“Who has the gun?” Cary asks. “Who has it?”

“Sloane,” Grace says.

Me. I have it. The gun. I stare at it. It’s heavy in my hands, hot. I raise it, feeling equal parts absurd and terrified out of my mind. I point it at Baxter. This is what they want me to do, isn’t it? This is what has to be done. Baxter starts to shout, but I can’t tell what he’s saying. It has the lilt of a prayer, though. I close my eyes.

“No!” Rhys shouts. “Jesus, Sloane, no—”

I imagine the gun going off. A hole between Baxter’s eyes. It’s so real to me, I start to shake. Hands around my hands. Rhys gently takes the gun from me and I feel like I’m turning into nothing and I don’t know if it’s because he is taking the gun out of my hands or because the gun was in them.

“I didn’t know what you wanted me to do,” I say faintly.

“Shoot him!” Trace. “Just fucking do it—”

“I want to put it to a vote,” Rhys says. “We have to make this fair—”

“You’re going to be outnumbered,” Cary tells him. “No matter what.”

“We don’t have to kill him—”

“What else are we going to do?”

“If I leave,” Baxter says over us, “you’ll never know how I got in.”

And then he starts to cry.

We’re not murderers.

We are still good people and this was the choice we were forced to make. Baxter has to leave or he has to die. The evidence is damning. He’s bitten. He’s unstable. He’s lied to us.

That’s more than enough, especially now.

We’re in the library. The flashlights are set on the table, aimed at us like a crude spotlight. Baxter is in front of the door, the way out, preparing himself for whatever is next. I think of Rhys and me, standing in that exact spot just days before and how much has changed in that time. Harrison and Grace hover by some shelves. Trace and Cary clear the barricades away and then they’re gone. Two things have to happen next: someone has to open the door and Baxter has to step through it. But what happens after that? He lives until the infection overtakes him? We go on, like nothing happened? Because nothing happened if no one used the gun, right? Still, Baxter’s outcome is inevitable. He is going to die.

But we’re not murderers.

Even though Rhys has the gun aimed directly at Baxter’s head.

It will only be used if Baxter is uncooperative and insists on jeopardizing us.

“If you try to get in again, however you got in before,” Cary says, “we’ll have to kill you.”

“You, Mr. Chen? You’ll do it?”

“I’ll do it,” Trace mutters.