Lives We Lost,The (13 page)

Three people dead, because of us. Because we’d killed them. As the realization sank in, my legs wobbled. I dropped to the
ground, hugging my knees. Gav crouched with me, the gentle pressure of his arm around me feeling terribly distant. An acid taste
rose in the back of my throat. In that moment, it was all I could
do to keep my dinner down.
“Wow,” Justin said to Tobias. “That was some shooting.” Tobias whirled on him. “What the hell were you doing?” he
said. “That was a fucking mess, and it’s
your
mess. I could have
missed that last shot. I could have gotten to you too late to stop
the other guy from shooting you!”
“They were going to find us,” Justin protested. “Now we’re safe.
I
saved
us. None of you had the balls to do anything.” “We didn’t need to do anything yet,” Leo said quietly. “They
were looking like they might turn back. And if we were going to
do something, there are better plans than running out into plain
sight and then freezing up.”
Justin flushed. “I got her,” he said, pointing to the woman’s
body. “That one I did perfect. I didn’t know—I’ve never shot anyone before. It shook me up a little. Next time that won’t happen.” “Next time?” I said, raising my head. “How many people are you planning on shooting? We came all this way so we could stop
people from dying. We’re not supposed to be killing anyone!” Gav dragged in a breath, straightening up. “Well, it’s done now,
right? It was done stupidly, but it’s done. It sounded like they’d
have been happy to kill
us
, once they got the vaccine.” “They might have just given up,” I said, knowing that was more
a wish than a possibility.
“I don’t think they’d have moved on too quickly,” Tobias said.
“They knew we were here. But that doesn’t mean we couldn’t have
handled it better.”
“Look, I’m sorry, okay?” Justin snapped. “Next time I’ll let all
of you get shot instead, if that’ll make you happy.”
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes. My thoughts
were so scattered I couldn’t seem to catch hold of any of them. The
space around me felt strangely empty.
The cold storage box. I’d left the vaccine samples in the forest. I got up, a little shakily, and walked back through the trees to
pick up the box and my bag. The others were standing in the same
semicircle when I returned.
“If there’s anyone within a few miles of this place, they probably heard the gunshots,” Leo said. “Someone might come to see
what’s going on. And whoever sent those people, when they don’t
report back, another group might head here to check things out.
We can’t stay.”
He was right. I hugged the bag. “Where are we going to go?” Gav looked toward the road. “The van,” he said. His face had
gone hard. “One of them must have the keys. We might as well
use what we have.”
“We know it can handle the snow,” Tobias said, nodding. Every bone in my body resisted the thought. The thought of
getting into the van where the woman had sat with her rifle—the
woman who was lying there dead—made me shudder. “Won’t it draw attention to us?” I said. “Anyone who sees us
going by might recognize it. This group seems to have people all
over the place. How can we stay out of sight if we’re using a van
they’ll know?”
“We could only drive when people wouldn’t see it easily,” Leo
said. “Travel at night, rest during the day.”
“I don’t want to stay in a house with that van outside like a signpost,” I said. “That’s crazy. It’s the one thing they’ll be looking for.” “So we take it just for tonight,” Gav said. “We could get pretty
far before the sun comes up.”
“What the heck else can we do?” Justin demanded. I bit my lip. The answer was: nothing.
“Okay,” I said. “We get as far as we can and ditch it before it
starts getting light. Right?”
Everyone nodded. Tobias turned to Justin. “You’re the reason
these people are dead,” he said. “You should be the one looking for
the keys. See up close what killing someone really means.” Justin’s face looked a little pinched, but he pressed his mouth
into a flat line and trudged over to the woman’s body. Not wanting
to watch, I hurried toward the mobile home. There was a thump
as he rolled her over, and I cringed. The body of the second man
was a dark blot amid the snow. I walked past it without letting my
gaze stray from the place where we’d hidden the sleds, my hands
curled tight in my pockets.
The others caught up with me at the home. We hauled the sleds
out from underneath it one by one. I set the cold box in mine and pulled it over to the road. The green van was waiting there, parked on the gravel shoulder of the freeway. I hesitated, and then tried
the door.
