The Asian girl’s dark hair was shaved down into a buzz cut, and she was wearing baggy boys’ jeans, but her face was so pretty she might have been a doll. Her full, heart-shaped lips formed a perfect O of shock, and her skin paled in such a drastic way that the freckles on her nose and cheeks stood out all the more.

“Where did you come from?” I managed to choke out.

The stunned look on her face flashed to one of terror. The hand she didn’t have jammed down into a container of Twizzlers slammed the door shut with a streak of yellow.

“Hey!” I pushed it back open in time to see her dash out the door at the other end of the stockroom, heading out into the rain. I was right behind her, throwing the backpack over my shoulders as I ran past the shelves. The door had caught on a large rock and went flying open as I kicked it and sprinted through.

“Hey!”

Snack-sized bags of pretzels and chips were spilling out from her pockets and beneath her shirt.

She had every right to be terrified of the half-crazed girl chasing after her. I could waste time feeling bad about it later; but, for now, my mind had gotten a whiff of hope, and it wasn’t about to let it escape through a parking lot. She had to have come from somewhere, and if she had a way out of this town, or a place to hide until Cate and the others gave up on me, I wanted to know about it.

The gas station’s back lot was only four parking spaces wide, and one of them was taken up by an overturned Dumpster. I heard animals tittering inside it as I sprinted after her, keeping my eyes on the back of her gray T-shirt. Her legs were pumping so fast beneath her that she tripped where the lot’s loose asphalt met a patch of wild grass. My arms flew out to catch her, but the girl recovered just in time.

I was within two steps of being able to grab the back of her shirt when she suddenly picked up her speed, zipping through the small cluster of trees that separated the station from what looked like another road.

“I just—just want to talk to you!” I called. “Please!”

What I should have said was, I won’t hurt you, or I’m not a PSF, or something that would have clued her in to the fact that I was just as screwed in the safety department as she was. But my chest was on fire, and my lungs constricted, stretched tight and useless by the pain in my ribs. The panic button was jumping up into the air, bouncing against my chin and shoulders. I ripped it off so hard, the chain’s clasp snapped.

The little girl leaped over a fallen tree trunk, her sneakers squelching through the forest muck. Mine weren’t much quieter, but Martin’s voice drowned us both out.