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“I'm not really the suing type.”

He turns toward me, and the hardness is gone from his eyes. He actually looks relieved. It's kind of sweet. Out of the entire world, I get stuck with Wyatt, with this hot guy, and he's afraid I'm trying to use him for sex. As if there were any reason in the world not to like him. Kind, funny, cute, brave. Strong enough to realize he'd screwed up and smart enough to start turning his life around.

“Knock, knock,” I say.

Wyatt looks at me sideways, like I'm crazy. “Who's there?”

“Lilac.”

He grins.

“Lilac who?”

“Lilac you.”

It's as close as I can come to telling him that I have feelings for him the day after meeting him and killing his father. But it seems to do the trick. He moves closer to me, his hip against mine, his hand on my other side, pressing into the bed. I kind of wish I were still lying down on my back, because sitting up this way, I can barely keep myself from crashing into him. After all my chasing around, it would be nice if something just came to me easy.

My breathing speeds up as he cups my face with one hand. I close my eyes and lean in to his touch, and I realize that I'm shaking. Not like I have so recently with fear and adrenaline. With hope, with anticipation. Can it be possible that he likes me too? Is it just the apocalypse talking, the fear in each of us reaching out like magnets
for safety and comfort? Were my teachers right, and we're really just animals driven to rut before a battle in a last, desperate bid to keep the species going?

Wyatt's lips brush over mine, just barely, and I open my eyes as he pulls away.

It's none of that. It's too sweet to be that simple.

“Lilac you, too,” he says gently.

And hearing those words gives me the guts to do the scariest thing I've done today: I rip the button off my shirt and throw it under the bed and lean forward and kiss him for real, one hand in his shaggy hair. His lips are warm and dry, and they curl up in a smile as he presses closer. I want more, and I twine my other hand behind his head and pull him down with me until I'm on my back. His forearms line up on either side of my head as the kiss gets deeper, and I moan and slide my fingers down his neck.

What I'm doing, what I'm feeling—I have no blueprint for this. I never saw my parents kiss, never saw my grandparents so much as touch when passing in the hall. My mom never had any boyfriends, and neither did I. The kids I hang out with at school and at work pair up, and some stay together and some break apart, but I think of the way they make out as a show, like they're doing it more to shock or impress other people than to please themselves. Half of what they do is on the phone, anyway, which is the least sexy sex I can think of. I've always wondered what two people who like each other do when
they're alone. How they learn the way of things. I guess I'm finding out now, and it's a welcome oblivion.

The kiss is deep and long, and by the time he pulls away, I feel like I've been underwater for an hour, like air is some foreign substance that doesn't taste as sweet as it used to. He hovers over me, and I'm amazed by the details of his existence, by his eyelashes and the gold sparks in his eyes and the stubble on his throat. I reach out to run a finger along the golden bristles, and he closes his eyes and sighs.

“If I asked you to kiss me again, would you?” I ask.

“Gladly,” he says. “I didn't want to rush things.”

“I did,” I say. “Just come here.”

With a sultry smile that makes me all tingly, his body lines up with mine, and he murmurs, “Yes, ma'am,” as our lips meet, and it's the happiest I've felt in years, another umbrella against a rainstorm of suck.

It's full dark before we pull away from each other. We don't go all the way, not even close. But I've thrown my caution and fear out the window and given myself the freedom to experience things, and I'll be damned if they didn't feel freaking awesome.

Wyatt shifts uncomfortably and sits up. His hair is messed and his face is red, but part of that is probably due to the red numbers on the dashboard clock. These extra hours with Wyatt make for one
hell of a decent bonus. I feel overheated myself, like I'm a size bigger all over than I was before I pulled Wyatt down on top of me, my lips puffy and my back permanently arched from pressing against him, into him. I feel loose and relaxed, almost brazen. If I knew how to swagger, I might swagger. I'm not even sure yet if I can stand.

I feel around on the bed and find my wadded-up Postal Service shirt. Without the button, it's deceptively light, and I drag a hand around under the bed, fumbling with stuffed turtles and pillows until I find the damn thing. For the millionth time, I pray that it's unbroken and doesn't have sound.

Wyatt starts to say something, but I make a fist around the button and shush him. He motions that he's going outside, and I nod my head. I have to pee too, but peeing outside is so awful that I've been ignoring the urge.

And then it strikes me that I may have had at least an audio audience for my first hard-core make-out session. I've been trying to keep Wyatt hidden from the damn button, but if that thing records or broadcasts sound, it probably caught some moans and grunts. But what was I supposed to do—stop macking to get up and stuff it in the fridge? There's so much on my mind that it's hard to stay on top of everything. I guess if he was a major problem, they would do something about him. He'd be dead already, right? It's odd, basically having a giant corporation as a boss but never receiving any sort of feedback about what you'd done well or badly. Aside from time
bonuses for Kelsey and Tom, there's no report card until the end. If then.

I've broken pretty much every rule they've given me. I've messed up my speeches, I've told the debtors things I wasn't supposed to, I signed for Ashley Cannon, and I spent a few hours luxuriating in Dr. Ken Belcher's mansion and eating his food. I feel like I should be in trouble, but I'm not being punished. No surprise packages in the passenger seat or dropped out of a helicopter. I wonder if maybe they tried to call me, but my phone ran out of juice a long time ago. Forgetting the power cord was a convenient sort of almost-accident. I didn't want any calls from Valor, checking up on me. And I didn't want to be tempted to call my mom.

It's actually the longest I've ever gone without any kind of media. No phone, no Internet, no TV to drown out my constant anxiety. No outside communication of any kind. It's been utter radio silence while I complete my assignment. Except for Wyatt, of course. But I never dreamed I would end up with a partner in crime, much less a partner who could kiss like that.

