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and lowered his slightly tinted black-rimmed glasses, my eyes very strongly connected with green eyes—unnaturally green eyes. Not only were they the green of the Infecteds, but they made me realize who they belonged to. It took me a moment to catch my breath and look away, pretending I hadn't noticed him. Just when I thought I might hyperventilate at the way his eyes were narrowed with his hands clenched in fists, and the look of pure hatred on his face, the door to the elevator opened. I grabbed Sonya's arm, yanking her out.
    "Evie? What the—"
    "Al. It's Al—in the elevator—just now" I whispered as I pulled her to the stairs. "He—he's infected. I could see it. His eyes—"
    "Whoa! Slow down." She looked down at the death grip I had on her arm. "Evie?"
    "We have to—to—he's—"
    She pulled me to a stop. "Look at me… Now take a deep breath. We're in the middle of a hospital. There are security guards all over the place and police downstairs in the emergency room. We're okay, Evie."
    I looked around us. There was a small waiting room near where we'd stopped with a family in it. The young children were playing with some cars on a wooden track built into the table. She was right. We were okay here. I let go of her hand and took deep breaths to calm myself down.
    "Okay, that's better. Now, tell me what happened, I didn't even see him in the elevator."
    "You didn't see him?" Was I going crazy? "He was standing in the back corner. The old man was in front of him, and he was in the corner." Was I hallucinating? Did I imagine the whole thing?
    She shook her head. "Evie, no—I don't mean there was no one there. I meant that I didn't see Al. I know who Al is. He was in my PE class. I know there was someone there; I just didn't notice it was Al."
    "Oh." Feeling a little better, I went on. "Well, I felt this—I don't know." I shrugged my shoulders. "A creepy feeling, I guess. I looked around and finally saw Al standing there staring at me like I'd just slaughtered his entire family. He was wearing these tinted glasses and lowered them to look at me. He looked like he wanted to beat the crap out of me, and that's when I saw the green of his eyes. They were like infected green."
    "Are you sure? I mean, why was he here in a hospital, behaving like an ordinary guy instead of out attacking people? If he was infected and mad at you, why wouldn't he just kill you?"
    "I don't know," I said defensively. It didn't make much sense, but I knew what I saw.
    "Maybe the light was playing tricks on you. Maybe his eyes just looked green?"
    "No, they were infected. I have green eyes, Sonya. I see green eyes every single day—this was infected." But as I stood there, I realized Sonya was right—he would have attacked if he was infected. I started to doubt myself. "I'm pretty sure. I don't know—I'm tired."
    "Hey, you've had a hell of a day. Give yourself a break, Evie. Let's get home where we can figure out what to do about Dev." She patted my hand and turned back to the stairs. "It's just two flights, let's take the stairs."
    I nodded appreciatively. I felt better not taking the chance that he was still in the elevator. We made it down to the lobby and out to the car and nothing bad happened making me feel like maybe I really had imagined Al's infected eyes. As we drove home, Sonya kept glancing over at me.
    "Evie? Why would Al hate you?"
    I slid down farther in the seat and laid my head against it, closing my eyes. It wasn't a long story, but I felt uncomfortable talking about it. "At the beginning of the year, Al would come over to Jay's a lot and play basketball in his driveway with him. Jay said he and Al were the only two in their gang who liked basketball. It started out fine. I'd sprawl out on a blanket on the grass and watch them play, but then it got weird. They'd take breaks and come to sit with me. Jay would tease me or we'd talk about whatever, but when Al joined—it was weird." I thought back to those days when things were