“I want them to be,” Olympia says, “but I don’t think they are.”

“Olympia…”

“Whether that list is old or not, I don’t think they’re alive.”

“Why not?”

“I mean…I mean Mom wants them to be alive. You know? And I’ve read about characters who want something so bad they believe it’s actually happening.”

“But the names…”

“I know,” Olympia says. “Like I said, I want them to be. I just—”

A hard knocking at the door interrupts her.

“Guys? Eyes closed?”

“Yes,” Tom says. He does it.

“Yes,” Olympia says.

The door creaks open, and Malorie steps inside. Right away Tom can hear the energy in her breathing. When she speaks, it’s with more urgency than he’s heard in a long time.

“How close are we?” she asks.

“I’m packed,” Tom says.

“I’m right there,” Olympia says.

Malorie closes the door. She takes the broom from beside it and begins to sweep the cabin. The door was open, after all, even if only momentarily.

“In the old world,” she says, “we had weather forecasters. People to tell us what we might expect.”

“I brought my rain stuff,” Olympia says.

“You should have packed everything I told you to pack and nothing more.”

Tom hears her close to him. She sweeps around him, then under his bed.

“Did either of you take anything else?”

The teens know better than to hesitate when answering. They might be able to hear to the gates of camp, but Malorie can hear a lie like no one else.

“Nope,” Tom says.

“Just what you said,” Olympia says.

“Okay.” Malorie stops sweeping. “You can open your eyes.”

They do.

Tom is stricken by how alive Malorie looks. Her eyes appear bright with memories, realizations, decisions. The bag beside her is full. She wears a hoodie and long pants, gloves and boots. In one hand is the blindfold she just removed.

“Listen to me,” she says. “We’ve never done what we’re about to do. We’ve never been where we’re about to go. We’re really, really going to need each other.”

It strikes Tom, suddenly, that the only thing that could trump Malorie’s safety measures, the only thing that could possibly eclipse her way of life and the life she has insisted upon for these seventeen years, is family.

“I want you both to know I’m prepared for the fact that we may not find them. That we probably won’t. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Tom says.

“Yes,” Olympia says.

“I’m ready for this to end in failure. But not in our failure. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Yes.”