Hunger

and all. So if we start back using the old money we just make a few thieves powerful. It’s kind of a problem.”
    “Why is a kid going to work for money if they know we’ll share the food, anyway?” Lana asked.
    “Because some will do different stuff for money. I mean, look, some kids have no skills, right? So they pick the food for money. Then they take the money and spend it with some kid who can maybe cook the food for them, right? And that kid maybe needs a pair of sneakers and some other kid has rounded up all the sneakers and he has a store.”
    Lana realized her mouth was open. She laughed. The first time in a while.
    “Fine. Laugh,” Albert said, and turned away.
    “No, no, no,” Lana hastened to say. “No, I wasn’t making fun of you. It’s just that, I mean, you’re the only kid that has any kind of a plan for anything.”
    Albert actually looked embarrassed. “Well, you know, Sam and Astrid are working their butts off.”
    “Yeah. But you’re looking ahead. You’re actually thinking about how we put it all together.”
    Albert nodded. “I guess.”
    “Good for you, man,” Lana said. “I gotta go. Orc will be okay. As okay as he can be, anyway.”
    “Thanks,” Albert said, and seemed genuinely grateful.
    “Hey, let me see that hand,” Lana said.
    Albert seemed puzzled. He looked at his own hand, swollen and discolored from punching Orc’s stone face.
    “Oh, yeah,” Albert said as Lana briefly took his hand in hers. “Thanks again.”
    Lana put her headphones back on and trotted a few steps. Then she stopped. She turned and took them off. “Hey. Albert. The money thing.”
    “Yes?”
    She hesitated, knowing that in this moment she was perhaps starting a chain reaction. Knowing that it was dangerous to the point of madness. It was eerie, as if fate had intervened in the person of Albert, showing her the way to her half-formed goal. “Wouldn’t gold work? I mean, as money?”
    Albert’s sharp eyes found hers. “Should we get together and talk?”
    “Yeah,” Lana said.
    “Stop by the club tonight.”
    “The what?”
    Albert grinned. He fished a half sheet of paper from his pocket and handed it to her.
    Lana glanced at it. Then at him. She laughed and handed it back. “I’ll be there.”
    She started running again. But her thoughts were taking a different tack than before. Albert was planning for the future, not just letting it happen to him. That was the thing to do. To plan. To act. Not just to let things happen.
    She was right to plan.
    Come to me.
    Maybe I will, Lana thought. And maybe you won’t like it much when I do.

ELEVEN
    70 HOURS , 11 MINUTES
    “ MOTHER MARY WANTS to draft two more kids,” Astrid told Sam.
    “Okay. Approved.”
    “Dahra says we’re running low on kids’ Tylenol and kids’ Advil, she wants to make sure it’s okay to start giving them split adult pills.”
    Sam spread his hands in a helpless gesture. “What?”
    “We’re running low on kid pills, Dahra wants to split adult pills.”
    Sam rocked back in the leather chair designed for a grown man. “Okay. Whatever. Approved.” He took a sip of water from a bottle. The wrapper on the bottle said “Dasani” but it was tap water. The dishes from dinner—horrible homemade split-pea soup that smelled burned, and a quarter cabbage each—had been pushed aside onto the sideboard where in the old days the mayor of Perdido Beach had kept framed pictures of his family. It was one of the better meals Sam hadhad lately. The fresh cabbage tasted surprisingly good.
    There was little more than smears on the plates: the era of kids not eating everything was over.
    Astrid puffed out her cheeks and sighed. “Kids are asking why Lana isn’t around when they need her.”
    “I can only ask Lana to heal big things. I can’t demand she be around 24/7 to handle every boo-boo.”
    Astrid looked at the list she had compiled on her laptop. “Actually, I think this involved a stubbed toe that ‘hurted.’”
    “How much more is on the list?” Sam asked.
    “Three hundred and five items,” Astrid said. When Sam’s face went pale, she relented. “Okay, it’s actually just thirty-two. Now, don’t you feel relieved it’s not really three hundred?”
    “This is crazy,” Sam said.
    “Next up: the Judsons and the McHanrahans are fighting because they share a dog, so both families are feeding her—they still have a big bag of dry dog food—but the Judsons are calling her Sweetie and the