So much goddamn effort put into this city. It felt like my family dog had been run over, but I couldn’t even say anything about it because anyone I’d complain to had been closer to the dog and consequently was more affected than I had been. I’d at least had a chance to save it, to step in and do something more, and I hadn’t managed it. I’d scraped my knees and palms diving into the road and I’d failed, but those other people hadn’t even had the chance to try.

So shut the fuck up, Victoria, right? Can’t bitch when other people are hurting worse and are way more helpless.

“How are you doing?” I asked.

Kenzie trudged through the ice-crusted snow to my right. The snow was piling higher, and the city infrastructure that would have cleared the sidewalks had already been cut down to a tenth of what it was. It should have been zero infrastructure, zero people left, but it wasn’t. Zero infrastructure now would have left some people trapped, without any choice to leave.

My question hung in the air, unanswered. It was just Kenzie and I, now. Damsel and Deathchester, Breakthrough, Etna, and the Wardens’ megabase were behind us. Dark, hollow city, ice, and uneven road stretched ahead of us, along with sections of the city that had been abandoned for a few weeks now.

“My foster dads had a system, where we’d put these smiley faces on the fridge,” Kenzie finally said.

Bit of a non-sequitur there, but it had to be on her mind, because she rarely talked about them, and now she was jumping at the excuse. I put a hand out to help steady her and to support her. In more than one sense.

“Frowny face or grumpy face if we were in a bad mood, there was an anxious face and a happy face, a calm face and a sleepy face. Most of the time you’d come in the door, and the kitchen was the first place you’d go, and you could check in while updating people on how your day went without even saying a word.”

“Good system.”

“Whenever someone asks how someone else is doing, I think of that board. I think of how I could be in a really crummy mood, but I’d put a smiley face up there anyway, and how everyone sort of does that, you know? I do it a lot but everyone does it, don’t they?”

“They do. I know.”

“Jessica once told me that we all have different kinds of intelligence, and she asked me where I think my strengths are. I’m really good at schoolwork and organization, and staying motivated, and I’m not that intelligent when it comes to figuring out what faces people are putting on. Especially when I get excited, and especially especially when it’s about people.”

She ducked her head down as a snow flurry blew right at her face. I pulled my hood around the side of my face to shield it.