“We’ll try to find him a new pair today.” Greer held up another branch. “How’s this?”
“That’ll work. DeShaun and Benny doing okay?”
He shrugged. “Better, maybe? I don’t know. They’re still not talking much, but they ate breakfast with everybody this morning, so—you know, baby steps.”
“If you think they can’t handle going to town—”
“They’ll be all right. Hell, it’ll probably be good for them.”
He kicked through a pile of brush, sending Snow Cone into a frenzy. She jumped into the air and did a 360, chomping at the flying leaves.
“I think it’s time to go talk to the doc about her,” I said. “Her side’s not getting better.”
“Ugh. Seriously, dude? That guy hates me.”
“He doesn’t hate you.”
“He does too! You remember that time I asked him to get us that flea stuff for Hershey Bar? He said I should try using some on myself.”
I laughed. “Send one of the kids to talk to him, then. Send Makela!”
“Ha! Yeah, right. By the time she’s done with him, he’ll be so terrified he’ll hand over the entire pharmacy.”
“And maybe a Guard helicopter.”
Greer shook his head. “Nah, the poor guy doesn’t deserve that. I’ll take care of it. I’ll just add it to Greer’s eternal to-do list, won’t I, Snow Cone?”
The dog gave an excited woof. Greer dropped the branch he was carrying, and they started to wrestle. As soon as Greer got the upper hand, Hershey Bar joined in, flattening him onto his back.
“Help! I’m being attacked by a rabid bear! Help!”
Hershey Bar pawed at Greer’s shoulder, pulling the collar of his shirt down enough to expose the corner of one of his tattoos. A chill crept up my spine.
This is probably a good time to mention that, yes, when I say Greer, I mean that Greer. Trust me, I find the amount of time I spent hanging out with Greer Larson just as strange as I’m sure you would. Even after all those months, when-ever I looked at him, it was like I was seeing two Greers at the same time: the Greer of Lucy’s Promise and that scowling kid at the bus stop with the shaved head and the grubby denim jacket. The one whose big brother gave him his first tattoos in the seventh grade with a ballpoint pen and a sharpened paper clip. What happened to that Greer? Same thing that happened to all of us, I guess. October Sixteenth.
Once we got the branches I needed, we headed over to the clearing. Greer and the dogs flopped down by a stand of mountain laurel while I started digging four holes for the main posts that would hold up the fence. It was sweaty work, made sweatier by the leather gloves and the rubber and plastic mask.
“So I was talking to Eliot this morning.”
I muscled out a shovelful of dirt and rock. “Oh yeah? He decided whose heart he’s going to break yet? Astrid’s or Makela’s?”
“Jury’s still out on that one,” Greer said. “No, you know Jen and Marty? They have that cabin over near Mantel Rock? Eliot was talking to them the other day, and they said they’d heard about a couple kids living on their own out on Joseph’s Point.”
“Why would anybody live on Joseph’s Point?” I asked. “The place is nothing but a swamp.”
“Marty says they’ve been there since the outbreak.”
I stopped digging. “You serious?”
Greer shrugged. “That’s what he said.”
“How old?”
“He says six. A boy and a girl.”
I pushed the blade of the shovel back into the hole. “No way. Two kids that age couldn’t make it alone on Joseph’s Point all this time.”
“Word is they come out for the supply drop, grab what they need, and then go right back. Marty said he even saw them once. Looked pretty bad off.”
I thought about that for a second, then tossed the shovel aside and grabbed one of the larger branches. “Okay, well, find Gonzalez when you get to the supply line. He’ll get his guys to look into it.”
“Absolutely. Good plan. Or I could just go down to Joseph’s Point and get them myself.”
“Seems like a waste of time, going to get them just to hand them over to Gonzalez.”
When Greer didn’t say anything, I turned around to find him grinning at me in that slightly maniacal way of his.
“No way, man,” I said. “You know the deal.”
“But—”
“We don’t bring anyone else up here, and the Guard leaves us alone.”
“Oh, come on,” Greer said. “Gonzalez was totally winking when he said that.”
“He was not winking! The only reason we even got to make that deal—”
“Is because Gonzalez is a comic book nerd who’s obsessed with your dad.”
“—is because we keep to ourselves and the Guard’s got bigger things to deal with. Bringing more people up here changes that.”
“How?” Greer asked. “It’s two kids. Little ones. They’re probably adorable.”
“If you want to go look for them, fine. But if you find them, you have to hand them over to Gonzalez.”
“And what’s he going to do with them?”