She reached for his arm. “Ron, don’t! You’ll get caught. If th’ Chelsea gang don’t getcha some other gang will. They all know Al’s dead by now. They won’t give a damn what they do to you!”

He pulled free of her. “I can’t sit here and let us starve. Davey needs food and medicine. No way to get them except at the market.”

“Ron, wait—”

“I’ll be back,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”

He was out the door before she could say anything else.

It took three days. Ron had to travel slowly, avoiding everybody and anybody on the streets. Most of the day he inched along, a block at a time, sometimes just a building at a time. Ducking into a doorway, he’d look carefully out onto the street and wait until no one was in sight. Then he’d sprint as far as he dared and duck into another doorway, praying that nobody saw him.

Twice he was spotted. Once he simply outran a pack of little kids. He ran until his lungs were aflame and his vision blurred. He raced down one block, cut around a corner, through an alleyway, up a fire-escape ladder, and down the other side of the building. When he collapsed, chest heaving painfully, the kids were nowhere in sight.

Just as night was falling he was surprised by three warriors from a gang he didn’t know. Ron stepped into a shadowy doorway and the three of them were already in there. They were just as surprised as he was.

They were smoking something and didn’t expect to be disturbed. For a flash of a second the three of them froze, wide-eyed, scared. Before they could recover, Ron took off, running wildly again. After a few minutes he looked back over his shoulder. No one was following.

He got to Dewey’s place late that night. He nearly forgot about the traps that the old man had set up along the stairs. But he remembered them just in time.

Finally he stood under the hole in the ceiling where the rope ladder had been and yelled out? “Dewey, it’s me, Ron. It’s Ron! Wake up. Hurry. Please hurry!”

A powerful light suddenly blinded him. He put his hands up over his head to shield himself. The light was blazing bright; Ron could feel its heat.

“You alone?” he heard Dewey’s voice ask.

“Yes.”

The rope ladder tumbled down and dangled in front of Ron. In a few minutes he was standing in Dewey’s living room, trying to tell the old man everything at once.

“Slow down, slow down,” Dewey said. “I can’t hardly understand you.”

Ron took a deep breath and tried to speak more slowly. He told Dewey about Dino, about the raid, the killings, Sylvia and Davey, their need for food and medicine.

Dewey nodded grimly. “Okay. I get the picture.”