“Didn’t see anything. Did you?”

I shake my head. We make our way alongside the building, tiptoeing over flowerbeds until we’re interrupted by the concrete walk close to the main entrance.

We cling to shadows every time we make a noise we shouldn’t and then move on more quickly than before. We finally get to the opposite corner of the school, past the bike rack, and stand just before the parking lot. Rhys stops suddenly.

“What if he’s been bitten?” he asks, and I swear we both have the same thought right after he asks it. Why didn’t anyone think of that before now?

“He didn’t get back up,” I say. “He’s not bitten.”

And then I step into the lot, feeling the bravest and most indestructible I’ve ever felt in my life which is strange, I guess, because I’m readying myself to die. The morning air is so welcome against my skin.

“Sloane,” Rhys says.

I make my way around a car, checking the ignition. No keys. Rhys takes a few more steps and then he stops again and I know he won’t go any farther, that I will have to do this part on my own. I keep walking until I’m standing in the middle of the lot and that’s where I see him.

It’s not Mr. Casper.

I know that right away. I don’t know who he is that he got all the way to the school, begged for help, and ended up facedown on the pavement, but he’s got blood on him and he’s bulky in a way that reminds me of my father.

But it’s not my father, either.

I walk over to the body. This isn’t part of my plan. I was supposed to keep walking forward but for some reason I want to see even though it’s not Mr. Casper and it’s not my father.

This man was someone. He’s dead but he was alive. Maybe I knew him. Maybe I passed him on the street once. Maybe he has a note in his pocket for someone like I do. I crouch down, grab him by the shoulders, and roll him onto his back. His face is swollen, bruised. I do a quick check for bites just in case, but I don’t see any. I don’t see anything that would’ve killed him either. Maybe he survived this long and his heart gave out or something. He’s middle-aged. Wispy hair, balding. Lines edge the corners of his eyes and mouth. I wish dying was as easy as lying down next to him and stealing his death from him.

“Sloane, what are you doing?”

“I’m not coming back with you,” I say.

“What?”

“Go back and tell them it wasn’t Mr. Casper.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“I’m leaving—” I look up at him. I can’t figure out a way to say it. A good enough way to say it. A way that he will understand. “I can’t.”

“You’ll die out here—”

“I know.”