“We have a friend in the Guard,” I said. “We’ll have him come up here and he’ll be able to figure out who you are. You just have to be patient.”
The girl whipped around, getting right in Greer’s face. “If you thought there was something out there that could tell you who you really are, would you just sit around and wait?”
Greer glanced nervously over her shoulder at me. I mentally urged him to stay strong. “Absolutely! I would wait a reasonable amount of time and then go when all interested parties agreed that it was perfectly safe.”
“Liar.”
She turned and ran on down the trail. Greer came up alongside me.
“Former Navy SEAL slash teen librarian,” he said. “That’s what I’m putting my money on. You’re one day late returning a book and she punches you in the face.”
Greer laughed, but I didn’t join him.
“Hey, don’t worry about it. I’ll go with her and make sure she stays out of trouble.”
“No,” I said. “I brought her up here. It’s my problem.”
“Card—”
“I said I’ll go.”
By the time I got down to Greer’s camp, the girl had passed through the cabins and was at the trailhead that led off the mountain. When she saw me coming, she pressed on, picking up speed. A familiar heat moved up through my stomach as I thought about being back on the streets of Black River. I grabbed hold of the knife to steady myself.
“You all right, man?”
Greer appeared beside me, stuffing some clothes into a backpack.
“You don’t need to come. I can handle this.”
His eyes narrowed. “Dude, do you really not understand how this works by now?”
“How what works?”
“If you’re going to do something stupid, then so am I.”
“Greer—”
He jogged past me, swinging the backpack onto his shoulders.
“Come on, birdman! Let’s get stupid!”
Once we got down the mountain, I took the lead, with Greer in the back and the girl between us. My hand hovered by the hilt of the knife as I checked every overgrown yard and vacant house we passed—for infected, for Marvins, for Guard. I felt an edge of panic gathering from being back in town again, but I pushed it away as best I could and focused on what I was doing.
After we crossed the bridge, I led them down Harding Street to keep us away from the center of town for as long as possible. We’d be at the sculpture garden in ten or fifteen minutes and then back on Lucy’s Promise a half hour after that. Easy. We just had to keep moving.
We came to the end of Harding and turned onto Warren. The boughs of the red maples on either side of the street met above us, making it feel as if we were in this shady tunnel. I felt something inside of me ease a little and I let my pace slacken. Soon the girl had drawn close, as close as I could let her anyway. The clothes I’d seen Greer stuffing into his backpack had been for her. She had her hair tucked up under a Yankees cap and she’d traded her old button-down for a hooded sweatshirt. She hadn’t said a word since we’d started out, just plowed forward with her head down.
“You all right?”
She nodded, but didn’t look at me. Her lips were pressed tight, like a hairline crack in a block of marble.
“You know what I was thinking? What do me and Greer know, right? I mean, seriously. Two guys with a stack of yearbooks and a test they made up one day when they were bored? It’s not exactly scientific. Like, there were a few home-schooled kids in Black River. They wouldn’t be in the yearbooks at all.”
She glanced over at me, clearly unconvinced.
“Okay, fine, maybe it’s a long shot, but your family is here somewhere. We’ll find them. Did I ever tell you that me and Greer were world-famous private detectives before the outbreak?”
The corners of her mouth lifted, faintly. “I just keep wondering what it will be like when we find them,” she said. “I mean, if I was standing in a room with my mom and dad, if they were right there in front of me . . .”
“They might seem familiar,” I said. “Sometimes things from an infected person’s old life feel that way. Certain people. Certain situations. Kind of like déjà vu, I guess.”
“But when I see them will I feel anything? Will I still . . .”
She trailed off, but it didn’t matter. I knew how the question was going to end. Will I still love them?
Warren Street hitched to the left. We followed it past the empty playground outside Kinderbrook Elementary. Part of me wanted to tell her that love conquered all, even this, but then I saw Mom standing in that alleyway, sunlight streaming over her shoulders, and I couldn’t do it. I shook my head. The girl didn’t so much as break her stride, but I could see in the way she went back to studying the cracks in the pavement that it was a blow.
“But they’ll love you,” I said, dipping down to try to catch her eye. “And, you know, with enough time together, you’ll love them again too.”