“I also want to graduate,” he admits, after another bout of silence. He doesn’t answer the question I nearly asked. “Find a way to work in a hospital.”

“Go to med school?” I ask.

He raises his eyebrows. “Got a problem with that?”

“No.” I tilt my head, considering. “After all of this, I wasn’t sure that’s what you wanted to keep doing.”

“It’s because of all of this that I do.” He settles in a bit more comfortably. He folds his arms behind his head and leans against the wall. “I don’t know if med school is for me. I don’t know that I’d want to become a doctor or anything, but maybe I could go to nursing school. I want to learn how to care for people. I want to be able to help.”

“I respect that.”

“Hope for a Better Future, hmm?” He smirks.

I scowl. “You’re hilarious.”

“I know.” His grins softens to a real smile. “I like the idea of a brighter future though, Grace. Something to work toward. One day, this plague will be over. You read the notice; they’re working on medication. If we get the rations, if we can survive that long, we can endure whatever comes next.”

“I know,” I say, plucking at the hem of my shirt. Something of that same fire from before settles inside me, but it’s not anger this time. It’s fierce determination. “But it has to be more than that. You told me yourself. Survival alone isn’t good enough.”

“So we live,” he says. “We thrive. We eat ice cream. We travel the world. We chase our wildest dreams and our most impossible fantasies. We wish on every falling star, and we love with abandon.” He changes position to sit a little straighter. “And whether that happens once the plague is vanquished or we are free again, I don’t care. It’s enough to know that it will. It must. For ourselves, and for the people we carry with us. Everyone who should still be with us, if only someone had cared.”

“We can’t live for them,” I say.

“No one can, but we can remember.” Casey balls his hands into fists. “We can remember that every single one of them deserved to live as much as we do. Nothing we did out there merited being abandoned and left to starve. Nothing we did merited a death sentence, and we will not forget that.”

“So, do you want to work in a hospital or overthrow the government?” I attempt to jest, but Casey’s steely gaze sobers me.

“Both, if I have to.” He shakes his head. “Food and medicine, Grace. What on earth did we do that means we don’t warrant that? Aren’t we human?”

It’s on the tip of my tongue. To ask him why he got sent here in the first place. He’s one of the few people in Hope who’s managed to keep his secrets close to his chest. It cost him quite a few cuts and bruises from the west wing.