re all going to stick together.” He holds out his hand. “Let’s go get something to eat.”
The Kid takes his hand and Andrew gives me a guilty look. I return it with a nod. I know exactly what he’s thinking because I feel the same. The Kid is going to be destroyed when we leave. Across the room, Taylor breaks away from Jamar to talk with the Kid for a second. She’s going to be sad, too. But maybe she can go with the Nomads and Jamar.
Christ, then the Kid would be completely alone. This is why Iwanted to keep our distance in the Keys. We weren’t supposed to become friends with these people, and we weren’t supposed to be a found family to a group of orphans.
I get up and head out to the front of the lodge where I can breathe a bit. My chest feels tight and my eyes burn, threatening tears.
“How you holding up?”
I turn to see Cal emerging from the lodge. He has a steaming mug of the forager tea in his hands.
“Good. Merry Christmas.”
“Is it?” he asks, blowing on his tea. “After your... reunion yesterday. You and Andrew seem to be on edge.”
I nod. “Hard not to be.”
Cal takes a sip of his tea and winces. “This stuff tastes like shit.” He throws it in the dirt, where according to Rocky Horror it should be right at home. “You never told me about this Danny Rosewood guy.”
Of course I left out the part where I killed one of the leaders of Fort Caroline’s only living son and had a bounty on my head. “I figured it would make me seem less trustworthy.”
“Because finding out on Christmas Eve—and after weeks on the road together—that some authoritarian regime is hunting you up and down the Eastern Seaboard, yeah, that’s a person we can trust.” He says it with a smirk, though, so maybe he’s not so pissed.
“We’re going to leave,” I say. “I’m sorry we didn’t tell you, but Andrew and I are going to get Amy and her daughter home, then we’re gone. On our own.”
“And what about everyone else? What if these people catch upwith us? Do you want us to lie for you?”
The answer is yes, but it’s not right to ask that. Regardless of how long we’ve been traveling with them, they owe us no loyalty. So I shake my head. “You can do what you have to do. But I’m not telling you where we live.”
“I know Amy’s mom is in Bethesda. I can send them that far at least. Then what?”
My mouth goes dry. “Go ahead and tell them. Amy and her mom won’t be there when Fort Caroline arrives, and they’ll hit a dead end. But maybe chasing us all over the country looking for breadcrumbs is exactly how they fail. Using up all their supplies and fuel to find me, all for nothing.”
Cal nods. “But what about the kids? And Amy, Kelly, Cara, Rocky Horror? You’d be putting them in danger even if they were hiding elsewhere.”
I clench my jaw and try to look like I’m not lying. “And who would tell us if something did happen? Even if they lived here, happy and healthy for the rest of their lives, we’d never know.”
“No, but it would be there. In the back of your mind.” He watches my face, waiting for something, but I’m not sure what. I try to remain neutral, showing him that he’s wrong. But he isn’t. “I think this is one of those universal convergence moments we talked about, but from the moment we drove past you on the highway with people from the Keys. Or were they from this Fort Caroline place?”
“No, that part was true. After the hurricane, the Keys offered me up in exchange for the bounty Fort Caroline had out on me.”
He nods. “They could have let us drive past without chasing usdown. We agreed it was none of our business and wanted to stay out of it.”
“So why did you get involved?”
“We saw you camped out. Andrew was injured, you had the kids. If you’d escaped them, we figured you could use some help, and you were resourceful enough to get away from your captors.”
