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For a while the convoy had traveled east, but now they were ain, on what felt to Sara like a road; the worst of the bouncing, the lurching fro ainst the wheel wells beneath her, had stopped She felt nauseated and cold, chilled to the core, her li in the back of the truck The convoy of vehicles and horses andparty gave the all clear The goal for their first day of travel was Durango, where a fortified shelter in an old grain elevator, one of nine such refuges along the supply road to Roswell, offered safety for the night

She had decided she wasn’t angry that Peter had left without telling her She had been at first, when Hollis caive her the news; but with Sancho and Withers to take care of, she hadn’t dwelt on these feelings for long And the truth was, she’d sensed it co-if not Peter’s and A final When she and Hollis had discussed leaving with the convoy, always in the background, unstated, was the feeling that Peter and A with thery-furious Hollis had practically had to restrain hi off after the two of thee how Michael had become so brave, almost recklessly so, over the months She had always felt herself to be a kind of standin parent, responsible for hi the way, she had let these feelings go So ed; perhaps it was she herself

She wanted to see Kerrville The nahtlessness To think: thirty thousand souls It gave her a hope she hadn’t felt since the day Teacher had taken her out the door of the Sanctuary, into the broken world Because it wasn’t broken, after all; the little girl Sara had been, the one who slept in the Big Room and played with her friends and felt the sun on her face as she swung on the tire in the courtyard, believing the world to be a fine place that she could be a part of-that little girl had been right all along Such a si to want To be a person; to live a human life That hat she would have in Kerrville, with Hollis Hollis, who loved her, and told her so, again and again It was as if he’d opened so clenched; for the feeling had filled her at once, that first night on watch, somewhere in Utah, when he’d put his rifle down and kissed her; and again each time he said the words in his quiet, almost eles of his beard on her cheeks, as if he were confessing the deepest truth of himself He told her he loved her and she loved him in return, at once and infinitely She did not believe in fate; the world seemed far chancier than that, a series of ed to survive until, one day, you didn’t Yet that’s what loving Hollis felt like: like fate As if the words were already written down someplace, and all she had to do was live out the story She wondered if her parents had felt that way about each other Though she did not like to think about them and avoided this whenever she could, she found herself, riding in the back of the cold truck, wishing they were still alive, so she could ask this question

It wasn’t fair, what they had done It was Michael, poor Michael, who had found the two of the He was eleven; Sara had just turned fifteen Part of her believed that their parents waited until she was old enough to look after her brother, that her age was part of the rationale for what they’d done By the time Michael’s yells had pulled her out of bed and down the stairs and across the yard to the shed behind their house, he had flung his ar to hold them up; she’d stood in the door, speechless and i her to help him, and known that they were dead What she had felt at thatlike wonder-a mute amazement at the factually declarative nature of the scene, its merciless mechanics They had used ropes and a pair of wooden stools They had tied the ropes around their necks, slipping the knots tight, and kicked the stools aside, ele theether? Had they counted to three? Did first one go and then the other? Michael was pleading, Please Sara, help ht before, heron the kitchen table Sara had searched her one about this task in any way that see, as shea breakfast she would not eat, for children she would never see again And yet Sara could re some final, tacit command, she and Michael had eaten it all, every bite And by the time they were done, Sara knew, as Michael surely did as well, that she would take care of her brother from that day forward, and that part of this care was the unspoken agreeain

The convoy had slowed Sara heard a shout frole horse, galloping past theh the snow She climbed to her feet and saw that Withers’s eyes were open and looking about His bandaged arms lay over his chest, on top of the blankets His face was flushed, damp with sweat

"Are we there?"

Sara felt his forehead with the base of her wrist He didn’t see, his skin was too cold She retrieved a canteen fro mouth No fever, and yet he looked much worse; he couldn’t seem to lift his head at all

"I don’t think so"

"This itching is drivingwith ants"

Sara capped the canteen and put it aside Fever or no fever, his color had her worried

"That’s a good sign Itunder there"

"It doesn’t feel like it" Withers took a long breath and let the air out slowly "Fuck"

Sancho was in the berth beneath hies; only the s Sara knelt and took a stethoscope from her med kit to listen to his chest She heard a wet rattle, like water sloshing in a can It was dehydration, ashis His cheeks were blazing to the touch; the air around him was sharp with the smell of infection She tucked the blanket around hi and held it to his lips

"How’s he doing?" Withers asked from above

Sara rose

"He’s close, isn’t he? I can see it in your face"

She nodded "I don’t think it will be long now"

Withers closed his eyes once more

She pulled on her parka and cliht The orderly lines of soldiers had dissolved into clusters of three or fouraround with scowls of bored impatience on their faces, hoods drawn up over their heads, their noses runny from the cold Up ahead, she sahere the proble a pluroup of soldiers, ere looking at it with bewilderiant carcass they’d happened upon in the road

Michael was standing on the buine Greer, from atop his horse, said, "Can you fix it?"

Michael’s head eed from under the hood "I think it’s just a hose I can replace it if the housing isn’t cracked We’ll need ?"

"Not more than half a hand"

Greer lifted his head and shouted to the hten that perimeter! Blue up front, and mind that line of trees! Donadio! Where the hell’s Donadio?"

Alicia ca, wreaths of stea around her face Despite the cold she had shucked her parka and earing only a compartmented vest over her jersey