Copyright

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpervoyagerbooks.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2016

Copyright © Tom Isbell 2016

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2016

Cover photographs © Shutterstock.com

Tom Isbell asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780007528226

Ebook Edition © January 2016 ISBN: 9780007528219

Version: 2015-12-18

Dedication

To Joy, Sue, Jim~

Family

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Part One: The Road Back

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Part Two: Capture

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Part Three: Return

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Also By Tom Isbell

About the Publisher

PART ONE
THE ROAD BACK

When men take up arms to set other men free, there is something sacred and holy in the warfare.

—PRESIDENT WOODROW WILSON

PROLOGUE

HE WALKS THROUGH THE valley of shadows, surviving fire and flood, flames and torrents. Marching across the barren wilderness, he carries in his heart the faint memory of those who went before him. In his veins runs the blood of warriors, the pulse of poets.

Pursuing him are those who will not rest. Like lions, they track him, chasing him across the smoke-filled prairies, the desolate hills, the sun-stroked plains. The rivers shall turn against him, as shall the fields and forests.

Though he gathers friends, there are those who will betray him. Friend will become foe and foe become friend.

But my beloved fears not. He shall mount up with wings like the birds of the air, shall burrow beneath the earth like creatures of the dark, shall carry great loads like beasts of prey, shall run and not grow weary.

My beloved, in whom I am well pleased.

1.

THEY LOOKED AT ME with hollow, vacant stares—their sunken cheeks more like ghosts’ than human beings’. Festering sores tattooed their bodies, and their pleading eyes cut circles in the black.

Please, their expressions said, as they strained against the chains that pinned them to the bunker walls. Get us out of here.

There were a dozen of them, boys my age, and the more I took in their emaciated bodies—the bones pushing against skin, the bloodshot eyes and skull-like faces—the more I realized I didn’t know how to help them. I had no idea, no solution for unlocking their shackles and setting them free.

You must, one of them said, as if I’d voiced my thoughts aloud, and soon all of them were saying it—You must, you must—their voices growing louder and more insistent until it was a kind of song, a raspy chant from begging faces.

You must. Help us.

“But I can’t. I don’t know how …”

You must help us.

“I don’t know how!”

YOU MUST HELP US!

I woke with a start, my T-shirt damp with sweat. With trembling hands I tried to rub the sleep from my eyes … and the image from my mind.

“Same one?” Cat asked. He was hunkered in the shadows, his long knife scraping the edge of a cedar branch.

Every night it was the same: dreaming of those Less Thans shackled in the bunker beneath the tennis court. I couldn’t let it go. As bad as the memory was, my dreams only made it worse, distorting the boys’ bodies until they were more skeletons than living, breathing human beings.

It was why we had to get back to Camp Liberty. Why we had to free those Less Thans.

I lifted my head and looked around. Orange light from the campfire flickered across the faces of the others. With the exception of Cat and me, the others huddled around the fire and shared stories and laughter. Three squirrels roasted on spits; the grease sizzled in the flames. On the surface, at least, everything seemed fine.

Just one week earlier, twenty-six of us had crossed into the other territory—the Heartland. Eleven had stayed over there; fifteen had decided to return. Seven Less Thans, eight Sisters. For the past seven days we’d been gathering food, carving bows and arrows, setting up an archery range and firing till our fingers bled. Still, I wondered: Were we up for this? Could we really pull it off?

“Do you think it’s a mistake?” I pulled myself over to the log where Cat was sitting.

At first he didn’t respond. No surprise there—his least favorite thing was conversation. “Do I think what’s a mistake?” His knife dug into the wood. Cedar shavings whispered in the air.

“Going back?”

He thought a moment. His glinting blade stripped off a layer of bark as effortlessly as peeling a banana. “Nah, it’s definitely the right thing.” Then he added, “We don’t stand a snowball’s chance in hell, but it’s definitely the right thing.”

I couldn’t argue with him. Who were we to take on Brown Shirts and Crazies, Skull People and wolves? What made us think we could even make it back to Camp Liberty, let alone free the Less Thans there? What on earth were we thinking?

“If the odds are so bad, why’re you going back?” I asked.

Cat shrugged. “Like I said at the fence, it’ll be the adventure of a lifetime.”

I got the feeling there was more to it than that, but there was no point asking. Cat would tell me only when he was good and ready.

Laughter erupted from the far side of the campfire—Flush and Twitch bickering like an old married couple. Tweedledum and Tweedlesmart. The oddest set of friends I’d ever come across. Twitch was tall and supersmart. Flush was short and, well, not as smart as Twitch.

“How about the others?” I asked. “Think they’ll be in it for the long haul?”

“Most of ’em,” he said, his sandy hair catching a sliver of moonlight.

“Not all?”

“Most,” he repeated.

I wondered who wasn’t committed. Flush or Twitch? Red or Dozer? Or was he referring to the Sisters? For obvious reasons I didn’t count Four Fingers. Ever since his head injury back in the Brown Forest, he’d been wildly out of it. On most days he was lucky to remember his name.

As my eyes passed over the others, it struck me how much we’d changed. The sun had weathered our skin. The baby fat had burned away. And we moved and spoke with a kind of quiet confidence. All this despite the fact that our clothes were nothing more than rags, dotted and shredded with holes, singed from fire, bleached from sun. After the inferno in the Brown Forest, all we’d managed to salvage were the essentials: the clothes on our backs, some canteens, a few weapons. The good side of that was that nothing was weighing us down.

Well, not physically.

Argos lifted his head and gave a soft moan. He came padding to my side. I reached over and petted him, the ends of my fingers disappearing into his fur. I was careful to avoid the burns from the fire. The wound from the wolves. The gimpy leg. He was no longer the cute little puppy stuffed in a backpack. He’d been to hell and back like the rest of us.

Cat’s knife bit into the branch—and then stopped. He opened his mouth to speak, but just as he began to talk, Flush set himself down squarely between us.

“Would you please tell Twitch I wasn’t the only one who ate the maggots?” he said. “Red did, too.”

Everyone’s gaze was directed toward us, waiting for a response. It figured: one of the few times Cat was actually going to start a conversation, and we were interrupted. Whatever he was going to tell me would have to wait.

“As I remember,” I answered, loud enough for the others to hear, “Red had the good sense not to like it. You enjoyed your maggots.”

That brought on a roar of laughter. Even though Flush pretended to be irritated, I got the impression he enjoyed being the center of attention.

As I prepared for bed that night, constructing a mattress out of pine needles, my thoughts returned to where they always went: Hope. She was the very last of the Sisters to join us—only reluctantly crossing from the other side of the fence.

Things were different between us now. We’d kissed that day after surviving the fire, but ever since, we’d been so busy—just trying to survive—that it was like we didn’t know how to act around each other. What I wanted was to take her hand, to hold her, to go back to the way we were … but I never had the chance.

So I contented myself with fleeting looks. Stolen glances.

There was something else, too. Something I couldn’t figure out. Her expression. It had changed these past seven days—it was no longer just the haunted appearance she shared with all the Sisters. It was something more. A kind of grim determination I couldn’t quite decipher.

And I saw the way she looked at Cat, her enormous brown eyes lingering on him a moment longer than they needed to. I couldn’t help it. Maybe it was my imagination, but then again, maybe it wasn’t.

2.

IT’S JUST BEFORE SUNUP when Hope and Cat tiptoe back to camp.

The two of them waited till the others were asleep before sneaking off, the dull red glow of the fire’s embers their only illumination. It’s been the same each night since they crawled back from the fence. Seven nights, seven silent journeys. So far, with the exception of Argos, no one seems to notice.

The next morning the rains begin, and with the change of weather comes a change of mood. Despite the fact that it’s now the height of summer, the showers are icy cold and soak the fifteen travelers to the bone. They spend much of the day sloshing through mud.

For Hope, it’s impossible not to sense the resentment from some of the other Sisters. Although she was the last to cross back from the fence, she was the one who originally convinced them to join up with the Less Thans. She can only imagine the questions running through their minds. After all their hard work, after digging a tunnel under Camp Freedom itself, why are they throwing it all away to head back into the heart of the Western Federation Territory? For the sake of saving some Less Thans they’ve never met?

When they stop to make camp, Hope drifts off to look for firewood, happy for the chance to be alone. The rain has stopped. There is birdsong.

“You all right?” a voice asks. It’s Book.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Hope says.

“Don’t know. Just curious.” Then he says, “I woke up last night and didn’t see you.”

Hope feels a stab of panic. She wonders what Book knows, what he saw. Even as she picks up a large, unwieldy branch, she tries to make a joke of it. “You’re not stalking me, are you?”

“No, just happened to look over. Didn’t see you.”

“Right, well, answering a call of nature.”

“Seemed like you were gone a long time.”

“Now I know you’re stalking me.” She laughs and snaps the branch in two. “Plus I couldn’t sleep, so I just, you know, walked around.”

“In the dark?”

“I think better that way.”

“Right.”

“Can’t say no to thinking.”

“Nope.”

Hope can hear the pathetic nature of her lies. They’re so obvious, so blatant. So bad. She tries to change the subject.

“I hear there are Skull People between here and your camp,” she says.

“That’s what we’ve heard.”

“You never saw them?”

Book shakes his head. “Hunters. Brown Shirts. Wolves. Crazies. No Skull People.”

“Consider yourself lucky.”

Her father once pointed out a camp of Skull People to Hope and her sister, Faith. With their painted skin and helmets made of animal skulls, they were the most frightening sight Hope had ever seen in her life. They were terrifying.

“How do we avoid them?” Book asks.

“Any way we can.” She means it as a joke, but Book doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t even smile.

“What happens after?” Hope asks.

“After?”

“Once we free your friends?”

“Head back to the Heartland. Get everyone to safety.” He studies her expression. “Why, you have something different in mind?”

“No, just, you know … curious.”

“Oh.”

They continue to scrounge, their boots squishing in mud.

“Good luck sleeping,” Book finally says, and heads back to camp with an armful of branches. Hope’s face burns crimson.

He was right, of course. She does have something in mind—but she’s not ready to share it. Not with Book. Not with anyone.

As for what she and Cat do each night, well, she wants to break that to Book as well. She does. But there are some things she just doesn’t know how to say.

3.

I SLOGGED BACK TO camp and released the branches from my arms. They clattered on the pile with all the rest. If Hope wouldn’t tell me what was really going on with her, maybe her friends would.

