What about their home? Destroyed.
What about the people who had died since the flare? Gone.
“You remain under the provision and care of your heavenly Father.”
His mind filled with images of his mom and Max and Patrick and Bianca.
Roy and Georgia.
High Fields ranch.
Fish dinners and corn bread.
A worn-out cowboy hat.
He had lost many things, but he’d gained a few as well. The flare had taken a lot away, but God had provided.
He was under God’s provision and care.
Carter wiped his face dry with the heels of his hands and looked around. Nothing had changed, not really, but he knew what he had to do.
He filled the empty bottle with creek water, stuffed it into his pack, and promised himself he wouldn’t drink it unless he had to. He clamped Max’s hat more tightly on his head, grateful to have something to protect him from the sun. Then he hoisted the bag onto his back and wound his arms through it, grabbed a stick that had hung up in the brush along the bank, and pushed himself out to the middle of the water.
Slowly, carefully, and methodically, he began to make his way downstream. He abandoned the stick when he found a larger one. Time and weather had hollowed it out, rendering it a passable floating tube. He wrapped his arms around it and let the current take him.
SIXTY-SIX
Max could feel Shelby’s growing restlessness like an itch between his shoulder blades. After they were dismissed by the professor, Lanh offered to give them a tour of the campus—at least their section of it.
A large vegetable garden had been planted west of Garrison Hall. Each student spent two hours a week working there, and armed guards stood at the four corners of the area.
“The guards seem like overkill,” Bianca said. “We’re inside your zone.”
“There have been several breaches from Steiner’s side. They sneak in, steal stuff, and then sneak back out.”
“How do you know that?” Shelby was watching a tall, thin girl with a shaved head carefully winding a green bean plant up a trellis.
“A couple times they were spotted fleeing back to the other side.” Lanh tugged on his baseball cap. “Last week one of his goons was caught—he had a backpack full of fresh vegetables. That’s when the professor ordered guards to be posted around the lot.”
“What happened to the person they caught?” Max asked.
Lanh shrugged as if he didn’t know, but when Max continued to stare at him, he admitted, “She had him taken to the south side of the campus and released.”
“Near the stadium?”
“Yeah. It’s like Night of the Living Dead over there. No one’s in control. Anyway, she warned the kid that if he was caught here again, she’d kill him. I, for one, believe her.”
Max admired much of what Agnes Wright’s group had managed to accomplish. They were growing food. Traps had been set around trees to catch squirrels or quail. Someone had found solar panels in the supply closet of the science and technology building—no doubt ordered for some now-forgotten graduate project. Now the panels provided power for several small generators. The generators themselves were only used for necessities—a communication center that wasn’t receiving much communication and some experimental labs where students were working on everything from sanitation systems to incubators for speeding up the growth of plants.
“There’s also a room filled with small refrigerators.” Lanh nodded toward a four-story brownstone building, the biomedical engineering building.
“For food?” Shelby asked, suddenly interested.
“What they have that’s perishable, which isn’t much, and medication.”
The small group stopped and stared at the building that held the one thing they’d braved Austin to find.
“I want in there.” Shelby’s voice was a whisper, a prayer, a plea of desperation.
“Not possible.” Lanh began walking in the opposite direction. “I asked around. All sorts of stuff is stored inside, but it’s guarded even more heavily than the garden.”
They continued on their tour, though Shelby continued glancing behind them. Water reclamation systems had been created around half of the buildings—rain gutters were diverted into spouts, which emptied into large trash cans. Those cans had been covered with a fine mesh to filter out any contaminants.
“And still she insists they boil whatever they drink,” Lanh said. “She’s super careful about health stuff.”
“Indicating all is not well in Agnes Wright’s world.” Max stuck his hands into his back pockets.
Patrick had gone off with Walter Harris, the man who had insisted he return Mitzi’s pistol. He caught up with them as they were entering the mess hall.
“What’s for dinner?”
“I don’t know,” Max admitted. “But it smells better than nothing. When was the last time we ate?”
They stood in line and received a ladle full of slop. The boy manning the line grinned. “Doesn’t look good. Doesn’t even taste good, but the nutrition majors swear it’s full of vitamins.”
The meal was rounded out with canned peaches and a few crackers.
“Makes me miss mi madre’s cooking,” Bianca said.
“Or Georgia’s.” Shelby smiled at Max. “Your mom is a miracle worker in the kitchen.”
Max tried a bite and nearly choked. After devouring his peaches and crackers, he pushed the plate away.
“You’re not going to eat that?” Patrick nodded toward the mush.
“Be my guest.”
“Food is definitely going to be a problem around here.” Shelby scooped up a spoonful of the slop, swallowed quickly, and grimaced.
“It’s not the only problem,” Patrick said.
“What did you find out?” Max sat back and crossed his arms.
“Food supplies are dwindling, which is the reason they let Lanh and a few others go off campus.”
“Come to think of it, why were you selling your squirrels to Steiner?” Shelby asked.
“So he wouldn’t shoot me.” Lanh shook his head. “I tried sneaking in with whatever I caught, but Steiner was determined to stop me. When I started selling to them too, then he allowed me to come and go. I try to save the best stuff for our side.”
