Astrid knelt down next to Brayden and tipped his head up a bit. She poured a little water into his mouth.
He sputtered, choking on it.
“If only we could get him to the hospital,” Astrid said.
“If only we knew if it was even open,” I said. “We just don’t have enough information.”
Suddenly I had an idea.
“Alex’s video walkie-talkies!” I said, standing up.
“What?” Jake said.
“I’ll be right back,” I told them. And I ran for Niko.
* * *
“Niko!” I shouted as I hurdled through the store.
I came into the clearing where Niko was with Josie. They jumped apart. As if it mattered that I saw them together!
“Alex’s video walkie-talkies!” I said, breathless. “Listen, Brayden’s got to get to the hospital. We don’t know if it’s open. I can put on the walkie-talkie and go to the hospital. That way you guys can see what’s going on out there. You can see if it’s safe.”
“What?” Niko said.
I explained it to him again as we hurried to the Train.
I wanted to wake Alex up and ask him if it was possible.
“I’ll wear the transmitter and you guys will be able to see what’s out there,” I said as we came to the Living Room. “I can even go to the highway and see if it’s clear.”
“But it’s not safe to go out!” Josie protested.
“What do we know?!” I nearly shouted. “Can we trust anything those guys told us? Robbie didn’t want us going out. He wanted to stay here. He could have said anything to keep us here. Maybe the hospital is open!”
I was raving a little. It was possible that exhaustion had pushed me over some kind of edge, but the idea seemed so smart.
“Reconnaissance!” I said.
Alex was awake now. And Sahalia was stirring.
“I’ll do reconnaissance! That’s what it’s called.”
I turned and addressed Alex.
“Would it work for me to take the walkie-talkies out and go to the hospital and see if it’s safe?”
“No,” came Jake’s voice. “It wouldn’t.”
I turned to stare at Jake.
“But it would work for me to go,” he said.
Niko shook his head, but Jake kept on talking.
“I know, I’ve been a screw-up. I got … messed up. But I’m fast. I’m in good shape and I’m type B. No blisters, no hallucinations, no rage.”
“I don’t think you can handle it,” Niko said. “I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous.”
“You gotta let me do something for Brayden. He’s my friend. He’s my best friend, and if he dies because I let Robbie get the gun…”
He looked at us.
“Please, let me go.”
Astrid had come over during this speech.
“I don’t understand this plan,” she interrupted. “Jake is going to go out?”
“Yeah, and you’ll be able to see what I’m seeing,” Jake answered.
“What if you’re attacked?” she asked.
“He could take a gun,” Niko said.
She hung her head, backing away. Jake rose and went to her.
They went a little ways away, but we could still hear them.
And we could see them, too, now that the store was fully lit.
It seemed indecent, somehow, to have the whole store lit that way.
“I have to do it for Brayden,” Jake said to Astrid. “It’s my fault that he got shot. If I hadn’t been using, it wouldn’t have happened.”
“You’re going to die, just to try to save him,” she said.
“Please,” he said softly. “I want to do something. I want to do something right. For once.”
They embraced and I looked away.
She loved him and he loved her. And that was how it was. I could wash her hair from here to Grand Junction—she loved Jake.
I glanced up and saw my brother looking at me with pity in his eyes.
Just what I needed.
It was at this moment that Ulysses appeared at the door, rubbing his eyes.
“I want Robbie,” he said.
The kids were awake.
It was the morning.
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
JAKE TV
Niko, Alex, and Jake went away to prepare Jake for his trip.
Astrid volunteered to go take care of Brayden.
Which left Josie and me to lie to the kids.
“What happened?” Max said, as he came to the door.
The little kids came out cross and sullen and unforgiving. They blinked and looked dazed in the full light of the store.
And Josie and I pulled ourselves up and lied and lied and lied.
“Kids, some bad stuff happened last night,” Josie told them. “Mr. Appleton took a turn for the worse after you all went to sleep, so Robbie said he wanted to go out and get help, right, Dean?”
“That’s right. And then Brayden went to get the men’s guns from where we had hidden them and he fell…”
“Yes, that was the shot you heard.” Josie stepped in. “Brayden shot himself in the shoulder. Fortunately, he’s okay. He’s going to be just fine.”