They hadn’t even locked it. Not that we could have driven it
anywhere without the keys. A two-way radio lay on the dashboard.
As I went around to open the back doors, it crackled. “Brunswick Third Division, an update?” a woman’s voice said.
The same nasal voice that had spoken to us on the transceiver. The
one who’d offered us help. Leaving the sled by the back of the van,
I pulled myself into the passenger seat and picked up the two-way.
When it started to crackle again, I switched it off.
The seat was more comfortable than the one in Tobias’s truck.
I guessed the woman in the red hat’s “division” had been able to
be pickier.
Brunswick Third Division. That suggested there were at least
two other groups on patrol, didn’t it?
We’d gone from huddled in the dark while three predators
stalked us, to better off than we’d been since we left the island.
Even if Justin hadn’t gone about it the best way, I had to admit
what he’d done had helped us. Was there something wrong with
me that I still wished it hadn’t happened? Maybe I was too soft
for this survival stuff. Too stuck in the morality of the life I’d left
behind to do I needed to keep the lives we had.
I didn’t want to be soft. But I didn’t want to be like the people
who’d hunted us down, either.
“Let’s leave that two-way here,” Tobias said, coming over with
two of the other sleds. “At this point, I’d believe they’ve got some
way of tracking those things.”
I realized I was still clutching it in my mittened hand. I stepped out of the van and hurled the radio over the fence. It pattered into the snow. Tobias watched it fall, his eyes distant and his jaw tight
beneath the shadow of his hood.
“Is that the first time you’ve . . .” I started, and trailed off,
uncomfortable with the question.
“Killed someone?” Tobias filled in. “Yes. I managed never to
get shipped out, and there aren’t a whole lot of enemy soldiers to
engage around here.” He tossed some of the empty gas jugs into
the back.
“Justin was right, you’re good with the gun,” I said. “I’m sorry
you had to use it.”
“That’s what the training’s for,” he said. “I just got as good
as I could at everything so the sergeants wouldn’t have as much
to harass me for. To tell you the truth, I only signed up for the
armed forces because it was the one way I could put some distance
between me and my step-dad. It turned out I hated it almost as
much as I hated him.” He stepped back to meet my gaze. “But I
don’t hate that I’m here,” he added. “You just do what you’ve got
to do to get by.”
“Yeah,” I said, my throat dry. And from the other side of the
clearing, Justin’s voice rose, strained but triumphant. “Found the keys!”

We were in the van. Gav was driving, Leo looking at the map book—the map book I’d given him last night after I’d traded seats with him. Justin was drooped against Tobias, eyes closed and lips parted, a faint snore escaping them. Tobias had balled his scarf into a pillow to sleep, but he was stirring now.

Outside, the glow of the headlights streaked across the road. The sky was dull and overcast, only a smudge of moonlight showing through the clouds. The glimpses I caught of the trees lining the road didn’t look all that different from what I’d seen shortly before I fell asleep. For a second I had the uneasy sense that we’d been driving in place, going on and on and getting nowhere.

Gav must have noticed me lift my head. “If the clock’s right, it’s almost five,” he said. “We just turned off onto a local highway so we can look for a place to drop the van. The tank’s almost empty anyway.”

“We crossed into Quebec around two,” Leo said. “Just one more province to go!”
One more to go. We were so much closer than we’d been even a day ago. For a moment I contemplated keeping the van. We could make it to Toronto in just a few more days. . . .
But the people on the other end of the radio would be looking for it soon, if they weren’t already. There wasn’t exactly a whole lot of traffic to blend in with. And to leave it sitting in some town while we searched for gas, like a signal flag—we’d be asking to get caught.
“There’s a mailbox,” Leo said, pointing to a shadowy shape. The van slowed as Gav eased on the brake. We rolled up to the mailbox and carefully turned down the driveway beside it. The van lurched, and Justin sputtered awake.
The headlights slid over the edge of a porch. The door stood ajar, only darkness beyond it. No one home.
