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the far side of the seat,
trying to hide the fear that ate at all of them.
    "I'm Sarah. This is Maggie." She rubbed the
still sobbing child's hair. Pointing, she said, "That's Dana. My
twin."
    "Well, duh." He rolled his eyes and she
laughed. At least some things could still be counted on to be
normal.
    "And the lady driving is Meredith." She
leaned toward him and whispered loud enough for it to carry to the
front seat. "But don't call her Mere. She hates that. Right, Mere."
She laughed again as the woman gave a weak glare via the rearview
mirror. It felt good to laugh. But she was afraid if she laughed
too much she might not stop. Instead, she turned to their newest
passenger. "What's your name?"
    "Dexter." He looked at her with resignation.
"Yeah, I know, but my mom named me that before the show. Most
people call me Dex."
    "Hi, Dex. How old are you? You handled
yourself pretty well back there." Dana faced them, peering around
her seat.
    He snorted. "Yeah. I let a girl beat my a—"
He looked over at Maggie. ". . . butt."
    "Yeah, but this girl has training. It's been
a while, but I still have a few moves. My sister there, now she's
awesome. She's kept up the training and can whip grown men's . . .
butts." She winked. "She's already kicked a few today and saved my
behind."
    "Yep. And she saved mine right back. We make
a pretty good team." Sarah looked down at the girl in her arms. She
had exhausted herself crying and now slept, although she whimpered
occasionally. She adjusted Maggie so she sat across her lap and
cradled her. Looking back at Dex she asked, "So how old are
you?"
    "Eleven. I'll be twelve next month." He
pulled his shoulders back, making himself appear bigger. "How old
is she?"
    "Not sure yet. We'll have to wait until she
wakes up. I'm guessing about five. What do you think?"
    "Yeah. I have a cousin about her age." He
leaned against the seat, lost in his thoughts.
    "We'll try to get you back to your family
soon."
    "My mom died when I was a baby. I was living
with my grandma, but . . ." He blinked back tears. "The zombies got
her."
    "I'm so sorry. We'll see if we can find any
of your family as soon as we can. If we can't, you're always
welcome with us." Dana reached back to pat his knee.
    The vehicle made a turn and slowed. "Look,
the doors are boarded up. I guess that means someone's in there."
Meredith pulled the car to a stop in front of the red brick
building. "So what do you think?"
    "I think I'm exhausted. And if someone's in
there, it has to be someone who has a keycard since the building
wasn't open today except for a few supervised kid visits. If
they've got the windows boarded, then hopefully they've cleared the
courthouse, so that's one less thing we have to do. Right?"
    The running engine was the only sound for a
few moments. "Yeah. I think we should try it. What do you think,
Dex?"
    He looked surprised Dana had asked him.
"Let's do it."
    "There's the underground garage that's
restricted to Judges. Let's see if we can get in that way."
Meredith eased the truck around the building and down an enclosed
ramp which made it difficult to see if one didn't know it existed.
She stopped outside the gate. "I put my bag in the back earlier,
along with my purse. Could you find my purse for me, Dex?"
    "You have a keycard for the gate?" Sarah
looked at Meredith's smirk in the mirror. "Of course you do." She
watched Dex hand over the purse.
    "Franklin gave it to me not too long ago."
She mentioned the name of a judge whom she had wrapped around her
finger long before Sarah started work there. While the other judges
loved her, she could never get Franklin Montoya to cut her any
slack. No doubt he had been influenced by Meredith's dislike of
her. Sarah shook her head. None of that mattered anymore. Not a lot
she had deemed important previously mattered any longer.
    "Thank goodness he did. I hope the code
reader is still working," Sarah said.
    Meredith lowered her window and inserted the
card. Everyone let out the breath