“What else?” Max asked Patrick.
“Steiner’s sending out feelers every night, trying to find the weakness in Wright’s perimeter.”
“And?”
“She responds quickly, but he finds another. It’s like trying to stick your finger in a hole in a dam. Works until another hole pops up. They’re on the defensive when they need to take the offensive.” Patrick finished Max’s food and pushed the plate back across the table. “Some students from this side are defecting. Steiner has better food and more guns.”
“I don’t believe that,” Lanh said. “People here are loyal to the professor.”
“Doesn’t matter if you believe it. People are leaving in ones and twos. Loyalty only goes so far. When a person gets hungry or frightened, they’ll sometimes take a side they don’t agree with.”
“Sounds pretty dismal,” Bianca said.
“It’s not hopeless—not yet—but there are real problems.” Patrick leaned forward and lowered his voice. “In addition to those defecting, they’ve lost a few since this started. Some were shot, others got sick.”
“How many?” Shelby asked.
“I’m just guessing, but probably a hundred. She has a cemetery of sorts set up in a remote corner on the northwest side. It’s not something they like to talk about.”
They all turned to look at Lanh. “Yeah. Probably a hundred. Most of those were in the first week—a fight gone too far, a misfire of a weapon. Someone from the outside sneaked in once or twice—stole what they could and killed anyone who tried to stop them. And like you said—a few became sick, though I haven’t heard what they had.”
“What else?” Max studied his friend. There was something he wasn’t telling them,
but at that moment one of Agnes’s loyal followers showed up at their table.
“She’s ready to see you.”
SIXTY-SEVEN
Shelby tried to steel herself against the worst possible news, but the truth was she didn’t know where else to look. They’d talked about trying to find a pharmaceutical warehouse, but there was no guarantee that anything would be on the shelves. Her mind jumped back to the brownstone building. If Agnes wouldn’t give them what they needed, she’d take it. She’d find a way.
As they walked back up to Professor Wright’s office, she tried to slow the hammering of her heart. Bianca looped their arms together. Max led the way as if he were marching into Waterloo. They’d reached the professor’s office when Patrick pulled Shelby back out into the hall.
“One way or another, we’re getting the insulin for Carter.” He waited until she nodded, and then they entered the room.
Agnes didn’t waste any time.
“We have the insulin you need.”
“That’s…that’s great news. When can we get it?”
“I can’t just give it to you, Shelby.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that while I like you all, while I understand your mission and what it means, I can’t just hand over vital supplies.”
Shelby was out of her chair before Agnes finished speaking. Both hands on the professor’s desk, she leaned right up into the woman’s face. “You can and you will give it to me, because my son will die if you don’t.”
“I appreciate that; however…”
“You appreciate nothing. You sit here in your guarded tower moving around chess pieces for some experiment, but the people out there are not a component of your experiment. Each person is fighting for their very life, and I will not let you—”
Max pulled her back away from the professor. “Hang on, Shelby. I think Agnes was about to make us an offer.”
Shelby collapsed back into her chair with a thud.
“No offer, just a fact. If you have something to trade, we can negotiate. If not, I’m afraid I can’t help you.”
“We have nothing,” Bianca countered. “We were robbed by one of the governor’s men, remember? They even took the supplies we had to trade. We have our backpacks, which have a few supplies, but not enough to help your people. We have two cars, but we’ll need those to get home.”
“I don’t need your car.”
“What do you expect us to do?”
“I expect you to think of something—”
“You can have me.” Patrick’s voice was calm, even, measured.
He stood near the window, his arms crossed and an inscrutable look on his face. Shelby shook her head, trying to shuffle the words she’d just heard into something that made sense.
“What are you talking about?” Max asked.
“The answer is no,” Shelby said. “You’re not staying, and she’s going to give us what we need.”
“No, I won’t.”
Everyone started shouting at once. Even Lanh dared to contradict Agnes.
Patrick finally pushed off from the windowsill, walked over to Shelby, and squatted in front of her.
“Let me do this.” He reached up, tucked her hair behind her ear, and smiled. “She wants something to trade. So trade me.”
Tears slipped down Shelby’s cheeks. Patrick brushed them away, winked, and stood, once again facing Agnes.
“What makes you think I’d want you?”
“I’ve spent the entire afternoon with McGinnis. I know the holes in your defenses and how to plug them.”
Wright steepled her fingers together and studied Patrick. “How do I know you’ll stay? Once I give Shelby the insulin, you could slip away.”
“You have my word.”
Agnes cocked her head and considered what he was offering, and in the space of that moment Shelby’s heart once again broke in two. She couldn’t ask Patrick to do this, would never have dreamed of asking. But he had offered, and she knew him well. Once his mind was made up on a thing, there was no changing it. She glanced over at Bianca, who had covered her face with her hands.
Agnes finally nodded. “We have a deal.”
“How long does he have to stay?” Max asked. “And how much insulin are we receiving?”
“Enough insulin for a year. I’d say it would be fair if Patrick agrees to stay for the same length of time.”
“Done.” Patrick didn’t even blink.
