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arms and held her back. She struggled against him, throwing herself around wildly to break free from his grip.
    “Let me go!” she yelled. “We have to help them!”
    “Yes, please, help us!” Mrs. Ramiren said from the other side of the door. The sound of her rapid pounding fists kept in time with Christine’s racing heartbeat.
    Liam gripped her harder and shook her. She stared at the brown and green swirls in his hazel eyes. The water collecting in them gave the allusion that the colors were moving and mixing with each other.
    “The only way we’re letting them in is if you’re prepared to put a bullet in that kid’s head!” he yelled, his fingers wrapped completely around her small biceps.
    Christine’s shoulders were scrunched up to her neck. She leaned backwards, held upright by Liam’s strength alone. She pursed her lips to fight back the tears. She didn’t want to appear weak. She was a lawyer, dammit. She should have been able to argue her way into making him open the door. But her lips stayed tightly shut while her eyes bore through him.
    She wrenched her shoulders free, but didn’t walk away. She matched Liam, stare for stare. The pounding at the door finally subsided as they continued to glare at each other, though it still rang in Christine’s ears.
    She tried to calm herself to sit back down on the window seat, but immediately bounced back up. “I babysat Ahmed before. Do you remember that?” She thrust a pointed finger at the closed door.
    Liam looked at the floor with his hands on his hips. He didn’t answer.
    “And now we’re just supposed to let them die?” Her voice border lined on shrill.
    “Yes,” Liam said quietly. He couldn’t raise his eyes to look at her. He hated the way things were. “If we let them in then we’re all dead.” He finally raised his head. “It’s us or them.”
    Christine was left to stand alone in the living room as Liam walked into the bedroom. He shut the door behind him.
     
     
    IX.
     
     
    “Ralph, you need to go get my mother,” Sally Sherman said as their daughter, Lilly, balanced on her hip in the kitchen.
    Ralph Sherman groaned over his cup of coffee at the sound of his name. They’d only been together for two years, but he knew his wife exclusively used it when she was irritated with him. He sipped at the steaming medium roast in his DirecTV mug.
    The Northwest Times sat unopened on the counter. The front page was riddled with stories about the outbreak, most claiming the new strand of flu was to blame. He was sick of hearing about it already.
    Work had called that morning to tell him not to come in. He couldn’t afford to take an entire day off. His boss assured him he’d get paid for the day, but he knew it was going to come out of his vacation time. When everything blew over there was going to be a shit ton of cable and internet to fix, that was for sure. Maybe he could make up the lost hours with overtime.
    “She can’t stay down there all by herself, Ralph!” Sally said, the annoyance turned on in her all at once like a light switch. “You heard the panic in those peoples’ voices last night, the ones begging for help. She needs to be up here with us, at least until this all dies down. Now, go get her.”
    Ralph gave another loud groan as he set down his coffee mug. “And you expect me to go out there with sick people running around the building? Doesn’t matter if I get attacked right? People are dying, Sally. I’m not risking our lives to go get your mother from downstairs.”
    Sally stared at him as their daughter reached for the hand that held her bottle. She sucked on it, oblivious to the argument going on around her. Sally didn’t say anything. She didn’t even looked surprised, but Ralph knew he’d hurt his wife.
    “Just call your mom and tell her to lock her doors and stay inside. When things quiet down and those people stop panicking over nothing, I’ll go and get her, OK?”
    Sally sat Lilly down on the couch and