The kids looked so puzzled, you could almost see question marks spinning in their eyes.
“But there were two shots,” Max protested.
I looked at Josie.
“No,” she said. “That was just the ricochet.”
“The what?” Chloe asked.
“A ricochet,” Josie repeated. “Like an echo.”
“I don’t think so,” Max said, crossing his arms.
“Where’s Robbie?” Ulysses asked.
“Well, that’s the thing,” I said, bending down. “Robbie left. He wanted to go and find our parents as soon as possible.”
“And get help for Mr. Appleton,” I added. I just didn’t have it in me to tell them he’d died.
I looked at Josie and my look conveyed: Let them accept the bad news about Robbie first, then we’ll tell them about Mr. Appleton later.
It must have conveyed that, because she said, “Yes, Mr. Appleton is sleeping now. A very deep sleep. We must not disturb him.”
Caroline and Henry started crying. Ulysses was already dissolving in tears.
“But there is good news,” I said, scrambling. “Robbie left Luna behind. He said he wanted Ulysses to have Luna, because he’s such a good boy.”
Ulysses buried his face in Josie’s shirt.
“Let’s call her now,” Josie said. “Luna! Luna!”
The kids started calling Luna in their sweet little voices.
Josie looked up at me.
“Breakfast,” she said. “Something with a lot of protein.”
* * *
By the time I had fed the kids their breakfast of egg-and-cheese Hot Pockets, Niko and Alex had Jake all geared up. I brought a tray with food on it to them, where they were getting ready, in the Media Department.
Jake wore layer upon layer of sweatpants and sweatshirts—M through XXL. He looked like a padded dummy. They hadn’t wrapped his head yet so he sort of had a pinhead effect going on—this very round, puffy body with Jake’s regular-size head poking out and grinning at us all.
“What are you doing?” Max asked.
The kids all laughed at Jake. He looked so silly.
Niko shot me a look that said, You didn’t tell them?
I sighed and shrugged my shoulders. We’d had plenty to tell them, already.
Jake had a backpack, which I saw was stocked with jerky, trail mix, and water, as well as two extra flashlights.
I knew he also had one of the guns.
God, I hoped it was enough to keep him safe.
Alex was finishing the hookup of the video walkie-talkie.
The walkie-talkie was strapped to Jake’s torso by layer upon layer of duct tape. This gave the chest section of Jake’s ensemble a weird, girdled look. The camera side of the walkie-talkie pointed out. An earpiece was wired up Jake’s neck, taped down to his skin, as if he was a narc going on a drug bust, or maybe an FBI guy.
“How do I look, booker?” Jake asked me.
He looked like a fat super-gadget-oriented exercise fanatic.
“You look tough, man,” I answered.
“Liar.” He laughed.
It was good to see him with some purpose again. He still looked pale and bedraggled, but at least he was smiling.
All the kids gathered around, but still gave us space to work. Josie patiently explained what was about to happen.
The kids were amped.
Chloe squeezed Luna hard. That dog was going to have to get used to a lot of love.
She was a good dog, just licked Chloe’s face until Chloe released her.
Alex switched on the walkie-talkie and then crossed to a bigtab. It was one that had been in a box, so it hadn’t been damaged at all by the quake. Now, it was plugged in to the power system and had a cable slotted into its AV IN port, which ran to the other walkie-talkie.
Alex turned it on, and suddenly an image came up—it was Caroline and Henry, who happened to be standing right in front of Jake, huddled together and sucking their thumbs.
“Hey!” they said in unison, seeing themselves on the bigtab.
We all cheered.
Jake turned his body, and as he did, the image on the monitor panned across us.
The light was dim. It was hard to make us out totally, but there we were. Dirty, I noticed. We all looked a lot dirtier and scrawnier on camera than we did to my eye.
Maybe I’d just gotten used to our level of grime.
“This is awesome,” Jake said.
He bounced up and down and the image bounced up and down on the screen. He got all up in Max’s face and the image on the screen zoomed in on a very happy Max, sticking out his tongue and making a silly face.
“Okay,” Alex said. “Say something.”
“What up, what up?” Jake said. “I am broadcasting to you live from the Greenway on the Old Denver Highway in Monument, Colorado!”
The volume was way too low, but we could hear his faint, tinny voice coming out of the walkie-talkie.