Max glanced at Shelby. Her hands had begun to shake. She pushed them under her thighs. Bianca whispered, “It’ll be all right. He will be all right.”
It wasn’t fair. No one should have to trade one person they loved for another, but then that wasn’t exactly what was happening here. Patrick was offering himself so that Carter could live. The most they could hope for was to make a very good trade, which was perhaps why Max turned back to Agnes and said, “We’ll also need two solar panels, a 3.1-cubic-foot refrigerator, and a portable generator with the solar adapters.”
Shelby thought Agnes would tell Lanh to lead them back to their cars. But she surprised her. Standing, she said, “I’ll have everything at the western gate. In the morning, Lanh can show you where the entrance is. You can drive your cars inside—”
“We can’t take Patrick’s car,” Shelby protested. “He needs a way…a way to get home.”
Patrick walked over to stand beside her, reached out, and cupped the back of her neck with his hand. “I don’t need the Mustang, and you’re going to need the extra cargo area.”
“But how will you—”
“I’ll find a way home, Shelby.” He glanced at Max, who was already shaking his head.
“We don’t need the cargo area. There’s plenty of room in the Dodge, and you might need the Mustang. None of us can know what the situation will be like in twelve months. We won’t go unless you have the Mustang, unless you have a certain way to come home.”
Patrick seemed exasperated, but he finally agreed.
“Fine.” Agnes smiled as if she was pleased with the deal. “As I was saying, tomorrow morning, drive your cars inside and load them up. Be there by seven a.m.”
SIXTY-EIGHT
Carter woke when the insulin needle pricked his skin. He squirmed, trying to throw off the weight that pinned him to the ground.
“Take it easy,” Georgia said.
He blinked, trying to clear his vision. He could only see foggy shapes, like the dreams he’d been having. It wasn’t dark yet, but the harsh sun that had been beating on him for hours, for what seemed like days, had sunk below the horizon. He couldn’t see it, but he didn’t need to. The evening’s coolness was a welcome relief against his skin. He didn’t realize he was shaking until Georgia placed a hand on his chest.
“It’s going to take a few moments.” She tucked his arm back under a blanket. “Your levels were a mess. Let the insulin work.”
But there was something he needed to tell them. He sank back—not onto the ground but onto some sort of cot. How did he get out of the river? Where were they? And why weren’t they headed toward the ranch?
“Where am I?” He croaked the words, cleared his throat, and tried again.
“At the low water crossing.”
He couldn’t see Roy, but he’d know that voice anywhere. Roy patted his shoulders. His hand was a comfort that Carter had worried he’d never feel again.
Tears pricked his eyes, and he wanted to brush them away, but his arms were heavy, useless limbs that Georgia once again tucked under a blanket.
“Smart move, Carter, hanging on to that log. Somehow, it got you all the way down here. I don’t know how you did it, son. We were looking…” Roy’s voice broke. He was silent for a moment. “We were looking everywhere. Found Georgia’s Tupperware up by the traps and saw where you’d slid down the bank, though we couldn’t imagine why you’d bother to go up the other side. We were making our way down the creek when Tate’s father called on the walkies. He was on his way home, drove d
own into the low water crossing, and nearly ran over you, to hear him tell it.”
“We’re going to lift you up now, Carter.” Georgia was in take-charge mode. She snapped orders and people obeyed.
“Watch his leg.”
“Someone get that backpack.”
“Don’t shut the tailgate on him.”
They had brought the truck down and now carefully loaded him in the back. He heard two doors slam. The bed of the truck bounced, and Tate squatted beside him.
“You scared everyone, man.” Tate looked as if he had recovered from his gunshot wound. His shoulder was still bandaged, but it didn’t seem to be causing him any pain. “We couldn’t imagine what happened to you. Thought maybe someone…maybe they’d taken you, or killed you and hid your body. Georgia and Roy were near about crazy.”
The truck drove up and out of the creek.
Carter tried to focus on Tate’s words. There was something he needed to remember, something he needed to warn them about, something about the trotline.
But fighting was useless.
He was asleep before they trundled across the first cattle guard.
He woke when they moved him into the house.
“Put him in the last bedroom on the right, across from ours.”
Carter blinked his eyes, terrified because he could see nothing at all. Then someone lit a lantern, and he was able to make out a bed, a patchwork quilt, and Georgia’s face hovering over him.
“I want you to drink this water. You’re dehydrated, Carter.”
“I was afraid to drink the creek water.” His voice was gravelly. It felt as if he’d swallowed sand.
“Told you he was a smart boy.” Roy’s face briefly appeared over him and disappeared again.
“Get me my medical bag, Tate. It’s on the kitchen table.” Georgia scuttled around the bed, her movement throwing up shadows on the ceiling. “Roy, my fabric scissors, please. They’re the gray-handled ones.”
“Yeah, the ones you won’t let me touch. I’ll find them.”
Carter drifted in and out of a semi-dream state. At one point he heard Georgia talking to Roy in a low, grave voice. “Could be infection or internal bleeding. I don’t know. His fever is too high, and his blood sugar levels are still fluctuating wildly. All we can do is wait…and pray.”
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