Our desperate scramble up is nothing like in the movies. The bark is gritty and painful against our hands and the rain has made it slick. There’s no learning curve. Lily is the one who climbed trees, not me, and I think that’s the only reason I make it. Because I know she did it.

Somehow, we get to the weak branch that leads directly to my window. By that time, the infected are below us. The branch strains under our weight and starts to give as I break the glass with the crowbar. I launch myself through the window. Rhys falls in after me. I crawl across the floor and use my bed to get myself to my feet—my bed—and I’m dizzy with how untouched my room is. The end of the world didn’t happen here.

Or maybe it did. Maybe I’m dead. I turn to Rhys.

“We made it, right? We’re here—Rhys, are we here? Rhys—” I crouch next to him and put my hands against his face while he gasps for breath. “We’re here, aren’t we?”

“We’re still here,” he manages.

Home.

I stand in the middle of the room wondering why she hasn’t come to meet me. The house is boarded and safe but I broke glass. I broke glass and I hit the floor hard, but no one has come up here to investigate. The door to my room stays closed.

Maybe they’re in the rec room and they can’t hear me.

Maybe they heard me and think I’m death and they’re hiding from it.

“How is Cary going to know to climb the tree?” Rhys’s voice is raspy. He looks at me. “He won’t know.”

My throat gets tight. I don’t say it, but he sees it in my eyes.

Cary is not coming back.

Rhys buries his face in his hands.

I can’t ignore the feeling building inside me that something is wrong.

“I’m going to check the house,” I say.

Maybe my father lied. Maybe Lily was never here and this was just his way to get me back home. I tighten my grip on the crowbar, which makes my other hand feel too empty, so I search for something I can put in it. I pick up a piece of my window. Glass. It’s jagged, but feels right with my fingers curled around it.

Rhys gets to his feet but I say, “I want you to stay here.”

“Sloane—”

“Just stay here.”

He won’t win this and he knows it. He sits on the edge of my bed—my bed—and tells me to shout if something happens. I nod. I move across the carpet, leaving muddy footprints in my wake. I open my bedroom door quietly and close it just as quietly behind me.