I handed Greer the ticket. It took him only a second to see the same thing I did. “But that’s not—”
“What is it?” the girl asked.
When Greer didn’t answer, she snatched the ticket out of his hand. “So what?” she said. “You said some people were just passing through when—”
I took a step toward her. “Look at the departure date on the bottom.”
The girl did and then looked up at me, uncomprehending.
“That was three days ago.”
None of us moved. When the girl spoke again, her voice was hard and small.
“But . . . you said the town’s been quarantined for months.”
I turned to Greer. “Was there a charity group at the supply drop yesterday?”
“Yeah, some church was helping out, I think. Oh! That’s it! I heard they came in the day before to get ready. She must have gotten permission to cross into the QZ to do some charity work and then ended up getting infected.”
It made sense, but something about it didn’t feel right. I turned it all over in my head. A bus ticket and a fake ID sitting in a mostly empty backpack. No phone. No ATM card. Her hair had been dyed recently. Each piece clicked together like the sides of a frame. When the picture inside emerged, I felt something cold in the pit of my stomach.
“I don’t think that’s it.”
“Then what?” Greer asked.
I studied the girl as she stood there holding the ticket in her trembling hand. She looked exactly as she had the first time I’d seen her. Hunted. Frightened. Lost. But strong too. I took a breath to steady myself and looked her in the eye.
“You did it on purpose,” I said. “You came here because you wanted to get infected.”
“What?” Greer exclaimed. “No way, man.”
“People have tried before. Gonzalez said—”
“That every now and then some mental case throws himself against the fence. You think that’s who she is? No. Uh-uh.”
The girl had started backing away toward the gate. Greer went after her.
“Listen, Card thinks he knows everything, but trust me, he’s not as smart as he—”
Greer tried to grab her arm to keep her from leaving, but she drove both hands into his chest and knocked him to the ground. She threw herself through the gate and into the street. I called out to her, but she ran past City Hall and St. Stephen’s and then down Elm Street. Greer groaned as he rolled over.
“You all right?” I asked.
“Fine,” Greer said. “See? Told you. Former Navy SEAL. Come on, we better go after her.”
I went back for her bag. As I stuffed her things inside, I saw a splash of yellow tangled up in the thorns of a rosebush near the fence. A thin jacket, like a Windbreaker. I remembered her saying she’d been hot as the virus took hold. I yanked it off the thorns and immediately felt something in the pocket. I reached inside and pulled it out. It was a small sealed envelope. On the front, in neat block letters, it said:
READ ME.
“So,” Greer said. “You gonna take a look?”
We’d been winding through the streets for hours, searching for the girl without any luck.
“Take a look at what?”
Greer nodded toward the note I had clutched in my hand.
“No,” I said. “And you’re not either. Whatever she wrote, it’s none of our business.”
“Yeah, but you can’t tell me it isn’t killing you, right? It’s killing me. Oh! Maybe she was like a bank robber or something and she came here to get away from the police.”
“Then she’d want them to forget her,” I said. “Not the other way around.”
“Right. So maybe . . .”
Greer laid out a dozen more theories as we checked the park and the high school, but I could barely hear him anymore. My heartbeat was pounding in my ears. It seemed to grow louder every minute we stayed in town. I’d become hyper alert too, flinching at every sound and constantly seeing movement in the shadows only to turn and find nothing there. I could feel our house lurking out in the maze of neighborhoods, pulling at me, trying to draw me back. All I wanted was to find the girl and go.
Greer led us down to the alleys and the boarded-up shops on Main Street. Infected emerged from their homes, standing in the gloom of their doorways to watch us. Greer stopped and asked each one if they’d seen her while I waited on the street. The answer was always no. Nothing. Not a trace. The sun was just starting to fall.
“Come on,” I said. “Maybe she headed back to camp.”
Greer agreed and we left Main and rejoined Route 9 heading out of town. Lucy’s Promise rose ahead of us. The pounding in my chest slowly eased.
“Hey, at least we know she’s from Indiana,” Greer said. “That’s something, right?”
“We know she got on a bus in Indiana,” I said. “She could have been anywhere before that.”
“Yeah. Right. Good point. I still don’t get it, though.”
“What’s to get?” I said. “She gives some charity group a fake name, then ditches them once she gets inside.”