You can see it anytime you want, I thought. You just have to look in the mirror.
But I didn’t say anything, because that wasn’t the point, and besides, there was something precious and rare in her telling me this. Like it was some jewel she’d uncovered in the sand and handed to me.
“And now I just feel dumb for thinking that my mom leaving was so bad. Like it was some huge earth-changing thing. Big deal, right? Compared to this. I mean, pretty much all the grown-ups we know are changed into robots. And so many of our friends are captured. God knows what’s being done to them right now.”
I rubbed my eyes hard, remembering Sam Miller being carried into the church by his grandparents, his little body swinging between them.
When Alex spoke again, her voice was a hoarse whisper. “Nothing’ll ever be the same.”
Someone coughed across the gym, and another kid turned in his sleep, murmuring from a nightmare. I looked over at Patrick, faintly backlit up there against the pane, steady as a gargoyle.
“When my parents died,” I said, “I thought nothing would ever be the same. And it wasn’t.” I sensed her head turning toward me. “But that just meant I had to figure out a new way.”
“To what?”
“To live, I guess.”
The sheets rustled as she nodded. “I suppose we all do now.”
We lay like that for a time in the darkness, breathing.
“Patrick never talks about stuff like this,” she said. “And there’s a kind of strength in that. But there’s also a kind of strength in not being afraid to talk about it.”
My first instinct was to defend Patrick, to point out that he wasn’t afraid of anything. But I kept my mouth shut. Maybe it’s because I enjoyed how it felt, this secret compliment.
A wet slurp landed on the side of my face. Cassius, licking off the trails of my tears. He whimpered at me insistently. I knew that whimper.
It meant he had to go to the bathroom.
And I’d trained him from the instant he was born only to go outside. Which meant that now I had to risk my life so my dog could pee.
That really sucked.
He hadn’t gone all day. I hadn’t even thought about it. I wondered how many other things I had yet to consider.
I sat up with a groan, like an old person. “I gotta go,” I said. “Take him out.”
“Out out?” Alex asked.
“Uh-huh.”
“How you gonna do that?”
“I have no idea,” I said.
Cassius and I threaded quietly through the cots and across the court. Ben guarded the double doors, sitting on a metal folding chair like some kind of security guard. The set of his jaw showed just how much he dug the position of authority.
“Where you going?” he asked.
“Front lawn.”
“Front lawn? Now? What for?”
I gestured at Cassius. “He’s gotta go.”
“He can use the bathroom.”
“I don’t know how to break this to you, Ben, but dogs don’t generally use toilets.”
His face shifted, and for a moment I worried that I’d joked too hard. But instead he held out his hand. “Flashlight.”
“How am I supposed to—”
“I don’t care how you do anything. I’m not having you put the group at risk if a Host sees you out there. And a flashlight means you could be spotted from far away.”
I slapped the Maglite into his palm.
He leaned over me. “Don’t make a noise. And make sure your dog doesn’t either.”
He shoved the doors open and made me walk under his armpit to get out. I headed down the hall, hesitating by the front doors. Since setting foot inside the school, I hadn’t been back outside. It felt safe in here, sheltered and protected.
“You heard the jerk,” I told Cassius. “Not a sound.”
I pushed the doors open, and we eased out, the night breeze chilling my neck, my hands. Though we kept on the lawn close to the building, I shot nervous glances through the front gates to the parking lot and the street beyond. A few Mappers moved along. I couldn’t make out anything more than their shadowy forms, but I recognized the posture, the pattern of their steps.
One of them stopped and tilted his head back. His eyes, aimed at the heavens, began to glow. I watched, fascinated and horrified. If our theory was right, he was uploading data. Sending along the terrain he’d scanned to whoever that squirming virtual eye belonged to. The breeze wafted over the sound of throaty clicking, the same sound Sheriff Blanton had been making in Alex’s closet. It struck me that it sounded a bit like a fax machine trying for a connection or the noises I’d heard Internet dial-ups make in old movies.
Finally the Mapper lowered his head and continued on his course.
I urged Cassius onto the dewy lawn, and he darted along with his nose to the ground, sniffing.
“Come on,” I whispered. “Just go already.”
He moved closer to the edge of the lawn, toward the fence line.
“Hey, stop. Cassius. Cassius.”