Then there was a man. It was Gabe Curtis. He was sitting at the kitchen table before an empty plate. “Is it ready?” he asked Sara, and then, turning to the girl sitting next to him, said, “I always liked johnnycake.” Sara wondered, with vague alarm, who this girl was—she tried to look at her but somehow could not see her; wherever Sara looked for her was always the very spot the girl had just departed—and the fact reached her mind, slowly and then all at once, that she was in a new place now. She was in the room Teacher had brought her to, the place of the telling, and her parents were there, waiting; they were standing at the door. “Go with them, Sara,” Gabe said. “It’s time for you to go. Run and keep on running.” “But you’re dead,” said Sara, and when she looked at her parents, she saw that where their faces should have been were regions of blankness, as if she were viewing them through a current of water; something was wrong with their necks. There was a pounding sound now, without the room, and the sound of a voice, calling her name. “You’re all dead.”

Then she was awake. She had fallen asleep in a chair by the cold hearth. It was the door that had awakened her; someone was outside, calling her name. Where was Michael? What time was it?

“Sara! Open up!”

Caleb Jones? She opened the door as he was reaching to hit it again, his fist freezing in the air.

“We need a nurse.” The boy was breathing hard. “Someone’s been shot.”

She was instantly awake, reaching for her kit on the table by the door. “Who?”

“Lish brought her in.”

“Lish? Lish is shot?”

Caleb shook his head, still trying to catch his breath. “Not her. The girl.”

“What girl?”

His eyes were amazed. “She’s a Walker, Sara.”

By the time they reached the Infirmary the sky beyond the lights had begun to pale. No one was there, which struck her as strange. From what Caleb had told her, she’d expected a crowd. She mounted the steps and rushed into the ward.

Lying on the nearest cot was a girl.

She was lying face-up, the bolt still embedded in her shoulder; a dark shape was pinned beneath her back. Alicia was standing over her, her jersey spattered with blood.

“Sara, do something,” Alicia said.

Sara moved quickly forward and eased her hand behind the girl’s neck to check her airway. The girl’s eyes were closed. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, her skin cool and clammy to the touch. Sara felt her neck for a pulse; her heart was banging like a bird’s.

“She’s in shock. Help me roll her over.”