“What the hell was that about?” he demands. When I can only stare at him, he goes on, “You could have died, Lena. If it wasn’t for me, you would be dead.”
“Is this your way of asking for a thank-you?” I’m shaky, and tired, and disoriented. “You could just learn to say please, you know.”
“I’m not kidding.” Alex shakes his head. “You should have stayed where you were. You didn’t need to go charging in there like some kind of hero.”
I feel a flicker of anger. I hold on to it and coax it into life. “Excuse me,” I say. “If I hadn’t charged in there, your new—your new girlfriend would be dead right now.” I’ve rarely had occasion to use the word in my life, and it takes me a second to remember it.
“She’s not your responsibility,” Alex says evenly.
Instead of making me feel better, his response makes me feel worse. Despite everything that has happened tonight, it’s this stupid, basic fact that makes me feel like I am going to cry: He didn’t deny that she was his girlfriend.
I swallow back the sick taste in my mouth. “Well, I’m not your responsibility either, remember? You can’t tell me what to do.” I’ve found the thread of anger again. Now I’m following it, pulling myself forward on it, hand over hand. “Why do you even care, anyway? You hate me.”
Alex stares at me. “You really don’t get it, do you?” His voice is hard.
I cross my arms and squeeze tight, trying to squeeze back the pain, to push it deep under the anger. “Don’t get what?”
“Forget it.” Alex shoves a hand through his hair. “Forget I said anything at all.”
“Lena!”
I turn. Tack and Julian have just emerged from the woods on the other side of the stream, and Julian runs toward me, splashing through the water without seeming to register it. He charges straight past Alex and sweeps me up in his arms, lifting me off the ground. I let out a single, muffled sob into his shirt.
“You’re okay,” he whispers. He’s squeezing me so tightly, I can hardly breathe. But I don’t mind. I don’t want him to let go, ever.
“I was so worried about you,” I say. Now that my anger at Alex has drained away, the need to cry is resurging, pushing at my throat.
I’m not sure Julian understands me. My voice is muffled by his shirt. But he gives me another hard squeeze before setting me down. He brushes the hair back from my face.
“When you and Tack didn’t come back . . . I thought maybe something had happened. . . .”
“We decided to camp for the night.” Julian looks guilty, as though his absence was somehow the cause of the attack. “Tack’s flashlight went bust and we couldn’t see a damn thing when the sun went down. We were worried about getting lost. We were probably only a mile from here.” He shakes his head. “When we heard the shots, we came as fast as we could.” He touches his forehead to mine and adds, a little softer, “I was so scared.”
“I’m fine,” I say. I keep my arms wrapped around his waist. He is so steady, so solid. “There were regulators—seven or eight of them, maybe more. But we chased them off.”
Julian finds my hand and laces his fingers in mine.
“I should have stayed with you,” he says, his voice breaking a little.
I bring his hand to my lips. This simple thing—the fact that I can kiss him like this, freely—suddenly seems like a miracle. They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past. But we are still here.
And there are more of us every day.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s make sure the others are okay.”
Alex must have crossed the stream and rejoined the group already. At the edge of the water, Julian doubles down and sweeps an arm behind my knees, so I stumble backward and into his arms. He picks me up, and I put my arms around his neck and rest my head against his chest: His heart is a steady rhythm, reassuring. He wades across the stream and deposits me on the other side.
“Nice of you to join us,” Raven is saying to Tack,as Julian and I push our way into the circle. But I can hear the relief in her voice. Despite the fact that Raven and Tack are often fighting, it’s impossible to imagine one without the other. They are like two plants that have grown around each other—they strangle and squeeze and support at the same time.
“What are we supposed to do?” Lu asks. She is an indistinct shape in the darkness. Most of the faces in the circle are ovals of dark, individual features fragmented by the small patches of moonlight. A nose is visible here; a mouth there; the barrel of a gun.
“We go to Waterbury, like we planned,” Raven says firmly.
“With what?” Dani says. “We have nothing. No food. No blankets. Nothing.”
“It could have been worse,” Raven says. “We got out, didn’t we? And we can’t be too far.”
“We aren’t.” Tack speaks up. “Julian and I found the highway. It’s a half day from here. We’re too far north, just like Pike said.”
“I guess we can forgive you, then,” Raven says, “for almost getting us killed.”