Of the seven other Sisters, Hope was close to three. Diana was tall and willowy, terrific with a crossbow, and never afraid to speak her mind. Then there was Scylla, who had never uttered a single word in all the weeks I’d known her. I wondered if she was even capable of talking. She was short and compact and basically all muscle—not someone you wanted to meet in a dark alley late at night.

The third friend was Helen, who was frail and shy and seemed always on the verge of being blown away by a gust of wind. Small in stature with strawberry-blond hair, she looked at Hope with adoring eyes.

It was Helen I decided to approach.

She was sitting on a log, fletching arrows. Next to her was a pile of goose feathers.

“I can’t believe you’re able to attach those tiny feathers with just animal guts,” I said.

She smiled shyly. “Sinew. Once it dries, it’s there forever.” She expertly split a quill in half, then wrapped a short thread of dried animal gut around the base of the quill and the arrow’s shaft.

I sat on a nearby rock. “Helen, can I ask you something?” She flinched slightly but said nothing. “Are you okay with heading back into the territory?”

“If it’s the right thing to do, then we should do it.”

“And your friends? They feel the same?”

“I think so.”

Her voice had a sudden wariness to it. Like Argos detecting an unfamiliar scent. I realized I was in dangerous territory here.

“Everyone’s on board?” I asked. “Everything’s normal?”

“Yes …”

“And Hope? She’s fine with all this?”

Helen’s body shrank in on itself, and I suddenly realized I’d crossed the line. I was asking about the very people she was closest to. Helen nodded quickly, her fingers deftly wrapping the animal gut around the top of the fletching. She placed the finished arrow in a pile.

“You’re close to Hope, aren’t you?” I asked.

“She saved my life.”

“Then you and I have something in common.”

I pushed myself up and walked away. Although I needed to know what was going on with Hope, it felt somehow traitorous to ask about her behind her back.

But I was still convinced that she was up to something—I just didn’t know what.

4.

THE AIR IS MOIST and heavy, and Hope’s breath frosts with each exhalation.

Cat’s does too, as he walks beside her.

They glide through the damp, dark woods, easing around trees, stepping over stones, hurrying away from camp—the pale light of the moon their only illumination. Hope’s heart beats with a kind of feverish anticipation, and every so often Cat’s arm brushes against her own. A cadence of crickets accompanies their every step.

They’re not more than a mile from camp when they hear the creak of a branch. The sound is unmistakable, and they freeze. Something’s out there.

Someone is out there.

Cat doesn’t need to motion her to stay silent; she knows the drill. She was brought up in the woods. She and her dad and Faith were on the run for ten years. She knows what it is to go from hunter to prey.

As Cat reaches into his quiver and nocks an arrow, Hope readies the grip on her spear and finds the balance point. They stand there, poised to strike, their breathing shallow. There are footsteps now, scuffing through twigs and leaves. The snap of a stick.

“Don’t move!” Hope shouts.

The figure stops in place.

Hope and Cat approach from different sides, weapons poised, ready to cast their spear and arrow. The lone figure stands there, hands raised.

It’s Book.

“What the hell,” Hope says, and Cat rolls his eyes. They each release their grip on their weapons. “You coulda gotten yourself killed.”

“I didn’t know it was dangerous to follow your friends,” Book says.

“It is if it’s the middle of the night and your friends don’t know you’re following them.”

Book doesn’t respond, and Hope realizes he’s waiting for an explanation. She has no intention of giving one.

Cat’s gaze shifts uncomfortably between the two. He slips the arrow back into the quiver and lowers his bow.

“See you back at camp,” he mutters, disappearing into the woods, swallowed by the black. Hope turns to Book.

“So you are stalking me!” she says.

“Not stalking. Following.”

“Forgive me for not seeing the difference.”

“The difference is you lied to me. The difference is you said you went to the woods alone.”

“That was last night, and who says I wasn’t alone?”

“Were you?”

Hope averts her eyes. She wants to lie again … but she can’t. “No,” she says beneath her breath.

Book takes a step back as though he’s been punched. “That’s why I followed you—to see what you were up to.”

“And what’d you find out?”

“You tell me.”

Their eyes lock. Again, it seems that Book is expecting an explanation. Again, she doesn’t give one.

“Look,” he says, “you can do whatever you like with whoever you want—”

“We weren’t doing anything.”

“—but don’t tell me one thing and do something else. Don’t—”

He stops himself midsentence, but Hope knows exactly what he was going to say. Don’t kiss me one moment and then ignore me the next.

She wants to respond—wants to tell him everything—but she doesn’t know how, and before she knows it, the silence stretches to something long and awkward and painfully uncomfortable. When she does open her mouth to speak, she’s interrupted by a sound—something mechanical. A growling engine.

Hope and Book immediately slip into hunter mode. They crouch low to the forest floor and bend their ears to the sound, determining direction, speed, object. Hope takes off first, Book right on her heels—two runners skirting the darkened landscape like ghosts.

Alder thickets slow them to a crawl, the thick brush tugging at their clothes. The sound grows louder, and suddenly it’s doubled. Not just one engine, but two.

They reach the edge of the thicket and stop. A pair of headlights carves tiny holes in the dark, snaking around a bend. And from the other direction: another set of headlights. The vehicles are headed right for each other on the same small road. Even in the black night, it’s possible to see the plumes of gravel that follow.

Hope realizes she hasn’t seen actual cars outside camp since the day she and Faith were captured.

Faith. Which makes her think of Dad. And Mom.

She shakes her head and grips the spear. Her fingers shine white.

The two vehicles slow, then come to a grinding stop. Book and Hope share a grim look.

The headlights of each illuminate the other vehicle, and Hope sees they’re both Humvees. Pure military. Car doors open and slam, the hollow sound echoing toward them.

Feet crunch on gravel, and for the first time Hope can make out two figures walking toward each other. When they step forward and headlights wreathe their silhouettes, Hope gives an audible gasp. She recognizes those silhouettes—she’d know them anywhere. The woman with the ankle-length coat draped around her shoulders; the obese man waddling forward.

Chancellor Maddox and Dr. Gallingham.

They meet between their vehicles, too far away for Hope and Book to hear the conversation. Dr. Gallingham deposits a gleaming steel box on the ground. It’s cubical in shape, and the metal glimmers in the light. He undoes a series of clasps, reaches into the bowels of the box, and removes … something. His body blocks Hope’s view and she can’t see. Whatever the object is, it makes an impression on Chancellor Maddox. Her beauty-queen smile flashes white, cutting through the dark like a sharp knife.

What could it possibly be? Hope wonders, darkness clouding her thoughts.

Whatever the answer, Gallingham returns it to the bottom of the box, fastens and reattaches all the clasps, and presents the steel box itself to the chancellor like a Wise Man presenting frankincense or myrrh.

Chancellor Maddox takes it, walks back to her vehicle, and climbs inside. Both Humvees return in the direction from which they came, the sound of gravel crunching beneath the tires growing more and more faint until, at last, the night returns to silence.

5.

WE MADE OUR WAY back without speaking. Although a part of me wanted to know where we stood … another part absolutely didn’t. The woods slipped by without a word between us.

When we stepped into camp, we woke the others. Everyone moaned as they rubbed the sleep from their eyes, but once we told them what we’d seen, they woke up in a hurry. The Less Thans had had little contact with Chancellor Maddox, but we’d heard about her—our friend Frank in the mountains had told us she was a beauty queen turned congresswoman turned leader of the Western Federation. According to him, it was her idea to scrap the Constitution. Her idea to label us Less Thans.

As for Dr. Gallingham, once Hope mentioned his name, I swear I could see the blood draining from the Sisters’ faces.

“What was it, Book?” Twitch asked. “What’d he give the chancellor?”

“We couldn’t see. But you could tell from the way they handled it that it was valuable.”

People threw out guesses, but Hope and I just shrugged. We could only speculate like the rest.

“What do we do now?” Flush asked.

I could feel the others’ stares directed toward me. After all, it had been my bright idea to cross back from the other side of the fence. If it hadn’t been for me, we’d all be safe and sound in the Heartland. It was my job to get this group to Camp Liberty and back.

“We need to leave. Tonight.” A few people grumbled, but I kept going. “It’s not safe being this close to a road. We’ve got enough food and weapons for a while, right?”

I gave a glance to those who’d been carving arrows and drying jerky, and they returned my look with unenthusiastic nods.

“All right,” I said. “Let’s pack up and get out of here.”

People were just beginning to step away when four shadows drifted in my direction. Dozer, Red, and two of the Sisters: Angela and Lacey.

“What makes you think we can t-t-take on the Brown Shirts?” Red asked, with his tendency to stutter. “They’ve got g-g-guns.”

The question startled me in its bluntness. We’d been here a whole week and there’d been no discussion like this at all. I got the feeling these four had been talking.

“Red’s right,” Dozer said, and it was obvious he was the instigator. Dozer lived to stir up trouble. “And not just the Brown Shirts. How can we hope to fend off the Hunters with these?” He gestured to the primitive slingshots, the clumsy crossbows, the recently whittled arrows.

I understood his point. It took little effort to remember the armor plating on the Hunters’ souped-up ATVs, the Kevlar vests, the M4s.

We had long ago made the decision to stick with what we knew: crossbows, spears, slingshots, bows and arrows. Not only were we proficient with those weapons, but they were quiet and light and allowed us a stealth that heavier automatic rifles wouldn’t. Also, we could make our own ammunition for slingshots and bows and arrows. Not so with M4s.

“We don’t need their weapons,” I said. “We didn’t in the Brown Forest, and we don’t now.”

Dozer took a bullying step toward me.

“Okay, then what I want to know is how’re we gonna release those Less Thans. Even if we do make it to Liberty—which is doubtful—how’re we gonna spring ’em?”

Everyone was quiet now. Even the crickets and frogs. I longed for Cat to back me up, but his eyes were fixed on the ground. I had no idea what was running through his mind.

“I don’t have a strategy just yet,” I said.

Dozer’s eyes widened in surprise. “No strategy at all? Great plan, Book Worm,” he scoffed. “That explains a lot.”

He looked around at the others. A couple of them obliged with laughter. I felt my face burning red.

“You agreed to go back to Liberty,” I said. “You didn’t have to.”

“That’s when I thought you had a plan. Now I know otherwise.”

“All I know is we have to do this.” Despite my efforts, I could feel my chest tightening.

“Oh we do, do we? And why is that?”

“Because it’s the right thing.”

Dozer laughed. A loud, mocking laugh. “And killing us in the process? Is that the ‘right thing’?”

