“Sorry. Gimme a hand.” Biting her lip, she grabbed around my neck and let me hoist her to her feet.

Looking past me, she gasped.

I glanced up.

Barely visible in the predawn glow, a wave of movement swept around the corner between us and the school.

Entry 39

ENTRY 39

I had no time to think.

Lifting Alex off her feet, I dumped her in the back of the pickup, then hoisted myself up and slid in next to her.

We lay curled into each other so our foreheads touched.

Her whisper was so quiet I could barely hear her. “What if they saw us already?”

“It’s still mostly dark.”

Dozens of feet rasped across pavement toward us.

“But what if they did?” she said.

“We’ll find out soon enough.”

Closer. Closer. Then I sensed shadows flicker past us on either side. The group of Hosts had split around the truck. If any one of them paused or looked to the side, they would see us there, holding our breath and hiding in the bed of the truck.

But they didn’t.

Being single-minded had its advantages.

But also its disadvantages.

Alex dipped her face into the hollow of my neck, and I held her, breathing the smell of her hair. The wave of Hosts kept coming and coming, split by the prow of the truck.

Finally the stream thinned, and a brief time later we heard nothing at all.

A spill of light came from the east, making the treetops glow.

“We should go,” Alex said.

“We need to wait, give them time to get a few blocks away,” I said. “We can’t lead them into the school.”

“Okay. Okay.”

I could feel her breath against my throat. Somehow our arms had wound up around each other.

“When I was four,” Alex said, “I got lost at Disney World. There were people everywhere. But I could only see their knees. And then, through the crowd, I saw my mom’s skirt. But I couldn’t get to her. People kept walking between us, and I’d lose her and lose her again. There were people all around, but I was so lost.” Her voice caught. “It was like that at the cannery. When they had us in cages, when they strapped me to that assembly line, I was surrounded by kids but completely alone. I might as well have been the only person left in the world.” She lifted her face to mine. “And then there was you.”

Her lips, so close. I thought about what might have been between us in some alternate universe where I was the older brother instead of Patrick.

I tore my gaze from her green, green eyes and looked at the lightening sky. “We should go before it gets too bright,” I said, and she nodded her agreement.