Casey speaks up again. “I’ll take care of your sister, Logan,” he says quietly. “I’m here. There’s nowhere else for me to go. But you can’t stay.” He glances past me, and his face softens. Some kind of intense emotion sparks in his eyes. “She can’t stay, Grace. And you shouldn’t be here either.”

I swirl around and find Grace walking up. She halts at a distance and folds her arms. She has a handful of paper crunched up in one hand. Her lips tremble, before she swallows and juts out her jaw. “Neither should you. I told you to bring her to the infirmary, not stay inside.”

“So, what would you like me to do then? Leave the two of them in a bed and abandon them?”

“Of course not, but I thought—”

“We have no medical care, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I also know that, but—”

Casey folds his arms. “I can’t leave them here. I won’t.”

“I don’t want you to get sick, dammit! It’s the fucking plague, and I don’t want you to get sick.” Grace raises her voice, and I flinch. I push my back harder against the wall, like it might swallow me.

Casey rakes his fingers through his hair, and all the worry and anger seeps out of him. “I don’t want to either. I really would have preferred first contact to this. But I meant what I said. If this is it, the kindest thing we can do is take care of each other.”

Grace’s jaw ticks. She clenches her hands. “You remember what you said to me on my first day here? No one here truly cares about each other.”

“Well, I also said you couldn’t trust me.”

“Oh, fuck you.” Grace shakes her head, but she doesn’t seem angry anymore. Leah told me once, there are a thousand ways to say I hate you and some of them mean I love you instead.

Casey’s expressions go through a complicated journey. He crumples like he might cry, but he swallows hard and narrows his eyes. He breathes out through his mouth, and somehow, in spite of everything, he manages to smile. “I was wrong. When I told you to survive. Surviving isn’t enough.”

Grace swipes at her eyes. “Fine. But surviving is where we start. You’re not allowed to get sick, do you hear me? I don’t know how I got to be the one in charge here, but if I am, then I forbid it. I forbid you from getting sick.” She uses the papers she’s holding like a pointer, to underline her words.

“Yessir.” Casey tips an imaginary hat.

Neither of them says what I think: if only it were as simple as that. But maybe that’s not what they mean. Maybe they know that as well as I do.

Casey nods his head in my direction again. “Please take her away from here, Grace. Let me take care of them, but protect yourselves too. Please.” He directs the last word at me, and I can feel my shoulders drop, because that’s what Leah would want me to do too. Protect myself. Be careful. Even if I want to find a way to protect her instead.