Theaella

79

“Chance,” he said. “We gotta deal with reality. Now, promise me.”

I swallowed around the lump in my throat. “I promise.”

Thirty-six hours till Vincent died.

The next two days passed like torture, the hours dragging like claws across my skin.

The food was going stale, the sheets getting dirty, and the lookouts reported regular Host activity beyond the fences. They’d mapped the surrounding streets already, sure, but they kept wandering around as if on patrol. Now and then we’d hear a scream carry to us on the wind, and we’d know they’d discovered another holdout somewhere in the neighborhood. Some poor kid dragged from a cupboard or an attic into the open and carried off in a cage.

Bits of the conversation I’d overheard by the flower beds played endlessly in my head.

You have to take care of Chance.

I could stop breathing, but that probably wouldn’t help me much either.

That’s all we have.

I tried to get some sleep but wound up tossing and turning. I looked at Vincent’s back facing me from his mattress and struggled not to think of the clock ticking down. Alex was crammed next to him in the tiny cot, his arm draped over her. They were determined to spend every final minute together.

Twenty hours till he died.

I don’t know if I slept at all, but I do know that when sunlight streamed through the windows, I didn’t feel the least bit rested. I ate breakfast with Alex and Vincent, all of us chewing our food silently, alone with our thoughts. Only Matthew didn’t know what was going on, slurping his food out of his bowl with relish.

We stayed together for Vincent’s afternoon lookout shift on the bleachers but found even less to say. Alex sat one bench down from Vincent and rested her head in his lap. As he gazed out the window, he stroked her long, long hair. Matthew had scaled the bleachers with me, and I was petting his neck until I noticed the parallel and felt stupid enough to stop.

Nine hours till he died.

I cleared my throat. “They were taking the kids to Lawrenceville,” I said. “Maybe we could go there. We could confront the Hosts, find some solution.”

“Chance,” Vincent said in that parental voice he barely ever used with me. “We won’t make it in time. You know that.”

“And there’s no confronting them,” Alex said. “They don’t exactly show reason.”

I said, “It’s better than staying here and just … giving up.”

“I’m not giving up,” Vincent said. “But the little time I have left I want to spend with Alex. And with you.”

JoJo came up and tugged at my sleeve. “You said you’d get my Frisbee.”

“There are too many Hosts out there right now.”

“But you promised.”

My nerves were so worn that even JoJo was bothering me. “Look, I’ll get it when it’s safe. I’m not gonna risk my life for your dumb Frisbee.”

The moment I saw her reaction, I regretted what I’d said, but she slinked off before I could apologize.

Vincent just looked at me. It was enough.

“Come on, Little Rain,” Alex said.

I wheeled on her. “Stop calling me that.”

She recoiled. I didn’t realize how cutting my tone was until I saw her expression.

Even from his post by the doors, Ben overheard, his gaze tilting up. I wanted to be alone, to hide where no one could see me. I stomped down the benches and headed to the bathroom. After splashing cold water on my face, I stared down my dripping reflection in the mirror.

When I came back into the gym, I plopped down on my cot rather than be a third wheel and disrupt the lovebirds. I tried to rest, tried to calm myself, tried to stop the flood of my thoughts.

Six hours till he died.

Over by the dry-erase board, Ben set about rabble-rousing, gaining more followers. As I jotted in my notebook, his voice rolled across the gym floor. “We gotta stay alert and dig in here.”

“And then what?” one kid asked.

“We don’t need Chatterjee’s rules. Having no adults is the only good part of this. Of course we stay alert, stay ready. But when we’re not on lookout, we can do whatever we want. Eat ice cream all day, play floor hockey in the gym, practice fighting.”

Finally his talk got too much for me. I threw down my notebook and stood up. “What happens when we run out of ice cream?” I said.

“We raid the supermarket and get more.”

“There’s no electricity there. You know, to keep ice cream cold.”

“We’ll get cookies.”

“And when those run out?”

“We’ll worry about that then,” he said. “We’re all gonna die anyways. Why not enjoy ourselves while we’re here?”

“So you just want to give up also?”

“It’s too big, Chance. It’s everywhere. It’s the air we breathe. You can’t give up if you’ve already lost. Might as well enjoy the ride.”

“We can’t just sit around and wait for them to come get us. We have to do something.”

“What? Fix the entire world?”

Now Ben was laughing at me, and his lackeys were, too. I looked around for Vincent and Alex, but they had left. My brother’s shift had ended. Alex was on lookout next in the math-and-science wing, so off they’d gone. They’d even taken Matthew.

“You gonna do that, Little Rain?” Ben continued. “Beat all the adults in the world and an entire alien race or supervirus or whatever? You can barely go to the bathroom without your big brother holding your hand.”

I got up and stormed out before I said something that would get me into trouble I couldn’t get out of. Eve shook her head, as annoyed by Ben as I was.

“Without big bro backing you up, you’d better walk away,” Ben called after me. “And you’d better get used to the feeling, too.”

