“What’s it like out there?” I ask. “I mean … outside.”

“There are a few stragglers, but they’re mostly in the streets. They haven’t gone back to the doors, which is good,” he tells me. “We covered the windows again, just in case. Do you feel okay? You were pretty out of it when we brought you in here.”

The bandage on my head itches. It also looks stupid, but it would be ungrateful to say so. The side of my face is scratched, red. My cheek is bruised. Lots of bruises have exploded all over my body in the last twenty-four hours. I feel like I was in a minor car accident but I tell him I’m fine and he says, “I’ll bet,” and then we both stand there uncertainly. He stares at me for so long, it makes me prickly and hot.

“What?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I was just surprised you were the one who went out there.”

“Everyone was.”

“Yeah, but it probably should’ve been me.”

“Why would you even say that?”

“Because that’s what Grace and Trace keep telling me. I don’t know. Now Trace is saying I almost had your blood on my hands too.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

He exhales slowly. “You mean that?”

“It wasn’t about you, Cary.”

“What was it about?” I look away from him. And then he says, “Rhys told me.”

“Rhys told you what?”

“About the man out there. What you did. Rhys said he was half crazy and that he would’ve jeopardized us if you brought him in. Now he’s—he’s one of the stragglers…”

So the man turned. My eyes burn. I don’t want to talk about it with Cary, though, so I twist the topic back around to Grace and Trace.

“They’re in mourning. They just need to get through it…”

“Everyone’s in mourning,” he says. “There’s a whole world out there to mourn. The only difference between them and us is they got their parents a little longer and the only reason they survived as long as they did was because of me and—” He struggles to force the next words out. “I apologized to them and they never once thanked me for getting them this far.”

“They’re probably not going to.”

“Don’t worry, I’m not holding my breath.”

It’s quiet for a minute and then I kind of lie. It’s not a bad lie, though. Maybe it will make him feel better. I look him in the eyes and I say, “Thank you.”

It doesn’t have the desired result. It doesn’t make him feel better. Instead, Cary seems to get sadder. He forces a half smile at me, but I see through it.

“Let’s go back,” he says.

When I get to the auditorium, everyone looks at me and that makes it feel more like high school than anything. Before anyone can speak, Trace crosses the room and hugs me. It hurts. He doesn’t speak, just holds me until Rhys finally says, “I went out there too.”