He shook his head. “No, no, it’s a long story.” He wasn’t ready to tell anyone anything about all the crap he’d been through and that he’d cruelly been thrown in with a bunch of people who were immune to the virus. What would be the point? He and all these people would be dead or past the Gone soon enough.

“Okay,” Keisha said slowly, acting now as if she humored the tall tales of a child. She must’ve had plenty of practice with such a thing. “Then let’s fish another fry—”

“Fish another what?”

Her face scowled in rebuke. “You’re gonna have to get used to my humor, young man.”

He almost protested again—she couldn’t be more than 10 years older than him—but he fell silent when her scowl deepened even further.

“Now listen to me and listen to me well. What in the hell and what on God’s green earth were you going on about when you said you want to go live with the infected, live at the Crank Palace? I know we’re heading toward crazy, now, but we don’t seem too ready to get off the train just yet. Or at least I thought so, anyway. But if you’re gonna sit here and yap about wanting to go to that place, then you were crazy long before you got the Flare. Don’t come at me again with something so stupid.”

She probably would’ve kept on going but now it was her turn to stutter to a stop when she saw his wide eyes.

“What?” she asked. “You don’t believe me?”

Newt stumbled through a few words of nonsense before he got out anything coherent. “Mainly I just wanted to leave my friends behind before I went off the rails. But maybe it’s the best place to go. Be with the other sorry saps who're infected. For one thing, maybe they have food and shelter, there, everybody’s in the same boat.” Newt didn’t believe a single word coming out of his own mouth. “What else am I gonna do? Go settle on a farm and raise cattle for the jerks in Denver?”

“Raise cattle for the...” Keisha’s words trailed into silence as she shook her head in wonder at the apparent stupidity of his full statement. “Look, I’m just gonna have to treat you like my third child, okay? Deal? I don’t have time for this nonsense talk. Now, let’s get up and go. The sweeps will probably go all night ‘till they can’t find another soul to toss into those trucks. They don’t like dirty rats like us getting too close to their precious city.”