I’m glad he’s here. I’m glad Emerson is here too. They’ve stopped trying to convince me to come inside, and instead they’ve set up camp. Both of them have wrapped themselves in a blanket and are keeping quiet watch at a careful distance. They both have empty plates next to them, from food that Josie brought and left nearby. I didn’t pay attention to what they ate. I can’t quite remember. They each have a thermos with steaming-hot tea, the flasks stolen from the guard station and thoroughly cleaned. I have my water bottle. It’s lying next to me, within reach but untouched.

“I really wish those aliens would have landed,” I say, when the silence gets too deep and uncomfortable.

Casey pulls up the corner of his mouth into a crooked smile. “What was it again? We would all get eaten by giant penguins? Or hamsters? Face-huggers and chest-bursters.”

“Squirrels.”

“We should try to eat them instead, see how they like it,” he muses.

“Maybe Sofia can—” I don’t manage another whole sentence before my breath runs out. I gasp and cough until my entire body is trembling. My diaphragm feels like it’s on fire, and my shoulders and back are aching. The cold air does not help either. “Maybe Sofia can—maybe she can set traps.”

I try, I really do, but it’s hard to lighten the mood when you’re suffocating.

Casey and Emerson exchange a worried glance, and I groan. Not out of pain but out of frustration. “Don’t treat me like I’m dying,” I say, in between shallow breaths. “Treat me like I’m here.”

Casey flinches at that word. Dying. Emerson merely tilts their head.

“Do you regret it?” Emerson asks, softly.

“What?”

“Going into town. Whatever it is that brought you here. Any of it.”

I pull my knees up to my chest, making myself as small as possible. It does not make breathing easier, but it makes me feel less exposed. I consider the question. It may be the cold or the fatigue, or it may be the fever, but I struggle to formulate my thoughts.

“No. I don’t regret it. Any of it.”

I don’t regret pulling Ian off that girl and helping her, because I wouldn’t have been able to justify walking away from someone who needed help. I regret the consequences, but those are hardly my fault.

I don’t regret going with the others into town. Not the first night. Not any night since.

And I absolutely don’t regret breaking into that last house to get us the cards we needed, the cards that will—hopefully—allow the others to survive. It was necessary.

Although—

“I regret one thing.”

Casey waits until I stop coughing to ask, “What do you regret?”

“I regret thinking that no one cares about us.”

“Who cares?” Emerson scoffs, and they immediately turn bright red when I look at them.

I breathe in hard, and I somehow manage to pull up the corner of my mouth. “I do. I’ve always cared.”