I close my eyes.

Leah.

Seventeen

Emerson

My stomach churns. It’s far too early for anyone but the kitchen crew—and probably Casey—to be awake yet, but my room increasingly feels like a cell again.

When I started digging graves, everyone else in Hope found excuses to avoid me. I don’t know if it’s because they’re worried I carry the plague with me or because they’re uncomfortable at the notion of death. Maybe it’s a bit of both. But the work needs to be done, and we need someone to do it. I want to be the one to do it.

It’s far easier to be amid the dead than amid the living. I don’t have to worry about trusting them not to let me fall. So I’ll make myself useful—I’ll grab my portion of food and spend the whole day outside preparing for more.

But when I walk toward the kitchen, the sounds of a struggle echo from within. I freeze. What is going on?

Someone grunts. Something metal goes clattering to the floor, sounding like an off-key cymbal. It sounds like someone is in trouble, and I can’t just stand here.

I pick up my pace and slam the door open. There’s food strewn out all over the floor. Torn bags and busted bowls rolling around. And one of the girls who left with Hunter is fighting with Logan. Or rather, overwhelming Logan—she isn’t fighting back. Her hands are twitching, but she isn’t struggling.

She’s suffocating.

I do the only thing I can. I move.

I don’t even stop to shout or to warn them. I have to stop what’s happening. I put my head down and rush the girl to get her off Logan. When we collide, it’s a tangle of limbs. Shoulder into shoulder. Equal parts tumbling and diving, my arms around her, and we’re falling. Our impact with the ground rattles my bones.

Somewhere in my periphery, Logan gasps and coughs.

The girl I’m fighting is strong. I’m stronger. I’ve been building up muscle digging holes in the earth.

But she’s desperate, and I don’t know what I’m doing.

She snarls and sputters and thrusts to push me off, but I cling to her. We roll across the ground, across the sheen of rice grains that dig into my skull and my arms, then we twist and turn again.

When I lean over her, she brings a knee up to her chest and kicks out hard, wildly. Her eyes are frantic. Her foot connects with my abdomen and groin and pure, aching nausea surges through me.

“Get out,” I shout to Logan.

The girl escapes from under me when I double over, but I push myself up again and cling to her. “No. Stop. Stay.”

“Let me go!”

She kicks out at me again, and I struggle to hold on. I try to grasp at her hair, and she all but drags me toward the counter. Logan is nowhere to be seen. Good. Smart girl.

Get help.