I was watching her while pretending not to watch her at the same time, so when Patrick spoke right behind me, I nearly jumped off my cot. I set down my composition notebook and said, “What?”

He laid his shotgun across one shoulder. “I said, ‘Get what you need from the supply station.’”

I headed over to where Eve Jenkins sat at a desk she’d pulled over in front of the open door to the storage room. She’d done a great job organizing everything inside, bats and crowbars lining one wall, knives stashed against the others. Bins held flashlights and compasses and pocketknives. Most of the food remained in the cafeteria, but she kept energy bars, granola mix, and apples in a crate for the lookouts.

When she saw me coming, she smiled and straightened up a bit. I looked past her into the room. “Wow, this is pretty cool.”

“It’s nothing,” she said. “Just organizing stuff. I’m sure anyone could’ve done it.”

“You know, you are allowed to just say thanks.”

She blushed a little. “Thanks. What do you need, Chance?”

My baling hooks, hung on a peg in the back, gleamed as if calling to me. I nodded at them.

She said, “I figured you were gonna ask for a hunting rifle, but we just have the one from Leonora Rose, and there’s no ammo.”

“Too big anyways,” I said.

“I heard you were a crack shot with a rifle.”

I shrugged. “I have okay aim,” I said. “But I need something for up close.”

She blanched slightly, then lifted the baling hooks from the peg and brought them over.

I gripped them again, the wood firm and comforting in my hands. “Guess I’m gonna need a flashlight, a folding knife, some matches, and a couple of energy bars. Everything else we’ll figure out along the way.”

She shifted her weight uncomfortably. “Ben says you can only take what you brought. He said we gotta preserve supplies and weapons for the lookouts.”

Ben had decided he was running security, and no one had undecided it for him since.

Her lips pressed together, that pretty dimple making a tiny crescent in her right cheek. “But…,” she continued, “I think Ben’s sort of a jerk. And Dr. Chatterjee never agreed to the rule. So.” She gave a quick look at the double doors where Ben’s chair sat empty, then grabbed the supplies and slid them across the desk to me. “Here you go.”

“Thanks, Eve.”

When I turned away, she said my name. I looked at her over my shoulder.

“Make sure you come back,” she said. A wisp of glossy dark hair drifted down over her face, and she blew it away.

I realized she was prettier than I’d thought.

“Do my best,” I said.

JoJo ran over and clamped onto my side, hugging me. She was crying. “Don’t leave, Chance. Please don’t.”