What was her name? they will ask. Remi?

Oh yeah, the murderer. 

“I will be the murderer no matter what you tell them now,” I say.

Paxton shakes his head and sits back in his chair, crossing his legs. “They will believe whatever I tell them. Once I declare you innocent, they will forget in time. People thinking you’re a murderer for a short time is a pretty good punishment for stealing from me.”

“What if I find out she’s dead?” I ask. “You won’t want me here after that.”

He shakes his head again. “Just bring the proof.”

“In other words, it’s impossible,” I say. “Sorry to be so blunt but there is no proof left if she became some greyskin’s meal.”

Paxton blinks at my words and I can tell he’s trying not to let my forward speaking get to him. “It’s on you,” he says. “I don’t really expect to see you again. I’m just giving you a chance to redeem yourself in my eyes and the eyes of others here. If you can bring me proof of my daughter’s fate then you will be welcome here and I will even make you a soldier if that’s what you want.”

I sit and stare at his desk in front of me. It’s an impossible task, a stupid one. How could he ask this of me? Trying to find out what happened to someone in a greyskin-infested world is like asking how a cancer patient died. Well, she died because of cancer…Well, she died because of the greyskin virus. This was Paxton’s way of giving me hope (maybe some hope for himself as well), but I want to tell him that there is none and I will just say goodbye and be on my way.

“Where would I even start looking?” I ask.

“Elkhorn,” he says immediately. “You went to school there, right?”

Elkhorn carries with it another name: The Epicenter. It’s where this whole mess started. “I was going to college there when the outbreak happened, yes.”

“That was the last place I saw her,” he says. “She was a student at the university.”

“Four years ago?”

“Four years ago.”

“I’m sorry to say that she’s probably graduated by now, that is unless she couldn’t figure out a major first.” I can tell Paxton doesn’t care for my jokes. He doesn’t laugh, he doesn’t smile. He simply stares. “So,” I continue, “she might not have even been there when this whole thing started?”

“It’s possible that she wasn’t but I don’t imagine she had dropped out.”

“What’s her name?” I ask with a deep sigh.

Paxton looks at his desk and swallows hard as if saying her name would make her truly gone. Finally he says, “Her name is Jessi."

Chapter 13 - Waverly