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fault.”
    â€œI can run,” the kid whimpers.
    Chance stands and saunters over to nudge the kid’s leg with his boot tip. The kid howls and sniffles. “No, you really can’t.”
    I look up at Wyatt, unsure what to say.
    â€œWe have plans,” he says for me.
    â€œSo do we.” Chance looks pointedly at the door. “And they’re happening now.”
    â€œI don’t want to go with the girl that shot me!” the kid wails.
    â€œI can shoot you, too,” Chance offers, flopping his gun in the kid’s direction.
    â€œNo, you can’t. You’re out of bullets.”
    If looks could kill, Chance just turned the kid into pulp.
    â€œDid I mention he’s a tactical genius?” he says, shoving the gun into the front of his jeans. It’s a black Glock, of course. Just like mine, which he pulls out instead. “I’ve got fourteen bullets now. You want one?”
    The kid just sniffles and glares like he knows that Chance is an asshole but not a monster. Lucky him.
    â€œSo you’ve got bullets now. Take your kid and go. There’s another building in the park. Stay there. But don’t come back here, or we’ll aim higher,” I say. “We have more guns.”
    â€œWhere are you headed?” Gabriela asks, too quick.
    My hands go into fists. “Wouldn’t you like to know? Let me guess. You want our supplies.”
    â€œYeah. I’m just really excited about half-eaten hamburgers and a fat dog. And is that a freaking snake?” She shakes her heads and puts a hand on her hip. “Look, I’m just saying . . . if you’re in the same boat we are, we might as well see if we can help each other. We have nowhere to go, no one we can trust. You don’t, either. Maybe there’s safety in numbers.”
    â€œI promise we won’t eat your dog,” Chance says, but that’s obvious. Matty is on her back, licking his knuckles while he rubs her belly.
    Wyatt and I lock eyes. He shakes his head no. And I know that he knows more about this Chance kid than I do, and if their only connection is Mikey, that means Chance is a connection from Wyatt’s bad-boy phase. Could be drugs, destruction, or punk shows. Could be worse. But I shot this kid, and they look desperate, and I can’t help thinking about what it would feel like to go home and see your house on fire. There’s a connection here—a common enemy. In the new world Valor is fashioning, connections like this one might be the only way to survive. I don’t trust these kids. Not a bit. But I don’t know if my conscience can take three more lives, three more strike marks. If we send them away without money, without food, without medicine, with only fourteen bullets against the world, I will hate myself even more.
    Chance slides out my clip, flicks a bullet out with his thumb and rolls it around in his palm. “These aren’t Valor issue, are they?”
    I say nothing. Wyatt curses under his breath. Chance slides the bullet back in, snaps in the clip, and aims the gun at me. “Where are the rest of the bullets?” he says slowly.
    Wyatt’s gun is ready, aimed at Chance’s chest. “None of your goddamn business. Now, she asked where we were going, and that’s nowhere. So where are you going? Because now would be a good time to leave.”
    Chance measures us with his eyes, stares around the dark room as if taking inventory. Roy’s shotgun pinned under my foot, Wyatt’s Glock pointed at his chest, our bags, our dog who is clearly not a guard dog, a glass box full of snake. He gives me a lopsided smile.
    â€œWe don’t know where we’re going, okay? We were going to figure that out here, tonight. I mean . . . what’s left? Can’t go home. Can’t go back to school. Don’t know who’s in on the takeover and who’s not. This place is turning into the Wild Wild