I bent over and kissed her head. “I have to,” I said.

She pried herself from me, ran off, and hid beneath the bleachers. Rocky sat on one of the middle benches. I caught his eye, gestured to the space where JoJo had disappeared: Take care of your sister. He nodded, but I could tell he was scared, too.

I turned away. Over in the middle of the cots, Patrick and Alex were sitting together. He held his hands over hers and they were leaning in, his hat cocked back on her head so their foreheads could touch. He must’ve felt me looking at him because he stood up, and then Alex saw me, too, and rose to her feet. A moment later Cassius’s head reared into view beside them.

Patrick lifted the shotgun, balancing it on the ledge of his collarbone. The hockey stick spun expertly in Alex’s hands. Patrick reached over, plucked his Stetson from Alex’s head, and seated it firmly on his own. With a baling hook, I gestured toward the door.

As we headed out, I could feel the eyes of everyone in the gym on us. We were the brave few. Or the soon-to-be-dead few.

We reached the double doors, pushed them open, and headed down the corridor. Cassius trotted at our side, his head raised, tongue lolling. He probably thought we were going for a stroll.

By the front of the school, Ben stood lookout, that stun gun shoved into the waist of his jeans. As we neared, he spun the keys around his finger like a cowboy showing off his revolver.

Patrick halted, studied him. “You’re enjoying all this, aren’t you?”

Ben considered for a moment. “I’m used to death, Patrick. I grew up around a slaughterhouse. It gave me an up-close look at, you know, the cycle of life. And I knew exactly how my life was gonna play out. How many hours I’d work when I was twenty or thirty or forty. How much overtime I’d pull on weekends during culling season. What kind of crappy place I’d live in when I got older and what bar I’d drink at.” He swallowed, and I could see in his face the same longing I sometimes felt, the dreams he didn’t allow himself to have. “I get to protect people now. Make choices that actually matter. I get to actually matter.”

His eyes glimmered wetly. Again I thought back to that car crash that had taken his brothers and wondered what he’d lost in the flames. Or found.

“So yeah…” Ben turned to slot the key into the lock. He opened the big door for us, the air billowing in, cold and unforgiving. “The end of the world is pretty much the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Entry 18

ENTRY 18