“I’ll do it,” Cami said, getting her hands in the way of Izabel’s. “Do yours.”

Izabel looked back at the boy. A teacher had come out and was moving him into the building. Izabel put on her own mask. She tried to calm down. Cars had built up behind them.

Cami took Izabel’s hand and opened the car door with the button on the panel. They walked in like nothing had happened.

Mr. Lind greeted them inside the school. The boy was nowhere to be seen, but Izabel guessed that he was in the bathroom washing up. Maybe someone was changing his clothes.

Cami ran off to play with the children.

“We missed Cami yesterday,” Mr. Lind said.

“That’s why I wanted to come in,” Izabel said. “We had a problem with our air filtration system and Cami responded oddly, slept through the alarm and the ambulance ride, and we were in the hospital for a few hours.”

“I’m so sorry,” he said.

“She’s been okay since we got home, and the doctors said she’s perfectly healthy.”

“That’s good news.”

“But I wanted you to know. And please let me know if there’s anything you notice today.”

“I will,” he said, and then one of the children began to cry. “I better get back to it.”

“Thank you,” Izabel said. She pressed a button to call a car and waited awkwardly by the door, trying not to be a distraction. Cami looked at her a few times, and they waved at each other, but Cami always went back to what she was doing. Then the boy appeared. He had at least five Band-Aids on his hands. He was happy. He was fine.

    Chapter Six

Back in the car, she decided to go to the mall instead of going home. She typed in her destination, and as the domes ticked by, she began to think that maybe she shouldn’t have let Cami go to school, because of the murders. She thought back to the classroom. Weren’t there fewer children there than usual? Were those parents right? Smarter? Prepared?

The car pulled up to the mall and she went inside. She reasoned with herself that the bloody nose, washing the sheets and clothes, tending to their bodies in the shower, it had all distracted her. She hadn’t considered Cami not going to school. If she had, she would have kept her home. Like a good mother. But now it was too late. Cami was already there.