My fists clenched, and Dozer leaned forward until our noses were actually touching.

“Well?” he asked. I nearly gagged from his sour breath.

I turned to move away, but his meaty hand grabbed my shoulder and whipped me back around. “Well?” he asked again.

Although I wanted nothing more than to take a swipe at him, I knew I wouldn’t stand a chance. Dozer was a big, barrel-chested guy with a thick neck, and even though one of his arms was slightly withered from radiation, he more than compensated with his other. If I attacked him, it’d only prove his point that I was reckless and not a real leader.

So I did nothing, said nothing, just turned and walked away. Behind me, I heard Dozer making clucking sounds.

There wasn’t anything I could do about Dozer. I’d just have to live with the situation—and him.

We marched through the night and into the morning, as the sun chased away the stars and made invisible the moon. There was little conversation, and Hope and I kept more distance between us than ever. She didn’t want to talk to me, and I had no desire to talk to her.

But it hurt to lose her. Cat, too. Ever since I’d snuck up on them, he’d avoided looking at me. I felt betrayed, as though someone had taken a shot to my gut and I hadn’t seen it coming.

I tried to focus on other things. Like what on earth had we witnessed between Dr. Gallingham and Chancellor Maddox? What was so precious that it had to be exchanged in a secret meeting in the middle of the night? We were utterly exhausted by the time we set up camp the next evening, but I was craving conversation. No, not just conversation: companionship. I needed a friend.

I found Twitch sitting cross-legged on the ground, his tall, gangly form folded in on itself. If there was ever a person who reminded me of a stork, it was Twitch.

He didn’t seem to notice when I sat down next to him. His fingers gripped a stick as though it was a pencil, sketching a series of loops and lines and mathematical equations in the dirt.

“Oh, hey,” he said, when he finally saw me, his cheek rising and falling in a facial tic. Even though Omega happened a good four years before we were born, the radiation from the bombs had done a number on his central nervous system. Of course, at this point, his twitches were just a part of him. Like my limp. Or Four Fingers’s missing finger.

“What do you think about our decision to return?” I asked. After last night’s confrontation with Dozer, I couldn’t help but feel that it was me versus everyone else. All the excitement we’d first experienced after crossing back from the fence seemed a thing of some distant past.

Twitch took a bite of squirrel jerky and chewed a moment. He was the kind of guy who liked to consider an issue fully before voicing an opinion—unlike his counterpart, Flush, who blurted out whatever popped into his head at any given moment.

“On the one hand, Dozer’s right,” he said. “It’s the most foolish decision we’ve made.” His facial features jerked as he chewed.

“But?” I prompted.

He finished chewing and swallowed. “We need to rescue those Less Thans. And that trumps logic.”

Without meaning to, I sighed in relief. All day, I’d had the feeling I was waging an uphill battle against the others.

“Not that that means we’ll succeed,” he added, and my happiness evaporated.

“You don’t think we’ll make it?”

“Are you kidding? We don’t stand a chance.”

I looked at him in disbelief. “But you’re willing to go along anyway?”

He shrugged. “No one else is going to rescue those Less Thans—might as well be us. And who wants to miss out on that?”

I loved Twitch for that—that he knew the odds were stacked against us but was willing to go along anyway.

I pointed to the drawings in the dirt. “What’s all this?”

His eyes lit up. “Ever heard of a zip line?” When I gave my head a shake, he used the stick to walk me through the drawings, telling me how—in pre-Omega days—people used to stretch out long wires and ride them down mountains. For fun.

“Where’d you hear this?”

“Read about it in some old science magazines.”

Figured. “So what’re you saying?” I asked.

“The enemy’s always coming at us from the ground, right? So I say we build our own zip line and attack them from the air.”

The point of his stick landed on a series of lines and semicircles, and he told me all about inertia and acceleration and other things I only partly understood. As he spoke, his facial tics decreased. It was as though the more passionate he became, the less his face twitched.

It seemed impossible, of course, finding the materials to build such a line, but I loved his enthusiasm. He would do his best to make this work, even though we had “no chance” of succeeding.

Now if I could only convince the rest of them.

6.

THEY SHIVER THEIR WAY westward, sloshing through ankle-deep mud under leaden skies.

Hope’s mind is a million places at once, darting back and forth between Book and Cat and what they witnessed on the darkened road … and her own past.

Just seeing Dr. Gallingham brought it all back, and it’s as if the injections are happening all over again. Her body goes clammy, perspiration dots her forehead.

I’m not sick, she has to tell herself. I am not sick.

It feels like just yesterday that she and Faith were submerged in vats of ice, their body temperatures lowered some twenty degrees. It was a long forever before Hope recovered. Faith never did. Hope can still see her face, blue and lifeless, her unseeing eyes cutting into Hope’s soul.

The tears press against her eyes, but she’s damned if she’s going to give in to them. Live today, tears tomorrow, her father always said.

Her father.

Dr. Gallingham claimed they’d worked together, that her father had somehow been involved in those experiments. Known as the Butcher of the West. Ludicrous to even think about.

And yet the notion lingers. Something Hope needs to find out for herself. It’s one of the reasons she crawled under the fence and joined the others. A search for truth.

She is woken from her reverie when a herd of deer goes bounding past. Everyone looks up and watches them go, their white tails raised as they gallop away. It’s a beautiful sight.

Then a flock of birds flies past, the flap of their wings making ripples in the air. Hope begins to wonder. When a dozen chattering squirrels leap through the trees above, the wonder turns to alarm.

“Cool,” Flush says, admiring the nature parade.

But Hope knows animals don’t just run in herds—at full speed, in the same direction—for the fun of it. Something’s going on.

An instant later they hear a booming crash that shakes the ground beneath their feet. They stand there listening, afraid to speak. There’s another crash. The earth trembles.

“What is it?” Flush asks. His voice is barely a whisper.

“Whatever it is,” Twitch answers, “it’s coming from over there.” He points to the north.

The noises come regularly now: thunderous, splintering booms that rattle the ground. Hope clutches her spear and races forward, the others right behind her. They dart through the woods, ducking beneath branches, skipping over a carpet of dead leaves.

They come to a sudden stop when they spy the crown of a tree swaying forward and backward as though pushed by a violent wind. And then it comes crashing to the earth. Whoompf! They feel the vibration from where they stand. The throaty rumble radiates up their feet.

A moment later, another tree does the same, wobbling in one direction, then the other, before arcing through the air and slamming to the ground. Thwump!

What’s going on? Hope wonders, her body rigid with fear. How can a forest be collapsing on itself? What could be ripping trees from the earth?

All at once, they hear another sound: engines. But different than the Humvees from the other night: louder, gravelly, hulking. And now the biting smell of diesel.

Cat motions them forward, and at the top of a ridge they look down and see a sight they can’t quite believe: enormous bulldozers knocking down trees, clearing out a swath of forest, creating an ugly, barren scar in the middle of the wilderness.

On the sides of the vehicles is a symbol they know too well: three inverted triangles. The insignia of the Republic of the True America. And the drivers of the bulldozers are none other than Brown Shirts, clad in their customary black jackboots, dark pants, and brown shirts.

The Sisters and Less Thans watch, mesmerized. A building project—in the middle of nowhere! It makes no sense. As trees tumble to the ground and great shovelfuls of dirt are ripped from the earth, the Less Thans and Sisters can’t begin to understand it.

What are they building? And why here?

When they finally tear themselves away, Hope feels her heart hammering against her chest. She knew they’d run into soldiers—she just didn’t think it would be so soon. But it’s more than that. It’s the mystery of not knowing what they’re up to that disturbs her most.

“Come on,” Cat says. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They march the rest of that afternoon and evening, sleep little, and march all the next day, trying to put as much distance as possible between them and the Brown Shirts. When they stop the following night, the few words they speak are colored by exhaustion and anxiety.

“Are we safe here?” Helen asks.

“Should be,” Hope answers. “That wasn’t a search party. It was a construction project.”

“For what?”

She shrugs.

“Whatever it is,” Twitch says, “they want it hidden.”

“Great job leading us to safety,” Dozer says to Book, magnifying an eye roll. A few others laugh in support.

They drift away and prepare for sleep, and Hope and Cat exchange a glance. Not tonight, her expression says.

As Hope lies down on a bed of weeds and pine needles, she remembers her conversation with Book—about what they intend to do after freeing the Less Thans. What she didn’t tell him was that, yes, she does have something in mind. In fact, it’s the other reason she didn’t stay in the Heartland. She has unfinished business—that she knows for certain.

Colonel Thorason. Chancellor Maddox. Dr. Gallingham.

The camp overseer. The ruler of the territory. The sadistic doctor.

She doesn’t care what order; she doesn’t care how it happens. But she will see to it that they pay for what they did to her sister.

7.

THE NIGHTMARE WAS THE same: the hollow, vacant stares of Less Thans imprisoned in the bunker. They gazed at me with oozing sores and pleading eyes and begged me to do something. To free them. To get them out of there.

They reached for me with their bony fingers and I jerked awake. But it wasn’t the dream that woke me, it was sound. I’d heard something.

I lifted my head and looked around. Everyone was fast asleep … except a lone figure tiptoeing through the woods. I couldn’t tell who it was—just a fuzzy silhouette in passing moonlight—but I figured it was probably someone going off to take a leak. Guys did it all the time in the middle of the night, and now that there were Sisters with us, we had to travel a little farther to find some privacy.

I lowered my head and had nearly dozed off again when it suddenly occurred to me: who would be tiptoeing? Who was that considerate? Normally, when guys had to whiz, they just tromped off into the woods, did their business, and tromped back. No one tiptoed.

I sat back up. Argos was awake, a low growl rumbling in the back of his throat. The two of us peered into the dark.

A moment later I saw fireflies, tiny white dots etching circles in the black. They hovered and swooped and I was mesmerized by their movements.

But as they grew closer I realized they weren’t fireflies at all—and my heart nearly exploded from my chest. At the very top of my lungs I yelled the first and only word that came to mind.

“Ambush!”

We scrambled to our feet, simultaneously grabbing weapons and shouting questions.

“What’s going on?”

“What do you see?”

“Who is it?”

It was like we’d never been in a battle before. Cat was the smoothest of all, of course, nocking an arrow before the rest of us were even standing.

In no time, bullets were whistling past our ears, the headlamps poking through the woods. Headed straight in our direction.

