Page 70

“I said how convenient becau⁠—”

“He meant great news,” Julie says, cutting me off. “It is great news. She found it on the 7th floor; someone has been hiding it.”

“What were you doing up there, Mary?” I ask.

“The better question is how much food?” shouts Tyler from the back of the room, and then everyone else begins to murmur about it.

“Well, I found a couple of cans of beans and some saltine crackers. But someone has been keeping it all to themselves because there were a ton of opened cans that looked fresh,” says Mary.

“Maybe it was someone from Logan's side when they had all the food,” says Cyrus.

“No, that was months ago, and one of these cans looked like it had been opened recently,” says Mary, staring directly at Julie.

“Where did you say you found it?” asks Tyler.

“I noticed the board was knocked over on the 7th floor, and I thought I heard something, so I went inside.”

I don't say anything. I shift my attention to Julie, and when she sees me looking at her, she raises her eyebrows in suspicion and then looks away.

The room goes silent as Xander and Karissa carefully wrap the splint around Mary's fractured arm. I turn my attention back to Mary and study her for a moment, contemplating what to say.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” Mary asks me directly. I don’t acknowledge her question as I run through all the scenarios in my head. I think about what Julie told me about what Mary did in the childcare room, and how Mary’s been able to walk around freely, with no one giving her a second look because she is everyone's nurse. It occurs to me that I have no idea what she does when no one is around. Hell, come to think of it, I don’t know what anyone does when I’m not watching. Suddenly, I’m feeling overwhelmed.

I shake my head. “It's just frustrating to think that one of us is hiding food from the others; we all want to survive this. And if I find out who did it—so help me God, I will throw whoever it is into the ocean myself.”

No one moves; they all stare at me as I scrutinize each person to see who is acting weird. But no one seems any more suspicious than usual. “Tyler and Xander, come with me. We’re going to find the food Mary found.”

“I can help,” says Chris.

“No. Stay here. We are fine. I don't need anyone else getting hurt,” I respond.

The three of us crawl through the hole and look around. Xander and Tyler have never been here before, and they are both shocked by the sight.

“Why was this ship able to sail like this?” asked Tyler. From the look on Xander's face, I'd bet he's thinking the same thing.

“Let's just focus on what we're here for. None of that matters anymore,” I say, not wanting to get into those details.

“Agreed,” says Xander.

“Over there, I see a bottle sticking out of the doorway,” Tyler shouts, pointing down the hall. We walk into the room, and I’m speechless as I take it all in.

“Wow, she was right—someone has definitely been down here recently eating,” says Xander, kicking the opened cans around.

“Let's gather everything we can carry first, then come back for the rest,” I say.

The entire process takes about an hour to transport all the food and water from the 7th floor to the medical center. The most difficult part is carrying all the water—twenty-eight bottles.

“This won't last much longer. The cans split among all of us will probably last only two days. The crackers will hold out longer, but not long enough if we don't start catching fish again,” I say.

“Right, but we've tried repeatedly to catch fish. And it's too cold to stay out for long,” says Xander, and Tyler nods in agreement.

“I know, but maybe these will last until the temperature starts to rise and more fish will appear,” I say, doing my best to be optimistic.

“Yeah, I hope so,” Tyler says, his tone clearly expressing disbelief that it will happen anytime soon. Sadly, I also don’t think it’s enough, but I have to keep being positive.

When we walk into the medical center with arms full, the group erupts in excitement, and everyone rushes up to see what we found. I tell everyone to step back and explain that we will devise a plan to divide the portions fairly.

“There isn't much here, so we need to make this last as long as possible,” I say.