He might have been a tourist for all I knew, but the mere thought of finding him and finding a home to belong to kept me going. It gave me reason to try my best.

In my fourth home, Doctor Coleman tore the picture to shreds in front of me. He called it discipline. The consequences of my own choices. If only I’d listened better. If only I’d given him the respect he deserved.

If only.

I wonder how the Podolskys are doing now. I hope they’re safe.

“I want to know, if we don’t…” Sofia hesitates briefly when we walk out the door to the outside. It’s still a strange feeling to not have anybody stop us, shout at us, send us to solitary. I’m not sure when it’ll become easier. “If we don’t find food now, how bad is it? I know what Isaiah told us. I know things are bad on the outside. I know what my sister tells me too. But how bad will it be here?”

A hesitation underlies her words. Like she didn’t want to ask this question, but she couldn’t not.

Tension races up my jaw and neck. I glance around to make sure no one else is within earshot and measure my words. “It’s not terrible, yet.”

She grunts. “Sounds comforting, thanks.”

“Would you rather I lied to you?” I demand. “We need to stock up.”

“For how long?”

“I don’t know,” I snap. “For as long as we can. For as long as we must.”

Sofia’s voice remains calm and collected when she asks, “Do you think they’ll find a cure?”

I breathe out hard. Isaiah tries to find information about that on a daily basis. So far, nothing, but it’s only been a couple of weeks. At least, that’s what I’m telling myself. I can’t imagine being here for months or years. I don’t want to imagine either. I’ll grow old before I grow older. “I hope so.”

“Yeah, me too.” Sofia is silent all through our walk into the woods, but it’s a silence of unspoken words, and I wait for her to continue. “I want to travel before I die. Do you think we’ll ever travel again? I want to flirt with girls and kiss them. I want to learn Spanish, so I can talk to my niblings. I want to work with kids like us when I grow up, but I don’t want to grow up yet.”

We leave the path toward my first snare trap. I mull over her words. “Are you afraid to get sick?”

“Aren’t you?” she shoots back.

“I don’t know.” The weird thing is, I don’t think so. Of all the things that keep me up at night, that’s not one of them. “I’m afraid others will get sick.”

“Like your boyfriend?”

“He’s not—” I stop when I see her wiggle her eyebrows.

“Chill, I’m joking. You remember we share a wing, right? I would’ve heard if you had your boy over for better times.” She wiggles her eyebrows.