A flare rocketed skyward, bathing the night in eerie luminescence, and I got my first glimpse of the attackers. There had to have been at least fifty of them. Two bullets bit the earth at my feet. I did a little dance and stumbled to the ground.

I was just pulling myself up when I heard a sharp whistling sound, growing steadily louder. A moment later there was a huge explosion. Dirt and rocks and shrapnel sailed through air, throwing everyone off their feet. Whoever was standing next to me went flying, as if some giant hand had swatted him aside.

More mortars followed, but even scarier than that was the sight of Brown Shirts, surging toward us like a tidal wave. The flare’s green light made their silhouettes flicker like monsters’.

“Douse the fire!” I yelled. As long as there were even smoldering coals, the soldiers would have no trouble picking us off. Someone threw the contents of their canteen on the embers, and white smoke billowed up.

I scrambled to find the person who’d been hit. His moans led me to him, and even by weak moonlight it was clear who I was looking at.

Cat.

His left arm was like spaghetti, an explosion of red sinews and dangling muscles. He’d already lost a ton of blood and was barely conscious. At the sight of it—his limp arm and ashen face—I grew suddenly clammy. The horizon tilted. It was all I could do to keep from passing out.

I felt a pull and realized Flush was tugging at my shirt. “What do we do?!” he shouted.

I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to calm myself. Steady breaths. Steady. And suddenly it wasn’t Cat I saw, but the woman from my dreams—the one with the long black hair. She was kneeling on prairie grass, hands atop my shoulders, her eyes locked with mine.

“Book!” Flush screamed, and my eyes popped open. “What do we do?”

Flares exploded in the sky and mortars exploded on the ground. These Brown Shirts meant to kill us then and there.

Meanwhile, the Less Thans stood in a half circle staring down at Cat, their expressions vacant and disbelieving. The sight of him gasping for breath stopped us in our tracks. It was as if we’d lost the power to act. Lost even the ability to think straight.

Without knowing what I was saying or why I was saying it, I began barking out commands. “Twitch and Dozer, lay cover with your arrows. Hope, spread out your best shooters and hammer the Brown Shirts from the sides. Red and Flush, pound them with rocks. The rest of you, get back up that ridge ASAP.”

Everyone went into motion.

“Who’s got Cat?” Twitch asked, nocking his first arrow.

“Me,” I said, and before anyone could object, I grabbed Cat’s good arm, hoisted him over my shoulder, and began carrying him up the hill.

It made no sense, of course. I was the weakest of the bunch with a permanent limp, but at that particular moment I could’ve lifted all the LTs. After all, it was Cat—my friend Cat. Sure, I didn’t know what he was doing with Hope behind my back, but I knew it was up to me to save his life.

It was a mad scramble up the steep slope, everyone making for the woods at the crest. Bullets zinged around us, digging up the earth and embedding themselves into trees. Adding to the chaos were the flares washing the night in shades of eerie green, turning the world into a lurid nightmare—as vivid and terrifying as hell itself.

“Twitch, get out of there!” I yelled.

He nodded but didn’t stop firing, pulling one arrow from his quiver after another. It was like he was a man possessed, and I saw at least three Brown Shirts lying on the ground, arrows protruding from their bellies like flags. Twitch had done his job, and then some. Frank would’ve been proud.

“Twitch!” I yelled again.

But too late. A mortar screamed from the heavens, landing not far from where he knelt. The explosion catapulted him into the air. Red and Flush raced to his side and grabbed ahold of his hands. They began dragging him up the hill.

The only thing that saved us was the dark. Each time the flares faded, the soldiers were shooting at shadows.

“Drop me,” Cat moaned.

“Like hell,” I said.

By the time we made it into the trees, I was breathing so hard I thought my lungs might explode. I lowered Cat to the ground and examined his wound. It was bad. His left forearm was a shredded mess of tissue and muscle, skin hanging like a loose flap. I ripped off my belt and tied a tourniquet above his elbow. Then I tore off his shirt and pressed it on the wound, trying to stanch the flow of blood. I hated that I was getting good at this.

I noticed everyone had made it to the trees, including the two guys with Twitch. They hovered over him frantically.

“They’re a hundred yards away!” Dozer cried.

A flare hissed and sizzled, illuminating Brown Shirts tromping on our campsite.

I looked down at Cat’s face; it was growing paler by the minute. He was mumbling incoherently.

Red appeared by my side. “T-T-Twitch can’t see,” he said.

I looked over and saw Flush crouched by Twitch’s side. He was wrapping a strip of fabric around his good friend’s face. Four Fingers hugged himself and rocked back and forth, keening wildly, a string of drool rubber-banding from his mouth.

“Twitch!” he cried to the stars. “Twiiiiiiiitch!”

Everything was happening too fast—it was all out of control. Bullets whistling, mortars screaming, flares hissing. And now the Brown Shirts were making their way up the hill, their shadows dancing like ghosts in the green light of the flares.

“Spread out!” I yelled, but even as I said it, I knew it was useless. Though the Sisters were bringing down their share of Brown Shirts with crossbows, we didn’t stand a chance. Not with so few of us. Not without Cat. Not against fifty.

My hands were a sticky mess. The balled-up shirt was a sopping, bloody sponge. Cat’s face was ashen.

“Come on,” I begged him. “Stay with me!” Both a prayer and a command.

I jammed the soggy shirt into the wound. But even if I managed to stop the flow, what then? Without any medical supplies, the situation was hopeless.

I cursed the woman with the long black hair. She’d led us here. If I hadn’t listened to those damn dreams, we’d all be safe and sound in the other territory. But it was too late. We were about to be captured … or shot dead on the spot.

“They’re getting closer!” Dozer shouted.

The soldiers kept advancing. There was nothing stopping them. A hail of bullets snapped small saplings in two.

Hope whistled sharply and the Sisters regrouped, dropping to one knee. With an icy calmness, they readied their crossbows and released their bolts. A half dozen Brown Shirts crumpled to the ground.

But still the soldiers came, marching up the hill, now joined by other soldiers who’d been trailing them all along. It was no longer fifty Brown Shirts, more like a hundred. Maybe more.

I looked down at Cat. His chest was unnaturally still, his face clammy.

“What do we do?” Flush cried out in a panic. Even the Sisters, so calm at first, showed signs of alarm. Their eyes were wide with terror as they reloaded their crossbows.

The Brown Shirts strode effortlessly up the hill, their M16s strobing the black, peppering tree trunks until it rained pine bark. The smell of gunpowder mixed with vanilla pine—a bittersweet concoction.

“Well?” Dozer asked. He nocked an arrow and sent it squirting into the black. “Any bright ideas, genius?”

For the longest time, I didn’t answer. When I did, it was almost as if I couldn’t believe what I was telling them.

“Retreat,” I said, my voice barely audible.

“Who’s gonna get Cat?”

“No one. We’re gonna leave him behind.”

Cat.

The sandy-haired boy we’d rescued one day at the edge of the No Water. The one who showed us the Hunters and told us what LT really stood for: Less Than. From the moment we found him, our destiny was changed. On more than one occasion he had saved our lives.

And now here he was, pale and delirious, blood seeping from his arm.

“What’re you talking about?” Flush yelled, near tears. “We can’t leave him.”

I understood his desperation. This was Cat. The thought of losing him was beyond comprehension. Still, if we stayed, we’d all be killed. And if we tried to take him with us, he’d die for sure. This was the only choice.

“Go!” I yelled.

Most of the Sisters obeyed immediately. They fired their crossbows even as they took giant strides backward. The Less Thans weren’t as easily convinced.

“It ain’t right,” Dozer said. He sent an arrow into the black, then turned and ran.

Hope was the last of the girls to leave. I saw her stare at Cat for what seemed like forever. What was in that look I couldn’t tell. Then she gave me a glance, as if questioning my decision.

“I’ll catch up,” I said.

Her enormous brown eyes danced back and forth between Cat and me … and then she went.

Flush and Red just stood there, not moving. Unable to move.

“What’re you waiting for?” I screamed at them. “You’ll die if you stay here.”

“We can’t leave Cat,” Flush said. His eyes were red.

“I don’t want to either, but we don’t have a choice. Now get out of here!”

Reluctantly, they grabbed hold of Twitch and ran, guiding him through the woods.

I reached down and squeezed Cat’s hand. Was it my imagination or was he trying to squeeze back? His eyes were closed, his face an unnatural shade of gray. It seemed not even remotely possible to see him this way. This was Cat—who survived a walk through the No Water, the most barren, inhospitable landscape imaginable, and lived to talk about it. Who led us up Skeleton Ridge and across the Flats and through the Brown Forest and took out the propane tank with a single bullet.

“This is just for now,” I said, choking back tears. “You haven’t seen the last of us.”

I waited as long as I dared, hoping—praying—he might respond. He didn’t.

I gave his hand a final squeeze, jumped to my feet, and dashed off into the woods, bullets chasing me like angry hornets. As I ran, tears spewed from my eyes and raced down my cheeks.

What have I done? I asked myself. What on earth have I done?

8.

HOPE LEADS THE WAY, cutting through the deepest part of the forest. Far behind her she can see the soldiers’ headlamps bouncing through the woods, splashing tree trunks with miniature white spotlights.

They run through the night. As the sky brightens from black to gray, Hope thinks of Book, trying to reconcile these very different pictures she has of him. The one who kissed her so passionately. The one who stalks her at night. The one who’s leaving Cat behind. They’re like pieces of a puzzle that don’t quite fit.

And what’s the real reason he abandoned his friend? Could it have anything to do with jealousy?

They speed down a hill and come to a skidding stop. Below them is a raging river—all these days of rain have swollen it past its banks. Dead trees are swept downstream in a muddy froth of spewing rapids. There is no way to get across.

At that same moment, the soldiers crest the hill behind them, half a mile back. They kneel and fire. Bullets whisper overhead. Some pockmark the earth like hailstones. The Sisters and Less Thans crouch on the riverbank.

“Well?” Dozer demands. “What now?”

Hope looks into the river. It’s pure white water, pounding the rocks and cutting away at the banks. She pities anyone who falls into it.

As they’re about to do.

“As soon as you hit the water, pull your knees up to your chin,” she instructs. “Don’t try to swim—just float. Face forward and use your feet as springs.”

Eyebrows arch in surprise.

“Wait a minute,” Flush says. “We’re not going to jump in there, are we?”

She doesn’t bother to reply. Sometimes it’s better just to demonstrate a thing than explain it.

