‘So we’re sitting ducks,’ says someone in the crowd. ‘That’s it then?’

‘The best we can do is run and hide and hope they don’t find us?’ There’s an edge of anger in their voices.

Everyone starts talking at once.

An anxious voice rises above the noise. ‘Can somebody take this girl?’

We all look at the man in the crowd who yelled out his question. He’s a skinny man with bandages across his shoulder and arm. Two girls about the age of ten stand beside him.

He pushes one girl behind him and the other in front of him. ‘I can’t feed and protect her if we have to go back out on the road.’

Both girls begin crying. The girl peering around behind him looks just as scared as the girl being pushed forward.

Some of us watch with quiet sympathy while others look on in horror. But even the most compassionate hesitate to step forward to take on the responsibility of feeding and protecting a helpless kid when everyone is either predator or prey.

Not everybody looks like their heart is being wrenched, though. A few watch the girl with cold, crafty eyes. Any second now, one of them will step forward to claim her.

‘You’re giving away your daughter?’ I ask, stunned.

He shakes his head. ‘I’d never do that. She’s my daughter’s friend who came with us on vacation to California just before the angels invaded.’

‘Then she’s your family now,’ I say through gritted teeth.

The man looks around at the faces around him. ‘I don’t know what else to do. I can’t protect her. I can’t feed her. She’ll be better off with someone else. My only other choice is to just abandon her. I just can’t keep my family alive and her too.’ He wraps his good arm around the crying girl behind him as if wishing he had hid her before he caught everyone’s attention.

‘She’s your family too,’ I say. I’m so angry that I’m shaking.

‘Look, I’ve kept her alive all this time,’ yells the father. ‘But I can’t do it anymore. I don’t even know how I’m going to keep me and my daughter alive. I’m just desperate and doing what I need to do to try to protect me and mine.’

Me and mine.

I think about the dying man Paige found in the department store. What happened to his people? If we scatter now, are we each going to find ourselves dying alone in a dark place with no one to care if we’re eaten alive?