“Yeah. It’s—” Rhys stops himself. “It’s someplace safe. I’ll show you later.”

Cary glances at Rhys and then me but he doesn’t pursue it.

“I don’t trust him,” he says.

“Cary, you don’t like him,” I say. “You never did. He never liked you.”

“Yeah, and that has nothing to do with this. This is fucked. We have to timeline it. He hasn’t been here since we got here, right?”

“I don’t think so,” I say. “I think he got in before Rhys and I went out … I mean, not by days or anything. I’m talking minutes, maybe a half an hour to an hour, I don’t know.”

“Why do you think that?”

“The man outside.” I glance at Rhys. “He called for Nick over and over … and Mr. Baxter’s first name is Nick.”

We’re quiet for a moment, and then Rhys speaks. “So if he got here with that guy, he left him out there to die. Something bad must have happened between them.”

“But that man was unconscious when we found him,” I say. “We thought he was dead. Maybe Mr. Baxter did too and went on without him…”

“Or maybe Baxter hurt him,” Cary suggests.

I shake my head. “He wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not? He hasn’t said anything about the guy outside yet. If it was innocent, why wouldn’t he just get it out of the way and say so?”

“He’s hardly said anything. He’s out of it. Shell-shocked.”

“Is he, though?” Rhys asks.

“Wait.” I can’t keep up with this. “You think he’s faking it?”

“You really think he can’t remember how he got in this school?” Rhys looks at me like he can’t believe I haven’t come to all the conclusions they have in the hour Baxter has been here. “How do you forget something like that?”

I cross my arms. “Why would he do that?”

“Who knows why anyone does anything now?” Cary looks past me and Rhys, to the door, and we both turn. There’s no one there but Cary lowers his voice anyway. “If he’s had some bad experiences with other survivors, he could be looking at his way in as leverage. He needs to make sure we trust him.”

“Right … we keep him around no matter what, hoping that it will eventually come to him because we can’t find it ourselves,” Rhys says. “When he’s sure he’s safe here, he tells us or … he holds it over our heads for the entire time we’re here.”

“He thinks he can just come in and take over,” Cary mutters.

“We’ve been in this room, what, ten minutes and we’re already saddling the guy with a bunch of sinister motivations,” I say. “This is our English teacher. Someone we know.”

“We all know each other and we don’t trust each other,” Cary says. “The only people I trust in this building are you and Rhys. The rest are dead weight to me.”

“But maybe…” I grope desperately for some kind of explanation for Baxter’s behavior that seems more human. “Maybe Baxter was going to come to the school with the guy outside but they got separated or he really did think the guy was dead. Maybe he’s so traumatized he can’t remember how he got in. Why isn’t that possible?”