She leaps to the very middle of the stream and the current sucks her under, tumbling her head over heels until she is completely upside down, disoriented. Her arms take her to the bottom of the river, where her fingers scrape a thick layer of silt and mud. The murky current throws her against a boulder, and what little air she has in her lungs is pushed out. Stars blink.

It’s the flooded tunnel all over again.

Sunlight sparkles on the water and Hope reaches for it, following a trail of silver bubbles and straining for the sky itself. She breaks the surface and gasps for air. She’s gotten only a small breath before the river pulls her back under, dumping huge mouthfuls of water down her throat. She rises back up, hacking and sputtering and retching until her lungs are on fire.

But she’s on the surface.

She brings her knees to her chest, and her feet bounce off one boulder after another like a marble in a maze. The Sisters and Less Thans are still on the riverbank, paralyzed with fear. A bullet catches a Sister in the back, and she crumples to the earth.

Book and Argos jump into the raging river, then all the others. In no time, thirteen bobbing heads poke above the surface.

The water is icy cold, and Hope’s feet and fingers grow numb. She flails her arms to get some circulation going. When the river widens and slows, she paddles, both to warm herself and to put even more distance between her and the Brown Shirts. Then the river narrows, sluicing through tight gorges in a rush of whitewater. It’s just Hope and the water and the towering canyons.

She bobs along like a cork for hours, the river taking her farther and farther south. Finally, it widens for good. Green grasslands lie on either side, and a sandbar juts in front of her. Her feet find the pebbly riverbed and she stands up. Her legs are stiff from cold, and it’s all she can do to lurch toward shore.

The first to join her is Book. They barely look each other in the eye.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

She nods. “Just cold. You?”

“Same.”

An awkward silence follows. “Look, about what happened,” he starts to say, but soon the others appear.

They drag themselves out of the river on frozen limbs, trembling from cold, their lips icy blue. Argos gives his fur a shake. The Sisters’ dresses cling to their bodies like a second layer of skin.

“Why’d you do it?” Dozer demands, emerging from the water like some Creature from the Black Lagoon. “Why’d you kill our friend?”

“He was my friend, too,” Book replies.

“So why’d you kill him?”

“I was trying to save him. He would’ve died otherwise.”

Dozer weighs a good fifty pounds more than Book, and when he grabs Book’s shirt with his two meaty fists, there’s no way Book can squirm free. “Cat could’ve lived. All we had to do was bring him with us.”

“I’m telling you, he wouldn’t’ve made it if we’d carried him.”

“And I’m telling you, you don’t know what you’re talking about. Now he’s gonna die for sure.”

Book opens his mouth to speak, then thinks better of it.

“So now what, Limp?”

“Same as before,” Book says. “Return to Camp Liberty and free those Less Thans.”

“You really think we can get past Hunters and Brown Shirts with slingshots and arrows? After what just happened?”

“We don’t have a choice.”

Dozer spits and shakes his head from side to side.

It occurs to Hope they should be relieved. They survived an ambush from the Brown Shirts. But a single glance makes it clear they’re stuck in the middle of a barren wilderness—far to the south from where they want to be. And they don’t have Cat.

“Let’s get a fire going and dry off,” Hope says. “We can talk about this later.”

Dozer’s gaze flicks between Hope and Book, as though he can’t decide if they’re crazy or just plain idiots. Then he turns and calls out to the others, “Let’s get a fire going and dry off!” Like it was his idea all along. He begins digging a pit in the sand.

“Not on shore,” Hope points out. “Somewhere hidden behind a hill, so the Brown Shirts can’t spot us.”

Dozer stares her up and down. “Whatever you say, Last Hope.”

As he walks away, he mutters to Red, “First this crazy Camp Liberty plan, then abandoning Cat, then jumpin’ in that river. I’m tellin’ ya, these two are dangerous.”

The more Hope surveys her surroundings, the more she realizes how dire their situation is. There’s not a single tree in sight. It’s bald savannah for as far as they can see. Thin grass bending under a blazing sun. No trees. No shade. Just undulating grasslands beneath sky, sky, and more sky.

As Flush puts it, “This place is as bare as my butt.”

Because of the endless acres of dry grass, tinder is no problem, and they’re able to get a flame going fairly easily, propped up with driftwood. Hope is surprised to see a separate fire fifty yards away: Dozer and three others. Perhaps it makes sense. Twelve is too many to crowd around a single flame.

That’s their new number now: twelve. In addition to losing Cat, two Sisters died as well. Rosa was shot down by Brown Shirts, and Taran drowned. So even though six Less Thans and six Sisters have made it, there is a somber atmosphere throughout camp. Survivor’s guilt. Hope knows it well.

They huddle around the meager fire, drying out wet and ragged clothes. No one speaks, their eyes lost in the waving flames. Hope feels responsible for the two Sisters’ deaths. She didn’t protect them.

It’s not the first time she’s felt this way.

She moves away from the fire, offering as an excuse that she’s going to find more wood. The river beckons her, and she walks its barren shore deep in thought. It bends and winds like a slithering snake, sand squishing between her toes.

She is grateful for the solitude, and surprised when she spies someone else looking for wood.

Book.

At first they work in silence. Just the river lapping against the bank, the breeze tugging at Hope’s hair. She tucks what little there is behind an ear. When she looks up, Book is studying her.

“What?” she asks.

“Sorry about your friends,” he says. “I know you lost two back there and—”

“I’m fine.” Hope regrets that her tone is so brusque, but she can’t help herself. The fact is: she isn’t fine—not by a long shot. She misses Faith. And her dad. And mom. And now Book abandoned Cat and she’s leading her Sisters to some camp way on the other side of the Western Federation Territory. No, she’s not remotely fine.

If he’s offended, he doesn’t show it. “That was a good call,” he says, “jumping in the river.”

“You think so? We lost two girls back there.”

“We would’ve all been lost if we hadn’t done it. If you hadn’t jumped in first.”

Something softens her. Maybe it’s his kindness. Maybe it’s the quiet of the dusk. The river gurgles and coos, and a fish breaks the surface and plops back down into the murky depths. An indigo haze settles on the riverbanks. The sense of peace is like an actual warmth spreading through her chest.

She sits back on her haunches and for a brief instant, their eyes catch … and then they return to scrounging for wood. Their palms and knees are damp from sand.

“Can I ask you something?” she says.

“Sure.”

“Why’d you do it?”

“What?”

“Leave Cat behind.” It’s something she can’t stop thinking about.

Book looks up. The expression on his face is stiff, and his jaw has tightened.

“Because it was the only thing to do,” he says.

Hope hears the tension in his voice, but she can’t help asking more. “What makes you think they won’t kill him? Or let him die?”

“The Brown Shirts won’t let that happen.”

“Why not? You really think they’re gonna stop everything and take care of a wounded Less Than?” She doesn’t mean it to come out as sarcastic as it does.

“Yes, that’s exactly what they’re going to do,” Book says through gritted teeth. “Before Cat was a Less Than, he was a Young Officer. He was in training to be one of the Republic’s leaders. He knows things. He knows things about us. He’s more valuable to them alive than dead. So yes, the Brown Shirts’ll do their best to revive him. I don’t doubt that for a second.”

It does make a certain kind of sense, but Hope’s not sure if she agrees. Before she can even respond, Book grabs an armful of wood and marches off. Hope watches him go, cursing herself for pushing him away.

Why did I have to do that? Why didn’t I just keep my big mouth shut?

She leans forward and buries her face in her hands.

9.

I HAD NO APPETITE. Even though the Sisters carved lances from driftwood and caught a dozen brown trout feeding in the shallows, I couldn’t eat. How could I put food in my stomach as long as Cat was gone? And just when I thought I was okay with my decision to leave him behind, Hope had to bring it back up.

Thanks a lot.

I sat by the fire’s edge, my eyes trained on the swirling smoke. Maybe it was silly of me to be so paranoid, but I couldn’t help it. It was impossible not to notice how the others regarded me. My decision to “abandon” Cat brought scorn from my fellow Less Thans, raised eyebrows from the Sisters, suspicion from everyone. I could just imagine what they were thinking: Book was jealous of Cat, so he decided to leave him behind.

And it was true: I was jealous of Cat. I saw how he and Hope looked at each other. I’d even caught them red-handed, sneaking off in the woods together.

Which hurt even more because Cat was my friend. We’d confided in each other. Told each other things we hadn’t shared with anyone. My suicide attempt. The fact that Major Karsten—the most ruthless officer at Camp Liberty—was his dad. Secrets.

There was no way I’d leave him back there out of jealousy.

Was there?

Whatever my reasoning, the stark reality was that things would never be the same. We could maybe return to Camp Liberty and free those Less Thans—maybe—but we’d miss Cat’s skills, his insights, his smarts. Him.

I remembered what he’d been telling me at the campfire that night, that not everyone was committed. What more was he trying to let me know?

I’d seen someone tiptoeing away from camp the night of the ambush. Was that same someone secretly helping out the Brown Shirts?

A million stars exploded in the sky as I marched to the other campfire, the one surrounded by Dozer, Red, Angela, and Lacey. Once the four of them caught sight of me, they cut off their conversation and eyed me in silence.

I held out some leftover trout to them.

“We don’t need your pity,” Dozer said, turning his back to me.

“I’m just offering some food, that’s all.”

“Yeah, well, we don’t need it.”

He threw a log into the fire. A flurry of embers exploded into the black.

I looked at the other three. One by one they met my gaze … and then found reasons to look away. Lacey studied her feet. Angela ran her fingers through her stringy blond hair. Red picked at the dirt beneath his fingernails with the tip of his knife.

This was going to be more difficult than I’d imagined.

Dozer’s head swiveled back around. “You still here?” he asked.

“I just thought maybe we should talk.”

“Now? After you made the decision to leave Cat back there, now you wanna talk?”

“About those Brown Shirts,” I said. “How do you think they were able to ambush us?”

That got everyone’s attention.

“How should I know, Limp?” Dozer said, and even in the dark I could see his eyes were blazing. “They found us and opened fire. End of story.”

“But how’d they find us?”

“What do you mean how? We saw them earlier, we saw their bulldozers. They probably just followed us.”

“Those were construction workers. It was soldiers who ambushed us.”

Dozer’s hand fell to his knife, and I could see the white of his knuckles as he squeezed the handle. “What’re you saying, Limp? That one of us squealed?”

I took a deep breath; I didn’t want to make a bad situation worse. “I’m saying it seems awfully coincidental they just happened to show up when they did. Like maybe they got help or something.”

