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later?”
    “I didn’t . . . I mean . . .”
    “I’m not stupid, Lily. I know what goes on in this house. And I’m not being gullible. I’m just trying to protect you. And right now, the only way I can think to do that is to let someone else protect you for me. If sending you away keeps you safe, then that’s what I’m doing.”
    I just stood there stupidly for a minute, because I didn’t know what to say. I had thought she was being gullible. I’d thought she was an idiot for trusting the government. But maybe I was the idiot, because nothing she’d said dispelled the gut-deep feeling of dread.
    “What if sending us away is the wrong thing to do? Should we at least try to stay together? Shouldn’t we try to head for Uncle Rodney’s again?”
    “We tried that already.” She flung out a hand, pointing toward the front of the house. “We got stopped two miles from the house. You really want to try again? There are roadblocks all up and down the highways and all across the border. You saw that on TV. And the people who are caught are having their assets seized. They’re being arrested. Who knows what else? Is that what you want? You really want to risk that?”
    I thought again about all those discharged weapons. I thought about the cop I’d had run-ins with twice. And the police cars I’d seen circling the block too many times to be regular patrols.
    The sight of that patrol car had another worry niggling at the back of my mind. What if this was all my fault?
    We’d gotten our designation numbers so soon after that cop had run my license. I couldn’t help but think the two things were connected. After we’d gotten the call, Mom had started tracking down more information, but I’d hit my cell phone. None of my friends, no one I’d texted or messaged, had been contacted yet. As far as I knew, we were some of the first teens in the area to be called in.
    What if Mel and I had been called in so early because that cop had flagged us somehow? Was that what he’d done when he’d taken my license? Was this feeling in my gut dread or guilt?
    How could I argue with my mom about this when I had no idea if I’d brought this down on us myself?
    “No. Of course I don’t want that. I just want us to be together.” I nearly snorted at the irony that I was the one saying those words. How many times had I bucked against Mom’s crazy controlling nature? She’d micromanaged our lives from the moment Mel was diagnosed. Maybe that was why I had such a hard time knowing she was going to send us away.
    So I turned my back on her and walked over to where Mel stood just a few inches from the TV screen, watching the latest. Despite my insistence this morning that we turn the TV off, it had come back on after less than an hour. Mom’s an-hour-of-screen-time-a-day rule had clearly gone out the window. Like everyone in the country, we were glued to the TV. CNN on a steady IV drip.
    The plastically beautiful newscaster on the screen turned toward her “expert” source—a middle-aged man. “How is the FDA responding to allegations that Microbe EN731—which is now being known as the ‘Tick’ virus—was cleared for human testing too quickly?”
    The man removed his glasses and began polishing them with a handkerchief. “Well, as you know, there’s been a lot of pressure from congress for the FDA to streamline the red tape on these types of lifesaving drugs.”
    “Yet clearly—” the newscaster kept talking, but I stopped listening.
    I just stared unseeing at the TV, my mind racing through the lists of should-haves and wished-we’ds. Mel stood beside me, jiggling her Slinky, humming Rachmaninoff’s “Rhapsody on the Theme of Paganini.” It was one of her favorites, but the lush romanticism of the song grated my nerves today. I was so not in the mood for Rachmaninoff today.
    “What’s up?” I asked her.
    She looked at me from under her shaggy bangs, her head tilted just a little, and pointed at the TV