Free The Worlds We Make by Megan Crewe

flashlights had just reached the trees. Justin came up beside me and handed me a bundle of scratchy fabric. The scarf I’d forgotten in our frantic rush.
    “I figured you’d want this,” he said.
    “Thanks.” I felt surprised by his thoughtfulness, and then guilty for being surprised. He might be younger than the rest of us, but he had started pulling his weight all right.
    As I wrapped the scarf around my face, Justin lowered his head. “So Tobias took off because he didn’t want to infect the rest of us?”
    “I think so,” I said. “That, and he knew he wasn’t going to be able to control his own actions soon, and he was worried he’d make it hard for us to get to Atlanta. You remember how tough it was to avoid drawing attention after Gav…got bad. And we weren’t on the move for most of that time.”
    “We still could have handled it. I know I complained a lot, but it really wasn’t that bad with Gav, with all the precautions we took.” He scuffed his boot against the rug. “Do you figure…I wasn’t exactly being friendly with Tobias the last few days. I didn’t want to get sick! But I don’t have anything against the guy. Do you think that’s maybe why—”
    “I don’t know,” I said. A lump filled my throat. “Maybe it was how all of us acted. Or maybe there wasn’t really anything we could have done to stop him.” He was just trying to protect us, like always. A bunch of teens he hadn’t even known until a month ago.
    “And now he’s out there on his own.”
    “Yeah,” I said. I didn’t mention the sedatives Tobias had taken with him. For all we knew, he was sitting there in the forest less than a mile away, with the entire contents of that bottle in his stomach. I crossed my arms over my chest, hugging myself. Go away , I thought at the distant flashlights. Go back to wherever you came from. Don’t make us leave him.
    They ignored my silent plea. Finishing their sweep of the open ground, the lights dipped between the trees, winking in and out of view. As Justin and I stood there, the glimpses became briefer and less frequent, and then stopped altogether. I counted the seconds in my head. Ten…twenty…thirty…They’d vanished. Which meant they wouldn’t be able to see us either. This was our opportunity.
    I turned, squashing down my emotions. I had one person out there and three here, counting on me to get them out of this alive. My hand dipped to brush the pocket that held Gav’s last message. Keep going.
    I didn’t have a choice, not really.
    “Let’s get moving,” I said.
    Leo and Anika were waiting by the front door. They handed bags off to Justin and me wordlessly, Leo stopping for just a moment to press his hand against my shoulder, his mouth slanted unevenly, his expression pained. Then we hurried out into the frigid wind.
    “We’ll walk faster in the tire tracks, where the snow’s packed down,” Leo whispered when we reached the road.
    Our boots rasped over the gritty treads. I watched the road, and the dark shapes of the trees beyond the houses, as we marched down the hill. Our pursuers were still so deep in the forest that I couldn’t make out their lights. Would they continue to go cautiously, or would they be hurrying too, now that they were sure they’d picked up our trail?
    My fingers started to ache from clutching the handle of the cold box. We passed the house at the bottom of the hill, and its neighbor. As the fourth house came into view in the dim moonlight, I sped up, as close as I dared to a jog. The others hustled on behind me.
    When I reached the driveway, I pulled off my mitten and fumbled in my coat pocket for the car keys. My hand bumped the cool edge of Tobias’s pistol. I paused, and then held out my arm to slow the others.
    If someone was guarding the Jeep, we needed to be ready.
    I drew out the gun and fit my forefinger around the trigger. It felt too large and heavy in my hand. Beside me, Leo took out his own gun, one we’d confiscated