Dozer hauled himself to his feet and took a step forward. Angela and Lacey also rose, bookending him on either side.

“If you’re accusing someone of something, why don’t you just come out and say it instead of pussyfooting around? Unless that’s what you are. Pussyfoot.”

The two Sisters laughed maliciously.

“No, I’m just saying—”

“And I’m just saying: why don’t you speak your mind? Pussyfoot.”

“Skip it,” I said, my legs suddenly rubber. If I’d thought I could get Dozer to admit to being a traitor, I was sadly mistaken. I turned and walked away, half expecting to feel the point of his dagger somewhere between my shoulder blades.

“Hey!” Dozer yelled after me. “Next time you start accusing people, make sure you have some evidence to back you up.”

Even as I strode farther and farther away, their spiteful laughter rang out in the night air.

A sharp kick to the ribs jolted me awake. I opened my eyes to find Dozer holding a torch. He was flanked by his posse of three.

“Some of us have been talking,” he said. The pain in my ribs was nothing compared to the sudden knot in my stomach.

“Yeah?” I asked, rolling to a sitting position, hands pressed to my side.

“We wouldn’t be in this situation if you hadn’t convinced us to cross back from the other territory.”

“I didn’t convince you. I made the decision to come back; the rest of you followed.”

A hiss of contempt escaped his mouth. He shook his head and spat into the coals. A glob of frothy white phlegm dribbled down a log. A number of Sisters sat up, wanting to know what was going on.

“And it goes without saying that we don’t like what you did to Cat back there. So my tribe here doesn’t exactly trust you, and I can’t say I blame them.”

I wondered how much of his “tribe” had come up with that opinion and how much they had been convinced by Dozer himself. The three torch-carrying tribe members had all the makings of a vigilante mob. All that was missing were the pitchforks.

“So what’re you saying?” I asked.

“Someone sold us out to the Brown Shirts. I’m not accusing you necessarily, but someone let ’em know where we were.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. Dozer was saying exactly what I’d told him hours earlier. It reminded me of a line from a lawyer movie we’d seen back at camp—Inherit the Wind. Accuse the accuser. A classic legal ploy.

“So what do you want, Dozer?”

Dozer’s response was immediate. “The tribe thinks I should be the new leader.”

I don’t know why his statement surprised me. Maybe because it made no real sense. Why would we want a leader who made it a point to bad-mouth everyone and everything? Who had made a nuisance of himself whenever given the chance?

“Fine,” I said. Truth was, I had no great desire to be the leader, and it was irrelevant to me who got us to Camp Liberty to free those Less Thans—just as long as we did it.

Dozer tried to hide his surprise. It was obvious he expected a fight. “It’s not my decision,” he said, trying to sound humble. “It’s the others.”

“I understand.”

“They trust me.”

“Okay.”

“They know I’ll be a good leader.”

The only response I could have made would have been sarcastic, so I kept my mouth shut. When it was clear I wasn’t going to say anything else, Dozer raised his torch high in the air like he was summoning the gods above.

“Listen up,” he shouted, so that all could hear. “I’m leading this group from now on. I’m in charge. But I won’t be telling you what to do. My hope is that we can make decisions as a group.”

He shot me a meaningful look, as if to say Cat would still be here if we’d followed that policy before. Although I didn’t expect anyone to challenge Dozer and his lackeys, I hoped someone would speak up on my behalf. But no one said a word. Not a single person. Not Flush. Not Twitch.

Not Hope.

I lay back down to sleep, knowing no nightmare could be worse than this reality. Dozer began to walk away.

“Just remember,” I muttered beneath my breath. “‘Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.’”

Dozer stopped in his tracks. “What’s that?” he snapped.

Me and my Shakespeare. I regretted speaking as soon as the words left my mouth. “Nothing.”

He lowered the torch until the heat licked my cheeks. “No, what’d you just say?”

“Nothing.”

There was an almost gleeful expression on Dozer’s face as he looked to his friends. “He said something. You heard him: he said something.” Angela and Lacey nodded like a couple of puppets.

Dozer returned his stare to me. “What’d you say?”

“Nothing,” I repeated, angry that I’d fallen into Dozer’s trap.

“We can’t have that, Book. The worst thing we can have is insurrection.”

“Insurrection? You’ve been talking trash for weeks. You’ve been openly mocking my decisions ever since we left Camp Liberty. You freaked out in the Brown Forest and nearly killed Four Fingers. And you’re accusing me of insurrection?”

“That’s it!” he barked. “I have no choice but to place you under house arrest.”

I thought for a second he was joking. “What’re you talking about?”

Dozer turned to Red. “Take his knife away.”

Before I knew it, Red walked to my side and ripped my knife from its sheath—all because I’d quoted a line from Henry IV.

I appealed silently to the others. Red. Flush. Hope. All averted their eyes, not wishing to meet my stare. Only Argos bristled, emitting a low growl in the back of his throat. Angela and Lacey reached for their daggers.

“No, boy,” I said. I knew if he went after Dozer, they’d knife him in a second and fry him up for breakfast. Argos sat, the growl still vibrating his neck.

Dozer smiled that hyena grin of his and then turned to the others. “If anyone dares arm this Less Than, we’ll have no choice but to consider it an act of treason, and they’ll face similar consequences.” He sounded like some medieval king meting out punishment to a peasant. “Now everyone back to sleep. We’re moving out tomorrow.”

“Which way are we going?” I asked, careful not to add O powerful leader at the end of the sentence.

“Due south,” he answered.

“South?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard correctly. “We’re already way too south as it is, and Camp Liberty is to the northwest.”

“And we’re heading south.”

“Then how can we save the Less Thans?”

“We’re not saving any Less Thans. We’re saving ourselves.”

Dozer was daring me—or anyone—to contradict him. No one did.

As he and his minions disappeared into the black, I was consumed by a gnawing anger. Not just that we were abandoning the Less Thans, but that not one person had uttered a peep in my defense. Fine—if they wanted Dozer to be their leader, they could have him.

I’d get to Camp Liberty on my own. I was damned if I was going to let some power-hungry, lie-spewing, sour-breathed, barrel-chested bully stop me. Even if no one else believed in me, I still did.

One way or the other, I was going to make this happen.

10.

THE SUN CLEARS THE eastern hills long before Dozer even stirs. Hope waits impatiently. When they eventually break camp and begin marching south, the sun beats down from its noontime position. They’ve already missed the coolest portion of the day.

But Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.

As for the decision to march south, he seems convinced they will eventually march out of the Western Federation into some other territory that will take them in. He has no evidence to support his thinking, and when anyone asks him about it, his face twists into a tight snarl. For someone who is supposedly interested in what others have to say, he seems remarkably uninterested.

The land before them is prairie flat: endless horizons of waving grass and undulating hills. No lake or stream or creek in sight. No water anywhere.

Still, Dozer is in charge. And he isn’t going to tell them what to do.

Hope adjusts her pace until she’s walking side by side with Book.

“What’re you going to do now?” she asks. They haven’t spoken since the river.

Book shrugs.

“You still planning on getting to Camp Liberty?”

He shrugs again.

“Do you still hope to free those Less Thans?”

“I don’t know, Hope. If I free them, I’m afraid I might accidentally kill them, just like Cat.”

Hope recoils at his words. “I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t need to.”

They march silently through the grass, the blades making swishing sounds against their legs. Hope carries the spear in her hand like a walking stick.

“Look,” she finally says, “I’m sorry I didn’t stand up to Dozer last night, but—”

“Save it.”

She drifts back into line, angry that he’s too stubborn to listen to reason, that if she had tried to come to his defense last night, it only would have made things worse. But Book doesn’t want to hear that.

The prairie stretches forever with no end in sight. Sweat bubbles from their faces. Lips split and bleed. If they don’t find water soon, they’ll never make it to another territory.

They set up camp that night as lightning flickers on the far horizon. Four Fingers begins to cry. “Storm!” he whimpers, his body jerking and spasming.

“Will somebody shut that moron up?” Dozer shouts. When no one does, he grabs his walking stick and whacks Four Fingers on the legs. “Shut up, I said!”

He wallops him a second time for good measure.

Four Fingers whimpers in pain.

Once Dozer returns to his bed, Book moves to Four Fingers’s side. “It’s just heat lightning, Four,” he whispers. “Not a storm at all. Just heat lightning.” It’s a good hour before Four Fingers falls asleep.

The next day they march beneath an enormous dome of sky, no one uttering a word. Even the normally talkative Flush, guiding his blind friend Twitch, doesn’t say a word.

That night, Hope and her fellow Sisters dig in the ground, scratching at the earth with knives and fingernails. Several feet down a brown ooze seeps up, and they scoop heaping globs of the slimy mud and strain it through a T-shirt. A murky liquid drips into a pot, which is then placed over a fire and boiled. They drink it before it cools. Hot, gritty mud water is better than none at all. They fill every canteen to the brim.

Sometime the next day, with the sun blazing hot and yellow, Dozer takes a long swig from his canteen … then immediately spits it out.

“This tastes like crap,” he says. “How can you drink this shit?” He turns the canteen upside down and a trail of sludge plops out, landing on the ground like bird droppings.

Instead of answering him, Twitch says, “We could always turn east toward the river.” Even though he can’t see, he’s well aware of the direction they’re traveling.

Dozer gives his head a violent shake. “Nuh-uh. We’re heading south.”

“But the river’s a water source.”

Dozer leans into Twitch. “Listen, Blind Man, when you’re in charge, you can make the decisions. But unless you want to be under house arrest like your friend Book here, I’d keep your piehole shut.” Then he turns to the rest of the group. “There’s water out here. We just have to do a better job of straining it.”

He says this loud enough so the Sisters can hear, then turns and resumes marching. The others follow, fingers of dust trailing them like shadows.

11.

THAT EVENING, I WATCHED as Hope poured huge panfuls of brown slop onto a T-shirt. At one point, after she and Scylla shared a glance, Scylla pulled the strainer aside, allowing pure sludge to make it into the pot. An instant later, the T-shirt was back in place. When Hope saw me watching her, she looked away.

Later, over a dinner of cooked grasshoppers, Dozer spat out the water like a drowning man.

“What is this crap? Is anyone else drinking this shit?”

“Mine’s pretty bad, too,” Red said.

“Mine too,” said Angela, who pretty much copied everything Red and Dozer did.

Dozer eyed Hope and Scylla suspiciously.

“It’s that way for all of us,” I blurted out, although to be honest, my water didn’t taste half bad. Murky, yes, and with a bitter aftertaste, but there was no grit in it.

