The Rains (Untitled #1)(36)

He was my best friend. He was my only family. He was the only person left who’d known me since I was born, who’d held me when I was a baby.

What would you do if you only had seven days left with your favorite person in the world?

Cassius lay beneath my bed, sleep-breathing with a faint whistle, but that only reminded me of my other pups and made me feel more alone. I thought of Zeus out there somewhere. I’d been eight when he was born; I’d known him half my life. I’d delivered him myself, the biggest boy in the first litter that Uncle Jim had let me take care of. Zeus’s first act had been to yawn a puppy yawn in my face, his pink tongue curling. I pictured him now, grown and powerful, running through the forest, the other ridgebacks at his side. Were they hungry? Were they cold? Cassius whimpered in his sleep. Did he miss his father as much as I did?

Tears slid down my temples. With everything going on, I was crying over my missing dogs? And yet they seemed the only thing safe to focus on right now. When I thought of Mom and Dad or Uncle Jim and Sue-Anne or what was waiting for Patrick, I wanted to come apart.

Springs creaked on the cot next to me as Alex sat down, her hair twisted up in a threadbare gym towel. Fortunately, the locker rooms were right off the nearest hall, so we had easy access to toilets, sinks, and showers. Chatterjee had set a two-minute limit on hot showers to save energy, and Alex had been one of the first to jump on the offer. She smelled like soap and some girly shampoo, and if I hadn’t felt so embarrassed for crying, I might have been distracted. I wiped at my cheeks, hoping she couldn’t see my face in the darkness.

She lay back and shot a sigh at the ceiling. With Patrick on lookout and the kids around us asleep, it was almost like we were alone. That made me uncomfortable, but I wasn’t sure why.

“I thought it was bad when my mom left,” she said. “Every day when school got out, I used to run to the oak tree out front. And I’d sit on that low branch—the one that dips down, you know?”

“Yeah,” I said.

Everyone knew that branch.

“And I’d wait and pray that her little Jeep would turn in to the parking lot. And she’d pull up and flash that huge smile and say, ‘I was just kidding, honey. I’d never leave you behind. I’d never leave you—’” Her voice cracked, and she covered her mouth. “I guess I couldn’t believe I’d never see that smile again.”

You can see it anytime you want, I thought. You just have to look in the mirror.

But I didn’t say anything, because that wasn’t the point, and besides, there was something precious and rare in her telling me this. Like it was some jewel she’d uncovered in the sand and handed to me.

“And now I just feel dumb for thinking that my mom leaving was so bad. Like it was some huge earth-changing thing. Big deal, right? Compared to this. I mean, pretty much all the grown-ups we know are changed into robots. And so many of our friends are captured. God knows what’s being done to them right now.”

I rubbed my eyes hard, remembering Sam Miller being carried into the church by his grandparents, his little body swinging between them.

When Alex spoke again, her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Nothing’ll ever be the same.”

Someone coughed across the gym, and another kid turned in his sleep, murmuring from a nightmare. I looked over at Patrick, faintly backlit up there against the pane, steady as a gargoyle.

“When my parents died,” I said, “I thought nothing would ever be the same. And it wasn’t.” I sensed her head turning toward me. “But that just meant I had to figure out a new way.”

“To what?”

“To live, I guess.”

The sheets rustled as she nodded. “I suppose we all do now.”

We lay like that for a time in the darkness, breathing.

“Patrick never talks about stuff like this,” she said. “And there’s a kind of strength in that. But there’s also a kind of strength in not being afraid to talk about it.”

My first instinct was to defend Patrick, to point out that he wasn’t afraid of anything. But I kept my mouth shut. Maybe it’s because I enjoyed how it felt, this secret compliment.

A wet slurp landed on the side of my face. Cassius, licking off the trails of my tears. He whimpered at me insistently. I knew that whimper.

It meant he had to go to the bathroom.

And I’d trained him from the instant he was born only to go outside. Which meant that now I had to risk my life so my dog could pee.

That really sucked.

He hadn’t gone all day. I hadn’t even thought about it. I wondered how many other things I had yet to consider.

I sat up with a groan, like an old person. “I gotta go,” I said. “Take him out.”

“Out out?” Alex asked.

“Uh-huh.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“I have no idea,” I said.

Cassius and I threaded quietly through the cots and across the court. Ben guarded the double doors, sitting on a metal folding chair like some kind of security guard. The set of his jaw showed just how much he dug the position of authority.

“Where you going?” he asked.

“Front lawn.”

“Front lawn? Now? What for?”

I gestured at Cassius. “He’s gotta go.”

“He can use the bathroom.”