“Remy!” Max shouted, and I turned to see him running through the trees toward me. Daniels was behind him, but moving more slowly.

“Hey, kid!” I stepped in between Max and Teddy, blocking his view as best I could. When Max reached me, he jumped into my arms, hugging me.

“I’m glad you’re okay,” Max said, and I let go of him, putting him on the ground. “Are all the zombies dead?”

“They sure are,” I said. “Well, the ones that were attacking us, anyway.”

“Did everyone make it okay then?” Daniels asked me, and I shook my head. His eyes travelled over to where Teddy and the zombie lay dead, and he frowned.

“Thank you for taking my brother,” I said.

Daniels nodded. “It was nothing that you wouldn’t have done for me.”

“What’s Stella doing up in that tree?” Max asked.

“Um, she’s hiding out.” I put my hand on his shoulder, keeping him from walking closer to Teddy’s body.

It might have seemed silly to some that I was trying spare him from seeing that. After all the gore and death he’d witnessed, Teddy would just be another one in the long list of horrors he’d encountered in his short life.

But if I could make it so there was one fewer awful thing haunting Max’s nightmares, then I would do it. I’d always tried to shield him from seeing the worst of everything, and I knew that I couldn’t every time. But that never stopped me from trying.

“Stella, you’ve got to come down,” Bishop told her in a soothing voice. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“Max, why don’t you ask Stella to come down?” Boden suggested, since none of Bishop’s tactics seemed to be working.

“Come on, Stella.” Max stepped forward, but he was looking up at her. “You gotta come down from there eventually.”

“No, I don’t!” Stella insisted.

“Yeah, you do,” Max said. “You’re gonna get tired and hungry and you’ll have to pee. You can’t eat or pee up in that tree, and if you tried to sleep, you’d fall out. So you should come down now when we’re all here to help you.”

That argument seemed to be winning Stella over. She didn’t immediately denounce it as stupid, and she looked down at Bishop.

“It’s okay, Stella.” Bishop held up her arms. “I’ll catch you.”

“Oh hell,” Boden whispered.

“What?” I whispered back, wondering what his problem was.

Then he pointed, and I saw it right away. When Bishop lifted up her arms to reach for Stella, her shirt had ridden up in the back. There on her side, a few inches above her hip, was a large bite mark. The edges were ragged and bloody, fresh from her fight. A zombie had bitten her. She was infected.

“Shit,” I said.

22.

Daniels and Serg must’ve have seen the same thing, because they both let out large sighs. Bishop was too busy coaxing Stella out of the tree to notice us, and it seemed to be working, so we let her keep going.

“Come on, honey.” Bishop’s hands were outstretched, and Stella was tentatively letting go of the tree. She moved closer to Bishop but hadn’t made an official move to get down yet. “I’ll catch you, sweetie.”

“You promise you’ll catch me?” Stella asked.

“I promise, honey,” Bishop said.

“And you promise you won’t let the zombies get me?” Stella sniffled.

“I cross my heart and hope to die,” Bishop said, and I grimaced.

Stella finally relented. She sat down and dangled her legs over the branch. Then she slid off the edge and fell into Bishop’s waiting arms.

“I’ve got you, sweetie,” Bishop said, cradling the little girl and comforting her. “Everything is going to be okay.”

She whispered soothing words into Stella’s hair, then turned around toward us. She was rocking the child gently in her arms until she saw our faces. Daniels, Serg, Boden, and I were all standing in a line, staring at her grimly.

“What?” Bishop asked. She paled, and her gray eyes were scared, but she honestly didn’t seem to understand what would be wrong. “What’s going on?”

“Bishop, you’ve been bitten,” Boden said matter-of-factly.

“What?” She shook her head. “No, I wasn’t.”

“We saw it,” Boden said.

“You saw it?” Her eyes furrowed in confusion. “Where?”

“It’s on your back.” Daniels pointed at her, as if that would clarify the spot. “When your shirt rose up, we all saw it.”

“No, I didn’t get bit.” She shook her head again and turned, lifting up her shirt and trying to see it. “I was scratched. That’s all. I never got bitten.”

“Bishop, we know the difference between a scratch and a bite,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“But…” She’d started backing up, still holding Stella in her arms, and that’s when it first occurred to me that we might have a problem. “I might be immune. You’re immune. I could be like that.”

I was a little stunned to hear Bishop say that. I’m not sure how she knew I was immune, except that Bishop seemed like the kind of person that knew things. She was in charge at the quarantine. Or maybe she’d just overheard me talking with Daniels.

“You might be immune,” Boden agreed. “But you probably aren’t. We’ll give you the benefit of the doubt, though, and we’ll let you go off alone. But you can’t stay with us anymore.”

“You can’t!” Bishop insisted, and her eyes had gotten a wild glint to them. “You can’t separate me from the children! I’m the only one Stella trusts!”

“Please don’t make it harder than it is,” I said. “Just put Stella down.”

Stella, sensing the tension, had begun to cry again. She clung tighter to Bishop, which did not help the situation at all.

“What’s going on?” Max asked, sounding frightened. I’m sure he understood what was happening – at least the part about Bishop being infected. I think he’d asked more because he was afraid of what was going to happen.

“Just stay back, Max,” I said and stepped closer to Bishop. “Just put Stella down, and we’ll talk about it.”