Dozer planted his eyes squarely on Hope. “Tomorrow you all better do a neater job of straining or there’ll be hell to pay.”

Hope crunched a charred grasshopper between her teeth.

Midafternoon of the next day, the sun was hot and the wind hotter. The prairie was unending. Hope’s voice broke me from my reverie.

“Hey.”

I didn’t answer. It had been a good hour since I’d produced enough saliva to even swallow, and I was in no mood to waste it on idle conversation.

“What if I said I’d help you free those Less Thans?” she asked.

“Where were you three nights ago?”

“Do you want my help or not?”

“Of course, but I don’t know how the two of us are going to take down a whole camp and free a hundred Less Thans. Especially since I’m so untrustworthy—I’m the one who left Cat behind, remember?”

She ignored my sarcasm. “What if I said others will join us?”

“Who?”

“Uh-uh. No names. Not yet.”

“Then how—”

“You have to trust me.”

Despite myself, I felt my heart beating faster.

“So are you interested or not?” she asked.

“Sure, but—”

“Good. But there’s one condition.”

What is it? I wondered. She makes all the decisions? I never speak to her again?

“We rescue the Sisters from Camp Freedom,” she said. “You help us. We help you.”

“But the two aren’t the same at all,” I sputtered. “Your camp has fences. Barbed wire. Guard towers. Liberty has none of that.”

“So yes or no?”

I thought for a moment. “How many girls are back there?”

“A hundred and twenty-five.”

“And you think it’s possible? To free them all?”

“It won’t be easy, but yes.”

Even though I was still angry with Hope and knew the odds were stacked against us, there was something in her voice that made me believe. It was like when I’d first laid eyes on her, back at Camp Freedom. She was walking with a group of others, and it was apparent—even from a single glance—that she was different. Not just her beauty, but something else. Something I could never put my finger on. Something I just knew.

“Okay,” I said.

Before I could say another word, she moved up the column and began talking to her friends.

The next day was hot and windy—a furnace blast straight from hell.

Dozer looked downright green by the time he stumbled from his bed. Twice we waited while he puked his guts out.

It was late afternoon when a small rise appeared, extending left and right as far as the horizon allowed. Was it a dam? A wall? A barrier?

Flush was the first one to get there.

“Train tracks,” he said, disappointed. We had hoped it was some kind of levee with a sparkling blue lake on the other side. No such luck.

Dozer walked across the tracks without even looking down.

“Wait,” Hope said. “Maybe we can catch a train instead of walking.”

Everyone stopped and turned. Even in a sickened state, Dozer still managed an air of belligerence. “You telling me what to do?”

“No, just trying to make sure we get out of here alive.”

“You don’t think I am?”

Dozer looked around; it was vast prairie for as far as the eye could see. The wind flapped his T-shirt. “Who says these tracks are even used anymore?” he asked.

“Look at ’em,” she said. Although knee-high weeds poked up from the gravel bed, there were places where the rails glinted from friction. Sometime in the recent past—a week? a month? a year?—a train had come through.

“But the tracks head east and west,” Dozer said. “We want to go south.”

“We’ll get off at the first water source, then head south from there.”

Dozer considered this. He was never the deepest of thinkers, and sometimes you could practically hear the squeak of wheels turning in his head.

I knew the reason for his indecision: it was someone else’s plan. Someone had an idea for saving us—and it wasn’t him.

“It’s what you told us you wanted all along,” I said. “The quickest way to a water source.”

He’d never said any such thing, of course, but I was counting on the fact that he was so dazed from barfing his guts out that he barely knew up from down.

“I said that?” he asked.

I nodded vigorously. “On more than one occasion.”

His eyes gave a woozy acknowledgment of his genius. Then, in a voice like John Wayne, he called out, “Set up camp. We’ll catch the next train that comes through.”

“So that was your plan?” I asked Hope that night, when no one else was within earshot. “Make him drink dirt until he’ll do anything you say?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said. I was pretty sure I detected a glimmer of a smile.

Later, a far-off thundering woke us from our sleep, and we spied a small, wavering star just above the eastern horizon—a freight train’s distant headlight. We stuffed our rucksacks and crouched at the base of the tracks. The train’s rumbling shook the earth, bouncing our bodies like popcorn.

Once the locomotive passed, we rose to our feet and jogged alongside. The cars were ancient—the wooden planking badly weathered, the red paint chipped and faded. But there was a problem. The doors were shut tight.

“There!” Flush shouted, pointing to a single car whose wooden door was ajar.

We turned to Dozer. As the self-proclaimed leader, it was up to him to make the first move, so when the car came alongside, he raced forward, pushed off against the ground …

… and went splat against the door. He landed hard on the gravel bed.

“Damn it!” he cursed, as though it was the train’s fault.

The car was moving away from us.

Hope turned to one of the Sisters and shouted, “Scylla, run! Everyone else, follow.” Scylla took off and we tried to catch up. Flush did his best to guide Twitch.

Scylla didn’t stop until she reached the engine. Then she turned and waited. When the car approached, she squatted down and jumped high enough to grab hold, landing a foot in the opening. She wedged her back against the wall and pushed against the door with all her might. It groaned open with a shriek.

One by one, the other five Sisters joined her, then the Less Thans. Finally, it came down to Four Fingers, Argos, and myself, running alongside the train.

But there was a problem. Even after watching everyone else, Four seemed confused. And I was so badly out of breath, there was no way I could force him onto the train by myself. I looked to the others for help.

Dozer glared down from the freight car opening. “Leave him,” he called out, then disappeared into the shadows.

Hope and Scylla jumped down from the train, then ran until they caught up with us. Scylla grabbed Four Fingers’s left arm, Hope latched onto his right. At first he resisted. Then Hope counted out loud. “One, two—”

On “three” they tossed him into the black interior of the boxcar. He staggered to a standing position and smiled.

Scylla and Hope leaped into the boxcar next, leaving only Argos and me.

“Come on, boy,” I said, badly out of breath, my legs churning as fast as they could. “Your turn.”

Argos soared through the air as effortlessly as if he’d been doing this his whole life. His claws scraped the wooden floor as he slid halfway across the car.

My turn. Exhausted as I was, I could do this. But then, just at that moment, Flush called out at the top of his lungs, “BRIDGE!”

I looked up, frantic. The train was cresting a slight rise. In the near distance, spanning a dry ravine, was a narrow bridge with metal guardrails. Once the train reached it, there’d be no room for me. If I didn’t get on now, I never would.

Now that the train was heading downhill, it began to pick up speed—faster and faster, the clickety-clack louder and more insistent. The bridge was growing closer and I was running faster and my heart was hammering harder and it was all happening way too quickly, clickety-clack, clickety-clack.

The train was pounding down the incline now, getting farther and farther away. Panic swelled in my chest. I could barely breathe. Barely catch my breath at all. My legs were rubber. I wasn’t going to make it.

“Come on, Book!” Flush yelled.

And then others began screaming too. “Come on!” “You can do it!” “Jump!”

The train was steaming downhill. The bridge was only forty feet away. The clickety-clack of wheels on rails was mesmerizing and awful, like some drumbeat leading me to my death. Louder and faster, the sound pounding in my ears.

And for that brief moment, it wasn’t the train I thought about, or my exhaustion, or what would happen if I failed. What I thought about was Cat. My friend, Cat. The one who I’d abandoned, who at that moment was either being butchered by Brown Shirts … or already a tasty meal for wolves and worms. I shouldn’t have left him behind.

Flush shouted, “Jump!”

With every last bit of strength, I raced forward, caught up with the car, then took off, my one good leg pushing against the earth, my hands and arms straining for the boxcar, sailing through air in a silent forever.

Thwack!

My body slammed against the side of the train, but only my torso made it inside; my lower half dangled off, feet and legs kicking blindly. Hands grabbed for me, but too late. I was slipping, and the girders of the bridge were closing fast. Once my legs slammed into those metal beams, I’d have no chance of holding on. My legs would be crushed, and I’d be ripped out of the train and hurled beneath its wheels.

The Less Thans and Sisters did their best to grab hold, but my fingers slipped, my clothing tore, and I started sliding back out of the boxcar. My legs kicked wildly, drunkenly, and I was consumed by a wild panic. In another instant I’d be dead. Gone. Sliced in two.

Help me! I wanted to scream. Someone, please help me!

Good-bye to Flush and Twitch and all my friends from Liberty. Good-bye to life. Good-bye to Hope.

That’s when I felt the yank on my hands. My wrists were tugged with what seemed an otherworldly strength and I was flung inside the boxcar … just as the girders of the bridge whooshed past.

I went sailing through air until I slammed into a crate on the opposite side of the car. Stars popped before my eyes and my head swam. I caught my breath. I was safe. I was alive. I had made it.

And when I looked up, there stood Four Fingers, a goofy smile plastering his face. He had just saved my life.

When I cast a glance at Dozer, he walked away, refusing to meet my eyes.

12.

THE TRAIN RUMBLES THROUGH the night. They don’t know where they are, only that they’re heading west, and far to the north is the Flats with its cracked mosaic of dry lake bed.

Morning brings a sharp diagonal of light slicing through the open doorway. Afraid they’ll be spotted by Brown Shirts, they slide the door shut, and in no time they’re dripping sweat, breathing their own stale air. They spread out as much as possible.

There’s one exception: Dozer and his three pals. They huddle in a far corner with Dozer atop a crate as though it were his throne, Red, Angela, and Lacey surrounding him like obedient knights. They lean forward and speak in hushed voices. Every once in a while, Angela turns her head and shoots Hope and Book a pointed look.

“What’s that about?” Hope asks Book.

“Whatever it is, it’s not good.”

“The sooner we get off this train, the better.”

Book’s brow knits in confusion. “We just got here. And weren’t you the one who suggested getting on this thing in the first place?”

“Yeah, but at camp we sometimes heard trains going through the town south of us. I’m guessing this is that train.”

“So that’s perfect. We’ll just get off there.”

Hope gives her head a shake. “The town is run by Crazies.”

She can see the hair rising on Book’s arm. And no wonder. On the march east, they came across a band of Crazies. They were scraggly and gave off a rank smell and looked like they hadn’t bothered to shave or shower since long before Omega. They’d somehow survived the bombs twenty years earlier and now lived a life of violence and squalor. A group not to be messed with.

“But now that Dozer’s on this train, he won’t want to get off,” Book says.

“That may be true, but we have to.”