“I’ll bring the van around back so nobody can see it from the road,” Gav said. When he’d parked, we all climbed out, Tobias carrying the rifle he’d taken from the dead woman. A frigid breeze cut across my cheeks. I tugged my scarf up. The heat from inside the van was already seeping out of my bones.
Gav and Leo turned on their flashlights, and I tried not to think about the last people who’d been holding them. But Gav’s light must have caught my face, because he stopped while the others went around to unload our supplies. He lowered the flashlight and touched my arm with his other hand.
“Hey,” he said softly. “How’re you doing?” The drive seemed to have done him good. He looked more at ease than I remembered seeing him the last few days.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Just, you know, nervous.” A yawn stretched my jaw. “And tired.”
“We could crash here for a few hours.”
I shook my head. “I’m not going to be able to rest until we’re away from that van. Let’s put a couple miles between us and it, at least.”
“I think we can manage that.” He leaned forward to kiss me and then pulled me into a hug. I hugged him back, my eyes squeezing shut against sudden tears. I hadn’t known how much I needed someone else to hold a little of my weight, just for a moment.
“You think there’s any gas left in the tank?” Tobias asked as we stepped apart. He held up the empty jugs.
“We might be able to fill one or two,” Gav said. “It’d be good to have a little on us.”
As he unscrewed the gas cap, I turned toward the looming presence of the house. Maybe it wasn’t totally empty.
“While you’re doing that, I’ll take a look inside,” I said. “See if there’s any food.”
“Good idea,” Gav said.
“I’ll come too, Kae,” Leo said. “I don’t think we should be going anywhere alone these days.”
Gav didn’t speak, just looked at Leo and then turned back to the van. I followed the beam of Leo’s flashlight onto the porch. As the light swept the front hall, it caught a series of grimy boot prints tracked across the hardwood floor.
“Looks like someone’s already been through here,” I said.
We searched the kitchen quickly, finding nothing but a few dishes in the cupboards. The stairs creaked as we headed to the second floor.
It looked as if someone had stripped the blankets off the beds, but the queen in the master and the two singles in the second bedroom were still wrapped tight in their sheets. The cloth gleamed white when Leo ran the beam of the flashlight over them. I paused, thinking of our dark coats as we walked across the snow.
“We should take these,” I said, fingering the cloth. “We can wrap them over our coats so we blend in better. We’ll be harder to spot from far away.”
“Like arctic foxes,” Leo said. When my eyebrows rose, he held up a hand. “Hey, you pounded just about every fact about them there is into my head that month when you were obsessed with having one as a pet! I remember things.”
I cracked a grin, and his mouth curved with a hint of a smile. Right then, he looked like his old self again. A twinge of warmth fluttered in my chest: a pull toward him, a memory of his lips brushing mine.
I hadn’t forgotten the kiss, or how it had made me feel. Well, maybe I never would. But the air seemed clearer between us after our talk at the colony, like we both knew where we stood. So it was easier to breathe in and nudge the feeling aside.
“I really thought it was going to work,” I said, untucking the sheet. “How old were we, seven? But Drew had to overhear and crush my dream. ‘They arrest people for taking endangered species, you know.’”
“So that’s why you gave it up.”
“Yeah.” My amusement dampened. Thinking about Drew and where he was now. Who he was with.
I should have been happy he was alive. I was happy. It was just that the happiness was kind of numbed by the worry and fear that had come with it.
“What do you think he’s doing with these people, Leo?” I said.
Leo’s expression went serious. “We don’t even know exactly who they are,” he said.
“We know they’d rather get the vaccine for themselves than let us find someone who can make enough for everyone. And they’re willing to lie to people, to hurt them, to get what they want.”
Leo shrugged and looked toward the window. His face was wan in the reflected glow of the flashlight. “You probably just described almost every person still alive right now, Kae. Maybe he had to join up with them to survive.”
“But this is
Drew
,” I said. “You know him. He was like a freaking crusader, posting all over the internet, challenging injustice. It was kind of annoying sometimes, but that’s how he is. How can he help people who go around stealing and killing?”
“People change,” Leo said. “When the world’s going to hell like this, sometimes you do things you wouldn’t have ever thought you’d do, because you don’t see any other choice.”
