He gave her half of what he had brought. He couldn’t seem to help himself. When he looked at her he saw Meike, the freckle-faced girl he had left behind at the Safeco Field compound in the aftermath of Hawk’s disappearance. He had told her to run away, but had she? If she had, had she ended up like this girl—ragged and starving and alone? He didn’t like thinking about it, but there it was. All these abandoned children, tossed into a world of predators and poisons, bereft and hopeless waifs. He wanted to save them, just as Michael had saved him all those years ago. But he knew it was impossible. He couldn’t save them. Probably no one could.

“You sure you won’t take me with you?” she asked him again. “I won’t be any bother. I’ll do whatever you tell me to.”

He shook his head. “Tell you what you should do,” he said to her. “Go back up the road, cross the bridge into Washington, and keep going north on the freeway. First two-lane road you come to—only one you’ll pass that’s a real highway—you take it east toward the mountains. Some other kids are going that way. There are even more kids waiting for them, and some adults, too. They’re all heading for a place that really is safe. If you can catch up to them, you’ll be all right.”

She looked at him doubtfully. “For real?”

“Better than staying here, isn’t it?”

She nodded slowly, flicking back loose strands of her long hair. “Okay. I guess I can try. I can walk all right. I can find my way. Some other kids would be good company.”

“If you leave now, you can get to the crossroad by nightfall. Just keep traveling east after that until you catch up to them. Be careful.”

She grinned crookedly. “You don’t need to tell me that.” She paused. “Is it really all that dangerous where you’re going?”

“Worse.”

She studied him a moment. “Okay, I believe you. Good luck. Thanks.”

He set out alone a short time afterward, waving good-bye to her as she began walking in the opposite direction. She didn’t appear to have any supplies or clothes or anything beyond what he had given her or what she was wearing. She was a skinny, ragged figure as she disappeared from view, and he wondered, as he had about Meike, if he would ever see her again.