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Garraty was catching up to her, and she knew Garraty was a walking corpse, had seen the life go out of her as she watched McVries's brains get blown out, and she just had to outlast her a little bit longer—Garraty was on two warnings, and Stebbins was clear, and when Garraty touched her shoulder, Stebbins slowed and turned around, managing to keep herself walking, as Garraty opened her mouth and said, please, Stebbins, I need… please, just before I go—and Stebbins stopped, and Garraty stopped too, and for a moment Garraty just looked at her, her eyes hollow and dead, her face still splattered with McVries's blood, and Stebbins knew what the final thing Garraty needed was—she reached up and touched Garraty's cheek, and then moved her hand onto the back of Garraty's head and pulled her down to kiss her forehead, and Garraty closed her eyes and made a sound like she'd been shot already and collapsed to the ground—and Stebbins turned back around and took another step, and another, until the gun went off and the Crowd exploded into cheers, and her father got out of his Jeep and looked at her, asking what her Prize would be, and Stebbins thought, I will die your daughter—but not today.
I will die your daughter, Stebbins thought, watching the Major survey them, his sunglasses reflecting the two of them, the last two walking corpses on the road—I will die your daughter, and now everyone knows, and it doesn't matter at all—and this was the first moment, five days in, her body hurting in more ways than she'd ever imagined hurting, that she'd actually thought that she might die on this road, in front of the father who had never known her.
She was ahead, but her body was giving out, her limbs sluggish to respond to commands; her legs were a pile of tenderized meat, every inch of them screaming agony, and they didn't want to keep moving forward—she'd been forcing her body forward, every step, every agonizing step, because her brain knew that she was going to live, her brain had carried her this far, but the disconnect had started with that first seed of doubt, and she was no longer certain she could do it—and her body was responding to it.