The bed is still warm from our bodies and hard for me to abandon. I stripped off my socks while we were entangled, and now the metal floor stings my bare feet with cold as I sit up to get my bearings. I turn on the tap light and run a finger all around the button, trying to puzzle out how it might work, what it's hearing or seeing. There's no seam, no obvious way to open it. They want whatever
happens inside it to be a secret, and it's a secret that's far beyond anything I could discover without a hammer. With a sly smile, I put the button under my pillow and make a mental note to get one of those flimsy travel sewing kits when we stop at a gas station tomorrow morning for biscuits.

Finally, I'm forced to face the fact that I'm about to pee myself. I grab a wad of toilet paper and hop down from the truck, looking around for a shadowy but safe place to squat. I hear a thump and almost pee myself for the second time in a day, but it's just Wyatt dragging a big-ass log across the field.

“We've got a fire pit,” he says. “I thought we could start a bonfire.”

“Won't we get in trouble?”

He drops the log and laughs. It's a cross between bitter and crazy. “You shot, like, five people today. I don't think anyone's around to send you to jail for roasting some marshmallows in a field.”

“You brought marshmallows?” I ask tentatively.

He shrugs. “Imaginary ones.”

“I've never actually seen a bonfire before.”

He drags the log over to a circle of black ash surrounded by a ring of stones and concrete blocks. He's already got some smaller branches set up in the middle of the ring, and I sneak off behind some trees to pee in skinny jeans, which is pretty much the most awkward and difficult thing ever. I don't know what to do with
the used toilet paper, so I stuff it under an old log covered in fallen leaves. I've never been camping, either.

When I return to the circle of stones, Wyatt is holding a metal lighter up to some twigs, trying to get them to catch fire.

“Where'd you get the lighter?” I ask.

“It was my friend Mikey's.” He clicks the thing again and again, trying to get the flame to hold. He shakes it in frustration. “We left it out here in a Tupperware box, along with a couple of water ­bottles, a Swiss Army Knife, and some metal sporks. When we were younger, we were always afraid the apocalypse was going to come, zombies and everything. We figured we'd be safer alone, out in the woods. There's a perfect climbing tree over there. If you sit still long enough, sometimes you see deer. Max and I used to come out here to watch them.”

“And the lighter still works?” I ask.

“It was in an airtight container. It's not made out of solid silver or anything,” he says with a smirk. “They cost, like, nine dollars on eBay.” His smile turns down. “Or they did. I guess eBay is gone now, if Valor owns the mail trucks.”

The fire finally catches, and the twigs begin to burn. A thin column of smoke rises up against the deep purple sky, and a star winks into existence. Then another, then another. We're less than five miles from my house, but it's like we're all alone on a frontier, far away from the city lights. Even the moon looks bigger and ­prettier,
pristine and bluish white. But there's a chill in the air. I rush to the back of the truck and slip on a sweater. While I'm there, I grab my quilt and the leftover food from Dr. Ken Belcher's mansion. But I leave the sparkling water behind. We're not that desperate yet.

“You still got that bottle of water out here?” I ask. “I think I saw a zombie.”

Wyatt grins. “I hope it's one of the slow ones.” He jogs off into the woods, and I suddenly feel very alone. Two people in a wilderness is exciting. One person alone in the wilderness is a sitting duck.

I go back to the truck again, this time for my gun. If there's anything I learned from Dave and from Sharon Mulvaney's house, it's that you never know when something badder than you is going to show up and give you a taste of your own medicine. As I settle down on my quilt by the fire, Wyatt appears with a single bottle of water. It looks a little beat-up, but I guess it's not like water's going to go bad. I open it and take a sip, then pass it to him. He sits down beside me on the blanket, and I lean my head against his shoulder. Being this close to him makes me forget all the other batshit crazy stuff. It just feels natural, even if there's a Glock under my knee.

“It's kind of weird,” he says, poking a stick into the growing fire to make sparks. “I feel like I know you, but I don't, really. I mean, how old are you? What do you do for fun? What's your middle name?”

The fire's glow warms my cheeks, and his arm snuggles over
my shoulder, pulling me closer against him. I wonder if this is how it felt the first time a caveman stood up beside a fire and told a story. The words are unfamiliar in my mouth, almost holy.

“My name is Patricia Louise Klein,” I tell him, speaking to the flames. “My mom wanted to call me Patricia, but my dad called me Patsy, which my mom thought was stupid. Who names a kid Patsy Klein? He left us when I was four, and I refused to answer to anything but Patsy, so now I'm kind of stuck with it. I'm seventeen. I get good grades, work at a pizza restaurant, and take care of my mom. I guess the only things I really do for me are music and crafting. Yarn bombing and cross-stitching.”

“Sounds fun,” he says. “Tell me more.”

When I gaze into the fire, I can almost see through it and into the past, when things were easy. “I always liked yarn. Like, when I was little, I would do that finger-weaving thing and make these long, useless snakes. I would hang them around my room, put them on the Christmas tree, wrap presents with them. So when I got older, I taught myself how to knit from YouTube videos, and I made hundreds of scarves and gave them to everybody I knew and then donated the rest to the food bank for winter. And then I saw an ­article about yarn bombing and knew I had to do it.”

“Why?”

“Because we live in this crappy suburb, right? We have to drive everywhere, and nobody puts any thought into making things
pretty. In New York or Paris, people put up beautiful statues, have outdoor festivals and markets, gather inspiring artwork in museums. Here it's just ugly. Even the wild spaces are surrounded by treeless neighbor­hoods or rednecks. You're never just driving or walking along and then think, ‘Oh, that's such a pretty, random surprise.'”