“You mean like Justin?” I crossed my arms over my chest. “He
wanted
to shoot those people. It wasn’t just about surviving.”
“Maybe,” Leo said, his voice strained. “But I can’t judge him. I’ve done worse.”
The words hung in the air for a moment. Then I scoffed. “I don’t believe that. You would never—”
“You don’t know, Kae,” he interrupted. “You have no idea. . . .” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his head drooping. “I know you think I haven’t wanted to talk about how I got back to the island because of everything I saw. But it’s not that. It’s because of what I did.”
My heart stuttered.
“So what did you do?” I said.
For a few seconds I thought he was going to clam up again. He sucked in a ragged breath. And then he started talking with a hollowness that was almost as hard to hear as his words.
“I had to get home, back to the island,” he said. “But I hardly had any money at school. I stole all the cash out of my roommate’s wallet so I could pay for a bus most of the way to the border. I thought I was going to have to walk the rest, but a woman who was heading there too, she saw me and offered me a ride. She was sick. She was wearing one of those masks, but she kept coughing. I was terrified I was going to catch it from her. So I took off. At a rest stop. I jumped in the car and just left her there. I told myself she was going to die anyway, so it didn’t really matter.”
He stopped, swallowed, and went on. “And then there was the quarantine camp at the border. It was supposed to be just for a week, but the soldiers changed their minds every other day—it was two weeks, and then three—it started looking like they were never going to let us cross over, and the place was getting crowded, and supplies were running out, and they kept hauling people away who started showing symptoms. . . . I grabbed a guy’s coat, the only one he had, and a bunch of food that was supposed to be for everyone, so I could make a run for it.”
“Leo,” I said, and he shook his head.
“I had this idea I was a good person, you know? Like you said about Drew. That was just who I was. I would never have believed I could be that selfish. But I was. All I could think about was getting home, getting there alive. I don’t even know if I would take it back if I could, because I don’t think I would have made it otherwise.” He laughed. “I was so scared to see my parents—like they’d know what I’d done—to see the way they’d look at me. Some little part of me was relieved that they were dead, so I didn’t have to find out. How awful is that?”
He kept staring at the floor, as if he was afraid to see my expression. Imagining Leo stealing, abandoning someone who’d helped him, it made my stomach ache. But I couldn’t say I’d rather he’d died than made it home. Like Tobias had said last night,
You just do what you’ve got to do to get by
.
“You were trying to get back so you could help your parents, Tessa—everyone,” I said. “That part’s not awful.
“I don’t know,” he said. “It seems like I screwed things up even more after I got back. I want to be the person I’m supposed to be. Tessa’s boyfriend. Your best friend. I feel almost normal, now and then. But then I think of what’s happened and the horribleness just rises up and I can’t pull myself out.”
I thought of how angry I’d been at him for not being himself, and my eyes prickled. He’d been carrying all this, every minute of every day. “You can’t help how you feel,” I said. “You’ve been through a lot. I was upset, yeah, and but it wasn’t totally fair. I should have tried harder to talk to you.”
“I didn’t want to tell you,” he said. “Anyway, maybe I’m not the person I used to be anymore. Maybe this is how I am now. A thief and a cheat and practically a murderer and not really a good person at all.”
“You’re not—” I said, but he went on without letting me continue.
“Maybe when life gets tough enough, we all turn into bad people. I used to think most people want to do right, when they can, but now...”
I sat down beside him. “What if you’re wrong? What if it just takes a while for people to stop being scared and start thinking straight again? You remember you told me to think of people like animals?”
“Well, they’re acting like it, aren’t they?” he said.
“Yeah. And you don’t say an animal is ‘bad’ if it fights with another animal over the same food or a place where they both want to live. It’s survival. People panic, instincts take over.” I paused. “Like Justin, I guess. But if there wasn’t any more reason to panic, people could start acting like people again. That’s why we’re bringing the vaccine all this way, isn’t it? So life can get back to normal.”
He finally looked at me. “You really believe that? That everything could go back to how it used to be?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I do.”
“I hope you’re right,” he said. “Because most days I don’t feel like I could go back to the old me, the good one. Not ever.”