Belinda met Will’s eyes for the first time. They were angry.
“Oh, you care?” she said.
David paused as he opened the bunkhouse door. He gave Belinda a curious look.
“Of course I care,” Will said. “What do you mean?”
Her next words sucked all the air out of Will’s world.
“She’s pregnant.”
“What?” David said.
Will’s hearing went away. He saw David gesturing, but he stopped processing the words that came out of his mouth. David waved Belinda inside. Will followed in a daze. Lucy was pregnant. Will shook his head. He dropped onto a cot. His hearing tuned back in with David’s next three words: “Who’s the father?”
Will’s eyes snapped to Belinda. They screamed at her to not say if she knew. She looked away from Will, back to David, but she didn’t answer him. Will could see her wrestling with a decision. She frowned and huffed air out her nose.
“She didn’t say. She only told me right before I left.”
David raked his fingers through his brown hair. He stumbled a little bit and sat down on a cot.
“Is she okay?” Will asked. He felt like an idiot asking it. What girl was ever okay being pregnant inside McKinley? He knew what it meant. And he got the answer he dreaded most.
“No,” Belinda said. “She isn’t.”
David pounded a cot-side table with one heavy fist. He pounded the table four or five more times before grasping his forehead. They all sat in silence for a moment.
“I want to know everything,” David said, his voice barely a whisper.
Belinda took a breath and told them the terrible story.
Will and David left Belinda behind in the bunkhouse. A parent would be along soon to educate her about her options going forward if she wanted to stay on the farm or leave in search of her family. She’d choose family. They all did.
Family. The idea meant something new to Will now, and he felt like he was going to be crushed under its weight.
“We have to do something,” Will said as they walked toward the minivan.
“I know,” David said.
Will waited a moment for more, but more didn’t come.
“We have to go in,” Will said.
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“You heard what Belinda said. She’s all alone.”
David looked around as they walked, as if he was sure someone was eavesdropping. The only ears nearby belonged to the sheep.
“We have a plan, Will. Let’s get the cure. We’ll be back in a week. That’ll fix everything.”
“What if the cure’s not real?”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why not? Because it might be true?”
“You’re the one who was so convinced we needed to go in the first place. Now you’re telling me you don’t believe in it?”
“All I know is Lucy’s pregnant. That’s a fact. If we waste a week or two on this trip and come back with nothing, that’s forever that Lucy’s in there alone with no help. Anything could happen to her.”
David fell back against the minivan and let out a groan.
“David, don’t tell me you forgot what it feels like to be in there. To not belong to a gang. To have no one watching your back. Can you even imagine facing all that while being pregnant?”
David faltered. “Jesus Christ.”
“She needs us. We have to get her out. We have gas masks. They filter out the virus, right?”
“It’s too dangerous. We’ll make an announcement, have her come to the quad.”
“We can’t single her out. She’ll be as bad off as Sam was. Someone will use her against us. Just like before.”
“What about the guy who knocked her up?” David said with a splash of anger in his voice. “Huh? Isn’t he looking after her?”
Will couldn’t fathom a way to answer that.
“What if he’s not?” Will finally said. “What if he’s just some dickhead that doesn’t care what happens to her?”
It didn’t inspire the response Will was looking for. David began to sneer. With his black eye patch, he looked almost frightening.
“Do you know who she was dating before you left?”
Will shook his head before he could say something. “I don’t—I don’t think so.”
“No idea?”
“I don’t know, maybe some Nerd with stupid hair,” Will said. “I saw her with him at this party, but he looked like a big pussy. We can’t count on him.”
David stared at the school. Will understood that going into the school was madness, but Lucy needed them. He stared at David and waited. If anything would bring him back to his old self, it would be Lucy in trouble.
Finally, David shook his head.
“There’s no way.”
“But—”
“It’s a death sentence,” David said. He was raising his voice, trying to drown Will out. Will hated that.
“And what if the cure isn’t a rumor?” David continued. “Then, we would’ve gotten ourselves killed when there was an easy answer. And Lucy would still be in danger.”
“You don’t get it,” Will said. Not that he could unless Will told him the truth. But he knew that would only make his brother angrier, and then Will would be on the defensive.
“No, you don’t get it,” David said. “You didn’t go on pointless missions to get your old pal Gates’s bullshit, and watch good people cough up their lungs and die, because some angry kids wanted revenge. You’re not infected anymore, Will. You don’t realize how afraid you should be of everyone in that school.”
Will stared at David, wondering how long his brother had been judging him for what he’d done with the Saints inside. He wondered how long David had watched him from above and done nothing to help.
“At least I know how to do the right thing even when I’m scared,” Will said. “Which is something you must’a forgotten.”
“Fuck you.”
“No, fuck you,” Will said and turned. He stomped away from the minivan. The distant rumble of thunder echoed the snort of pigs nearby. Will looked up. The clouds above were darker and more knotted than before.
He didn’t know where he was going, but he wanted to get away from David before he said something worse. They should’ve been on the road by now, but the idea of spending days in the van with David seemed impossible. Each scrape of his shoes through the grass was loud. There was another crack of thunder, and with it the truth of his situation fully sank in for the first time.