Everybody waits. We wait a long time, long enough that a flock of birds comes to the trees and sweat trickles down my spine, pooling in the excess material of my sports bra. Long enough that my feet start to hurt from standing so still. The body smells, but I’m used to it. I stand in the sun with a dead girl until I finally say, “None of it got in my mouth.”

“Or your eyes?” Joey says.

“Or my eyes.” I think some of it did but it doesn’t matter. “I’m fine.”

“She didn’t bite you? Or claw you?”

“I’m fine.”

“Unzip your jacket.”

I do what Joey asks even though they can make out the curve of my chest. I even pull down the collar of my shirt so they can see the skin her claws grazed. There’s no mark.

Finally, Joey relents. He nods, and I walk back up to the pavilion, trying not to notice the way the other members of the Vanguard keep too close an eye on me, too hard a grip on their weapons.

The lady in the Vanguard doesn’t bother counting the rest of the ears. She dumps them out, gives them one good look, and says, “Take the supplies and leave.”

We get every box and every crate, but it feels just as hollow as failure.

Halfway back to the ALC, Faith calls an apologetic stop for a leg cramp, and Cormac takes the opportunity to drag me behind a tractor trailer. I’ve been thinking about the girl the entire walk, and I barely recognize that Cormac is in my face until he’s shoving me. I hit the side of the truck and my guts burn, but slowly. A dying fire, exhausted and smothered.

I snap, “What.”

It takes Cormac a second of seething to put words together—his face flushed almost as red as his hair, pieces of it sticking to his forehead—and when he does, he says, “Do you have any idea how badly you just fucked us over?”

The girl’s broken face swallows me whole when I blink. I want to stick a finger down my throat and get it all out. “I messed up. Leave me alone.”

“Who knows if the Vanguard is gonna answer us next time we call?” He jabs a finger into my chest, right into the empty space of my sports bra. As much as I would love to grab Cormac’s hand and bend it back so hard it snaps at the wrist, I don’t. “And it’s on you. Even if Nick won’t say it, I will. When we run out of food, I’ll make sure everybody knows it’s your fault.”

“Nick won’t let you,” I say.

“I don’t give a shit. He’ll come to his senses. He’ll admit it. Because you want to know something? You want to hear something, Ben?”