I stopped before the double doors, fists clenched, my heart banging in my chest. Then I turned. I ran at Ben, yelling, and though Eve and Chatterjee stood up, no one could get to me in time.

Unlucky for me.

I tackled Ben from the side, knocking him down. He rolled over, swinging with his elbow and clipping my temple. I smacked into the base of the dry-erase board, and then he was on me, punching me, snapping my head against the floor. Pain flared in my eye.

Chatterjee hurried toward us. I saw his hands clamp Ben’s shoulders, and then Ben whirled and shoved him. Chatterjee fell down hard, his leg braces clattering against the floorboards.

All at once everything stopped.

Ben was still on top of me, his fist drawn back, his other hand tangled in my shirt. Blood trickled from my nose, and I could feel my eye swelling. Dr. Chatterjee rolled to his side and then sat up, wearing a pained expression. His legs stuck out awkwardly before him.

Ben let go of me. “Dr. Chatterjee,” he said. “I didn’t … I’m really sorry.”

He went to help Chatterjee up, but the teacher pulled away from him angrily. “I don’t need your help.”

Chatterjee adjusted his orthotics and pushed himself carefully onto his feet. Straightening his grimy shirt, he limped back to the bleachers.

Eve rushed up to me. “Chance, your eye—”

I ran across the gym and shoved through the double doors. I stormed through the corridors, heading for the math-and-science wing. In Mrs. Wolfgram’s room, I found Vincent and Alex sitting on a raft of desks shoved together, keeping watch over the back fields. Matthew lay curled up on the floor, traitorously content.

I couldn’t keep the rage from my voice. “Where were you?”

Vincent took one look at my face and stood up. “Who did that?”

“Ben. And he shoved Dr. Chatterjee over, and you weren’t there.”

Vincent went to check me, and I pushed him away, knocking off his cowboy hat.

“You weren’t there. You weren’t there. You weren’t there.” My face was hot, and then I was crying.

Vincent hugged me like he had the night Mom and Dad died. “You’re gonna be all right without me.”

I pulled back and wiped at my face. “No,” I said. “I’m not. No one is.”

I walked out. I went to my old desk in Mr. Tomasi’s room and sat there and pretended that everything was like it used to be. Vincent and I would drive home from school soon and do our chores, and the dogs would be waiting for me. We’d help Uncle Jim with the cattle and Sue-Anne would have a hot dinner on the table for us, and then I’d go to sleep in the room I shared with Vincent, and we would both wake up and go to school again, and I’d sit here at this very desk and talk about books and heroes and imaginary worlds.

Sitting at my old desk, I watched the sun lower beneath the horizon. Shadows lengthened, creeping across my desk, my hands, my arms, until darkness claimed the whole room, the whole world.

Four hours till Vincent died.

I squeezed my eyes shut, because there was nothing out there that I wanted to see anyways. I knew that Vincent and Alex were combing the school looking for me, but I didn’t care. In a few minutes, I’d get up and spend my brother’s last hours with him. But right now I had to be with myself and get ready to say good-bye to him.

Three hours.

Now two.

One.

Still I couldn’t rise. I couldn’t face Vincent any more than I could face the world without him.

Again I thought of that private conversation I’d overheard between him and Alex in the picnic area.

Let’s spend it the best way we can.

There has to be something.

I could stop breathing, but that probably wouldn’t help me much either.

The first part stuck in my mind: I could stop breathing. An idea was there just beneath the surface, glittering like a half-buried jewel.

It sailed through the jumble of my thoughts, and I grabbed it. My eyes flew open.

I knew how to save Vincent.

I barreled up the empty corridor, my footsteps echoing off the lockers. Skidding on the tile, I swung onto the stairs and took them down three at a time. I shouldered into the nurse’s office so hard that the door flew back and clipped my hip.

Some of the cabinets and drawers were open, most of the basic medical supplies already moved to the supply station.

But I wasn’t looking for basic medical supplies.

I searched the remaining cabinets, dug through the closet. My swollen eye started throbbing, but I paid it no mind.

Twenty-three minutes.

Twenty-two.

Panic clenched my chest when I didn’t see it. What if it was gone? What if it had been used up already or Chet’s mother had taken it back home?

I hurled an empty cardboard box over my shoulder, and there it was, hidden in the back of the closet. When I yanked it out, it clanked against the floor.

The portable oxygen tank was heavier than I’d imagined. The mask hung from the valve, its clear tubing coiled up neatly. The meter showed full, the needle pegged at the limit in the green zone.

Chet’s oxygen for his asthma attacks.

Hefting the tank, I sprinted out, slipping on the slick floor. Back upstairs, my boots pounded down the hall, my blood racing as fast as I was. The front-door lookouts raised their heads in unison, their faces pivoting as I flew by toward the gym.

I kicked through the double doors, shouting for Vincent. Kids popped up from their cots and looked over from the bleachers.