“Ron, wait—”
“I’ll be back,” he said. “Don’t worry about me.”
He was out the door before she could say anything else.
It took three days. Ron had to travel slowly, avoiding everybody and anybody on the streets. Most of the day he inched along, a block at a time, sometimes just a building at a time. Ducking into a doorway, he’d look carefully out onto the street and wait until no one was in sight. Then he’d sprint as far as he dared and duck into another doorway, praying that nobody saw him.
Twice he was spotted. Once he simply outran a pack of little kids. He ran until his lungs were aflame and his vision blurred. He raced down one block, cut around a corner, through an alleyway, up a fire-escape ladder, and down the other side of the building. When he collapsed, chest heaving painfully, the kids were nowhere in sight.
Just as night was falling he was surprised by three warriors from a gang he didn’t know. Ron stepped into a shadowy doorway and the three of them were already in there. They were just as surprised as he was.
They were smoking something and didn’t expect to be disturbed. For a flash of a second the three of them froze, wide-eyed, scared. Before they could recover, Ron took off, running wildly again. After a few minutes he looked back over his shoulder. No one was following.
He got to Dewey’s place late that night. He nearly forgot about the traps that the old man had set up along the stairs. But he remembered them just in time.
Finally he stood under the hole in the ceiling where the rope ladder had been and yelled out? “Dewey, it’s me, Ron. It’s Ron! Wake up. Hurry. Please hurry!”
A powerful light suddenly blinded him. He put his hands up over his head to shield himself. The light was blazing bright; Ron could feel its heat.
“You alone?” he heard Dewey’s voice ask.
“Yes.”
The rope ladder tumbled down and dangled in front of Ron. In a few minutes he was standing in Dewey’s living room, trying to tell the old man everything at once.
“Slow down, slow down,” Dewey said. “I can’t hardly understand you.”
Ron took a deep breath and tried to speak more slowly. He told Dewey about Dino, about the raid, the killings, Sylvia and Davey, their need for food and medicine.
Dewey nodded grimly. “Okay. I get the picture.”
Then the old man quickly moved through the apartment, pulling a worn old hiking pack from a closet, stuffing it with cans and plastic packages of food, a canteen of water, and cartons of powdered milk. From another closet he took a small metal box marked with a red cross.
“There’s penicillin and bug-killers in this kit,” he told Ron. “Hope they can do the job, ’cause there’s nothing else we can do for him here inside the Dome.”
Ron nodded gratefully.
As Ron started to slide his arms through the pack’s shoulder harness, Dewey said, “You know you ought to eat something, and get some sleep. You’re not goin’ to get back for another day anyway, and you look mighty worn out.”
Shaking his head, Ron answered, “I can’t. That kid might be dying.”
Dewey nodded. “I know . . . well, good luck, son.”
The old man stuffed handfuls of dried food into Ron’s ragged pockets and helped him down to the street. Ron waved to him from the corner, turned, and headed back downtown. He munched on dried piece of fruit as he started out.
It took the rest of that night and all the following day for Ron to get just halfway back to the Gramercy area. He had to be especially careful now because the pack he carried contained valuable property. If anyone saw him, they would kill him just for the chance to look inside the pack. And with the pack weighing him down, Ron couldn’t run or fight as well as before.
So he had to go slowly, very slowly, through the dirty, nearly empty streets. Whenever he saw someone or heard anything at all, he hid in an alley or doorway or basement. Most of the day he had to stay hidden. Twice he dozed off while he crouched in basements. Each time he snapped awake, feeling angry at himself and ashamed for being so weak.
He made better time after dark. Still, it was nearly dawn on the third day when he got back to the building where he’d left Sylvia and Davey.
But they weren’t in the upstairs room where he had left them.
Ron put his pack down on the floor. His shoulders and arms creaked in relief as he got rid of the weight. The room was empty. In the gray light of early morning, Ron searched the whole floor for them. They weren’t in any of the rooms.
She must have gone to look for food, Ron told himself. Maybe Davey’s feeling better and they both went to look for food.
But he didn’t really believe that.
Ron searched every floor of the building, starting at the top and working down, floor by floor, until he reached the basement. Nothing.
He climbed wearily back up the stairs to the main hallway on the street level.
“Hello dude.”
Dino and four Chelsea warriors were standing in the hallway waiting for him. Somehow, Ron wasn’t surprised. He almost expected it.
“Lookin’ for somebody?” Dino was smiling. A nasty, yellow-toothed smile.
“Where are they?” Ron asked flatly.
Dino laughed. “Where d’ya think? Sylvia came lookin’ fer me yesterday. Th’ kid was sick an’ they both was starvin’. So now she’s my girl.”
“I’ll bet she’s thrilled by that.”
“You betcha.”
Ron jerked a thumb toward the staircase. “I’ve got medicine for Davey. He—”
