“What about Rhys?”

She shifts. “You heard Trace…”

“You don’t trust Rhys?”

“Trace wouldn’t want him there,” she says. “After everything I’ve done … I’m not going to push. Sloane, I want you to come with us.”

“Trace wouldn’t mind?”

“Not much. He’d get over it,” she says. “I mean, he said it was okay … so what do you think?”

I think I’m going to cry.

“It means a lot to me,” I say.

“Just let me know. Soon.” She gives me a quick hug and then says something terrible and wonderful all at the same time. “I’ve always wanted a sister.”

She hurries back the way she came, doesn’t look over her shoulder, doesn’t see me on the verge of tears. I am so much sadder about this than I should be. I stand there and try to think through her kindness enough to picture it—me going with them or not going with them—but I can’t. I can’t picture it either way.

Everyone is in for Rayford.

“It doesn’t matter if Trace has the gun,” Cary decides. He scribbles something down in an old math notebook. “It will draw unwanted attention. I think we’ll be fine with baseball bats and I saw a crowbar in the custodian’s room. Good, blunt objects—”

“Don’t really mean anything when you’re surrounded,” Rhys says.

“Well, a gun won’t be much help in that case either.”

“Given any thought to transportation?”

“Check every car we see. If we can find temporary shelter while we look that would be awesome.” Cary taps his pen on the paper. “There aren’t any outside here?”

“No,” I say. “The one in the parking lot has no keys and there’s one across the street, but it’s wrecked.”

“We’ll have to keep our eyes open.” He frowns. “I think we can do this. I mean, we got here in one piece and the streets were overrun. It’s way quieter now. If we’re lucky, most of them are still at Russo’s. We’ll stay away from that side of town.”

“Just because the streets aren’t overrun—”

“Yeah, I know. They’re quiet now,” Cary says. “At first I thought we should leave at night so we can be hidden, but I think it would be better if we could see any infected coming for us, don’t you?” He doesn’t wait for a response. “Maybe we should go just before dawn, so it’s dark but not for long. Oh, and everyone needs a pack full of supplies. Two packs to two people was a stupid idea. We could get separated easily. We might have to separate.”

“You really want to do this as a group?” I ask.

“If you’re all coming, you’re all coming,” he answers. “I would’ve done it alone if I had to but there’s an obvious strength in numbers.”