Astrid stepped close to me and embraced me.
She pressed her face to my chest and held me tight.
It felt so good. Like we were magnets, meant to be fitted together. I put my arms around her and held her to me.
“Stay,” she said. “Stay with me, Dean.”
“What?”
“I’m not going,” she said, pulling away to look up at me. “And I want you to stay with me.”
My heart was in my throat. My vision was swimming.
She was going to stay and she wanted me to stay with her?
“You want me to stay with you?” I said. “Me?”
She pulled out of my arms and drew back a step, putting her hands in the pockets of her vest.
“I mean…” She blushed. She was blushing.
“I’m not going,” she said, not meeting my eyes. “I can’t. And neither should you. The compounds will make us into monsters. They don’t know what it’s like. We do. You and me and Chloe, we need to stay.”
So… what? Huh? That’s what I felt like saying: huh?
She was asking me to stay because I had the same blood type? She was advising me to stay because of the compounds?
What had the hug meant?
It felt like it meant everything.
I guess she was hugging me because… I was a nice guy. I was her friend.
I stuffed a couple sweatshirts into my backpack.
“Well?” she said.
“I don’t know what to say, Astrid. I have to go with my brother. We have to stick together.”
“Then get him to stay, too. He’s logical. Alex will know it’s the right thing to stay.”
“No, he wants to go. He thinks this is our only chance to find our parents. He’d never stay.”
“We can’t go! We’ll kill somebody!”
I turned to her.
Tears were streaming down her face. She wiped at them with the back of her hand.
“Please, Dean.” Every time she said my name it was like a warm knife, slicing my heart right through.
“Astrid,” I said. “We’ll wear gas masks the whole way. They’re going to sedate us and tie us up. We won’t be able to help them, but we won’t kill them either.”
I shoved some jeans in my bag.
“Who knows? Maybe Niko is right. Maybe we’ll make it just fine.”
“No,” she said, near hysterics. “I can’t go. I can’t go. I can’t go!”
“You’ll be fine—”
“I’m gonna have a baby.”
“What?” I said.
She crossed her arms over her chest.
“I’m pregnant.”
“Are you sure?”
She nodded. “Been sure for a while now. I’m four months. Maybe more.”
“Four
She lifted up her sweater and undershirt.
I saw the creamy skin of her beautiful diver’s body. And yes, there was a bump there. A swelling. Right under the navel, a rise. How had I not noticed it before?
She dropped her shirt and put her hands up to cover her face. She was crying softly.
“Oh, Astrid,” I said. And I stepped to her. Took her in my arms and held her.
“But don’t you think it means we
“I thought about that,” she said. “But what will happen to the, you know, the fetus, if he’s exposed to the compounds? What if he’s like us, Dean?”
And then she lowered her voice. “Or what if he blisters?”
I will not share the grisly images that came into my mind.
“What the heck, you guys?” Chloe said, charging into the aisle. “We’re almost ready to go.”
It was mayhem, everybody scrambling and putting things on the bus and then Josie taking some of the things off (“No, Caroline, you can’t bring wind chimes for your mom!” “But Dean said we could!” “Okay, fine!”), and Niko trying to get everything into some kind of order.
“Finally!” he said when he saw us.
Niko had just finished making Chloe take a sleeping pill. He had ground it up in a teaspoon of jelly.
“I gave her the full dose,” he said. “Hopefully she’ll sleep the whole way. I’m gonna dose you now, but first I want you to help me get Brayden on board.”
Josie and Sahalia were helping the kids get into their layers of clothing.
“Okay,” Niko said as we walked toward the Automotive aisle where Brayden was.
He took out a piece of paper from his pocket.
It was a checklist.
“We have food, water, first aid, extra clothes, valuables to trade—”
We heard Luna barking.
“Shoot,” he said. “We need dog food.”
“Max,” I called back. “Food for Luna!”
He nodded and ran for the Pet Department.
Niko kept reading: “Air masks, layers of clothing, rope, matches, tarps, backpacks, oil, knives, one gun, bullets.”
He looked up at me.
“What else?”
It was an impressive list.
“I can’t think of anything,” I said.
Sahalia was with Brayden. She had taken over his care and now seemed somewhat territorial about him.
She was wearing her own layers of clothing and was struggling to get Brayden into his.
“We’ll help,” I told her.
Niko was right, Brayden looked green.
As carefully as we could, we put zip-front hoodies onto him. Niko dealt with the sweatpants.
“Brayden,” Niko said softly. “We’re going to move you onto the bus.”
Brayden didn’t acknowledge he’d heard Niko. He was limp and clammy.
“Let’s slide the mattress over, then we’ll lift him in.”
So the three of us slid the air mattress to the bus.
All the while I was thinking about what the hell I was going to do.
Josie lay down blankets for Brayden on the second seat of the bus.
Niko and Josie and Sahalia and Alex and I lifted Brayden awkwardly and got him onto the bus. He was able to walk, a little, when we got him up, but then he collapsed into his seat.
“We’re going to get you help, Brayden,” Sahalia said. “You’re going to feel better soon.”
As Niko and I left the bus she asked Niko, “We have pain meds, right? And antibiotics.”
“A whole bin full,” Niko assured her.
Sahalia had grown up a lot in the last couple days.
I wish I was the strong and silent type who never cries and never shows emotion.
But I saw my brother standing there, working with Astrid to take down the plywood wall over the gate, and
