“I tried. I’ve done everything I know how to do. But they keep dying. The survivors in the Dark City keep dying, and it’s my fault. I can bring some here and give them a chance but even that—”

“Shhh, it’s okay,” I tell him, pulling our hands up until I can press my lips to his burning knuckles. His wrists feel dangerously thin. Every part of him seems fragile.

“It’s not okay. I’m the only one who can save them. I’m the only one who can get supplies to them—food and blankets and wood and I just can’t. I can’t do it. I can’t handle it. I’ve tried and tried and …”

He takes a deep shuddering breath. “I don’t know what to do anymore. The City’s going to die and it’s all going to be my fault.”

“Oh, Catcher.” I grasp his hand tighter, my heart aching for him. “You can’t save them all. You’re only one person.”

“You don’t understand what it’s like,” he says. “What it sounds like when they see that I have food. When I carry it to the cable car to bring here. How they call out to me and the desperation in their eyes. You don’t know what it’s like to watch them die and know that if you’d just tried harder … if you’d just been better …”

He swallows whatever he was going to say next. I don’t know what to tell him to make it okay. I don’t know how to fix this. “You haven’t been eating,” I say and he doesn’t answer me, just presses his face against my back, his tears hot on my skin.

“There was a girl,” he finally says. “This morning there was a girl on a fire escape and she called out to me. She had a baby. This skinny little boy who clutched at her legs when she cried for me to stop.” He pauses, as if seeing it all in his mind.

Taking a deep breath, he continues. “She told me they were out of food. She said she’d heard about me. That I could cross the horde and bring supplies. She begged me.…” His voice breaks. “She begged me,” he says again.

His body shakes and he has a hard time catching his breath. I press my lips to his palm, to his wrist, to anywhere I can find to give him comfort.” But I didn’t have anything. I could have scavenged for her first but I wanted to find a way to get you off the island.