anymore though it was so hard not to say anything, not to tug him into the safe cover of the trees that lined either side of the road.
Red felt the back of her neck prickling, felt like someone was watching her from afar, someone who would swoop in and scoop them up and throw them in the back of a van.
She found herself holding her breath so she could hear better, hear any silent enemies that might try to sneak up on them, and then she gave herself a little shake because it made absolutely no sense to deprive herself of oxygen.
The gas station was empty, as expected, and the few shops that lined the road all had their CLOSED signs turned out. There was no evidence of the damage that had occurred in their hometown—no rampaging destruction, no broken windows.
This little village never seemed populated at the best of times and the postapocalyptic look wasn’t that much different, Red reflected. It was like everyone was still inside having breakfast and none of the stores had opened up yet.
The gas station door was locked. Red and Adam peered inside the windows, an untouched array of chips and snack cakes and cigarettes and lottery tickets on display.
“We’ll have to break the door glass,” Adam said.
Red wrinkled her nose. She was reluctant to do that for a number of reasons—chief among them that breaking the glass seemed too much like theft. Of course it was ridiculous to think that way—the owner was unlikely to come back, and even if he did, would he really begrudge some hungry kids the food they needed?
She also didn’t want to break the front door glass because it faced the road, and Red couldn’t shake that prickly someone’s-watching-me feeling. How could they hear someone coming along if they were making a bunch of noise breaking the glass? And there was nowhere to hide.
“Why don’t we see if there’s a back entrance?” Red said. She tried to make her suggestion sound casual, like it wasn’t fueled by vague suspicions of lurking enemies.
And right after she did that she got annoyed with herself, because she was tiptoeing around Adam’s feelings and it pissed her off that she had to do that. It wasn’t natural. He didn’t seem especially concerned about her feelings.
Mama said you should stay together.
Red knew that underneath that excuse (yes, it was an excuse, really) was a lurking fear that Adam might leave her. She wasn’t usually afraid of being alone—she was a fairly solitary person by nature—but she was afraid of her brother unknotting that last family tie, of loosing her into the world to drift without anyone else who would remember the last moment their mother said good-bye.
But it was hard, really damned hard, not to speak her mind when she wanted to tell him that it was stupid as hell to stand out in front of the gas station, visible to anyone who might look out from a window or drive by.
Just thinking about the possibility of a spy in a window made Red glance behind her and squint at all the residences for a twitching curtain. It was not impossible that someone had survived in this little town and that they’d refused to go to a camp and that they were watching Red and Adam right now and they had a rifle ready if it looked like the two of them would get up to any mischief.
The trouble is, Red, that you can imagine too many possibilities. And imagining all the possibilities can get you in hot water just as easy as not thinking things through.
Too much consideration and she could end up lost in the weeds, paralyzed by the vast permutations of potential outcomes.
“Who cares if there’s a back door?” Adam said. “It’s probably locked, too.”
Red shrugged. “It might not be. Isn’t it worth checking? We could at least save ourselves the trouble of breaking glass.”
Adam opened his lips, his ready-to-argue face on. Then abruptly he closed his mouth, turned, and went around the right side of the building.
Red hurried after him, surprised by his lack of response but also relieved.