“Should we tell some of the others?”

“Exactly what I was thinking.”

Hope is just rising to her feet when a voice bellows out, “Where do you think you’re going?” It’s Dozer, towering over her, arms crossed like a sultan.

“Back to my friends,” Hope answers. “Do you mind?”

“As a matter of fact, I do. ’Cause it’s time we had us a little trial.”

He nods over his shoulder, and Red, Angela, and Lacey sweep in from either side. They grab hold of Scylla, Diana, and Helen and toss them toward Hope and Book. The five of them now find themselves in the very middle of the boxcar.

“What’re you doing, Dozer?” Flush asks.

“Holding a trial. What’s it look like?”

“Is this because of Cat? ’Cause the others didn’t have anything to do with that. Only Book.”

“Perhaps,” Dozer says, eyes sparkling with mischief, “but they all have something to do with treason. And if you’re sticking up for them, it makes me think you’re on their side, too.” Just like that, Dozer grabs hold of Flush and pushes him into the middle as well.

He orders the “defendants” to sit, and everyone stares at Dozer, waiting to see what he will do next.

“On trial are these six,” he announces loudly, gesturing dramatically to the group seated at his feet. “Their crime is nothing less than the act of treason.”

“Alleged treason,” Book mutters beneath his breath.

“Treason,” Dozer corrects him. “Which I shall shortly prove.” Without taking his eyes off Book, he calls out, “First witness!”

Angela steps forward. Her face is hard and flinty.

“State your name,” Dozer commands. His legs bend and flex as he navigates the swaying of the train.

“Angela,” she says confidently.

“And do you know these six prisoners?”

“I do.”

“Who are they?”

“Hope. Diana. Helen. Scylla. Book. Flush.”

“Exactly,” Dozer says. “Hope, Diana, Helen, Scylla, Book, and Flush. And what did you hear when we were marching?”

“Hope was talking to some of us. Looking for volunteers.”

“For what purpose?”

“To help free the Sisters from Camp Freedom.”

Dozer’s eyes widen in mock surprise. “And what did you say?”

“I said I’d think about it.”

“But you didn’t commit to helping her, did you?”

“Not in a million years, no.”

“Why not?”

“Because that’d be going against you. And you’re our leader.”

“Exactly. And that’s why you’re not on trial. Thank you, Angela. You’re free to go.”

She shoots Hope a condescending smile as she steps away.

“Next witness!” Dozer roars, and big-boned Lacey steps forward. She gives the same answers as Angela: Hope was recruiting volunteers, but Lacey wanted no part of it. She didn’t want to do anything that would go against the wishes of their commander-in-chief.

When Dozer is done questioning, he calls Red to the stand. Red doesn’t have firsthand knowledge of Hope’s recruiting Sisters, but he does know that Book is too soft to be a good leader, citing his decision to leave the Heartland Territory in order to free a bunch of undeserving Less Thans.

Dozer dismisses Red with a satisfied expression and begins his summation. “So as you can see, this group of six—”

“Don’t we get a chance to speak?” Book asks.

Dozer gives him a look as though a bird just shit on his head. “Huh?”

“We’re the defendants. Don’t we get a chance to defend ourselves?”

“Well …”

“Or is the prosecution afraid its case isn’t strong enough?”

Dozer’s nostrils flare. “Be my guest,” he says.

“So I can call witnesses?”

“How can you have witnesses? You didn’t even know you were on trial till a few minutes ago.”

“Can I call them or not?”

Dozer’s teeth clench. “Fine.”

Hope gives Book a probing look; she has no idea where he’s going with this.

Book stumbles to his feet and says, “I have only one witness to call.”

It’s impossible not to notice the smirk on Dozer’s face. “Yeah, and who is that?”

“You. I call Dozer to the stand.”

Although the sound of the train makes it nearly impossible to hear, Hope swears she can hear something resembling a gasp.

“Me?” Dozer asks. “Why would you call me to help you?”

“So you refuse,” Book says.

“I didn’t say that. I’m just surprised, that’s all.”

“So you’ll do it?”

“I have nothing to be afraid of, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Dozer steps forward and Book slowly circles him as though deep in thought. Hope has to suppress a smile.

“You’ve accused the six of us of treason,” Book begins.

“That’s right.”

“And what is it exactly that we did?”

“I told you.”

“Tell us again.”

The tendons in Dozer’s neck grow taut. “The six of you conspired behind our backs. You decided to run away and free the Sisters from Camp Freedom.” He nods confidently in the direction of his three supporters.

Everyone turns to Book, waiting for him to go on. Air whistles through the train’s slatted walls. “Let me ask you a question,” Book says. “How did we get here?”

“Huh?”

“How did we get here? We Less Thans?”

“How do you think? We crossed the mountains, the Flats, the Brown Forest …”

“How did we even get up Skeleton Ridge in the first place?”

“Horses. Or don’t you remember?”

Red, Angela, and Lacey laugh—a little too loudly. Everyone else remains silent.

“I remember the horses,” Book says, “but I can’t remember how we got them.”

“From the stables,” Dozer says. “Where else?”

“And how’d we get to the stables?”

“What do you think, you idiot?” Dozer explodes. “We escaped from camp!”

As soon as the words pass his lips, Hope sees he regrets them.

“And this is where I don’t understand the charges,” Book says. “It was okay that we escaped, but it’s not okay we help those Sisters do the same?”

“That’s not what I’m saying.”

“Then what are you saying?”

Dozer’s face turns beet red. If he could get away with wrapping his two thick hands around Book’s neck, he would gladly do it.

“I’m saying that was then, this is now.”

“Go on,” Book says.

“That was fine that we escaped. It was the right thing, even. But now that we’re on the run, we don’t have time for all that.”

“Freeing others?”

“Right.”

“So those Sisters have to remain prisoners.”

“Exactly.”

“And those Less Thans at Camp Liberty?”

“Them, too.”

“Why?”

Dozer looks at Book as if it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “Because they’re in there and we’re not.”

“So we deserve to be free.”

“Right. ’Cause we escaped.”

If it were anyone but Dozer, Hope wouldn’t believe what she’s hearing.

“But these other people …”

“… should’ve had the sense to escape when they had the chance.”

“Even though we didn’t invite them?”

Dozer shrugs nonchalantly. “Sucks to be them, doesn’t it?”

Hope has to stifle the urge to leap to her feet and take Dozer to the floor.

“So why are we being accused of treason when that same action was the very thing that got us here?”

Dozer leans in, his voice a snarling whisper. “It wasn’t treason that got us here; it was smarts. And if we’re going to get out of here alive, we need to work together. We can’t have one group doing one thing and another group something else.” In its own paranoid way, Dozer’s argument makes sense. Hope hates him for it.

“But we agreed back at the border to free the Less Thans,” Book says. “That’s why we crawled back under the fence.”

“That was the plan,” Dozer says, “back before you got a bunch of us killed. Back before you sacrificed your friend to the enemy.”

Hope can see the change in Book’s face. It’s like the blood drains away. He opens his mouth to speak but then thinks better of it. He stands there a moment longer, then slowly sits back down. Hope reaches out a hand and lets it rest on his forearm.

“But don’t take my word for it,” Dozer says, trying his best to sound humble. “Let’s let the people decide. All those who think these six are guilty, signify by raising your hand.”

Dozer raises his, and Angela and Lacey also. Red follows a moment later. That’s four votes, and since the six defendants aren’t allowed to vote, that leaves only two others: Four Fingers and Twitch. Even though they’re on Book’s side, it’s not enough.

Dozer shoots Book his hyena grin. “There’s your trial, Book Worm.” He turns to his three supporters. “Tie ’em up. And make sure the knots are tight.”

Before Hope knows it, ropes are flung around their wrists. Attached to the inside walls of the boxcar are big, black, metal rings for lashing cargo. Now, suddenly, the six prisoners are tied to the rings so their faces poke the wall.

Dozer shuffles over and says, “Let me know if I can get you anything, Hope Less.” He laughs maliciously and walks away. Red, Angela, and Lacey follow in his wake.

Lashed to the metal rings and pressed against the wooden wall, Hope gives a tug, but it does no good. She’s strapped in tight. They all are. There’s no getting away from here, and everyone knows it.

Overcome with despair, Hope sags against the wall.

13.

THE DAY WORE ON. The temperature soared. Splinters creased my cheek where it pressed against the wooden planks. Once the sun set, the door was slid back open—the fresh air washing away only a portion of the stench of twelve sweaty bodies.

One by one, people went to sleep, even standing up, and I gave myself over to the steady clatter of wheels on rails and the train’s gentle, swaying rhythm.

That’s when I dreamed of them again: the prisoners held captive beneath the tennis courts, their hollow eyes and sore-covered faces begging for my help.

Then the dream shifted, and it was the woman with the long black hair. We were racing across a smoke-covered pasture, bullets whistling, explosions rocking the ground. The woman stopped and knelt. She was older than I remembered, more stooped, her skin more wrinkled. Her previous words echoed in my head.

You will do what’s right.

You will lead the way.

I wondered what it would be this time. To my great surprise, it wasn’t a sentence at all, just a single word.

“Now,” she said. And then she disappeared. Vanished.

“Now what?” I asked, but she was gone. It was just smoke and haze and singing bullets.

“Now what?” I cried again.

My voice startled me awake, and there I was, hands bound, wood grain tattooing my cheek like wrinkles from a pillow. Hope was awake too. I could make out her luminous brown eyes even in the dark.

“You were dreaming,” she whispered.

“Did I say anything?”

“You moaned.”

There was no going back to sleep. I was far too wide-awake for that. Besides, even though I didn’t know what we should do, I knew when we should do it.

Now.

Argos was sleeping in a corner, chin resting on his paws, and when I emitted a soft, low whistle, he scrambled to his feet and made his way to my side. His toenails clicked on the floor.

Way back when, Argos had been a stowaway, snuck into a pack and carried up the mountain. He went from Less Than to Less Than, ending up with me once I’d saved him from the fire in the Brown Forest. He’d barely left my side since.

Although we were inseparable, I never trained him. Never taught him any tricks. I didn’t need to, because Argos understood. And when I stretched away from the wall and presented my bound hands, he didn’t hesitate.

Placing his front paws against the wall so he was standing on his back legs, he swung open his jaw and began gnawing, his hot breath painting my hands. The ropes vibrated and buzzed. I looked down and saw a frayed strand of rope.

“Good boy,” I mouthed, but he was already onto the next strand, digging his sharp teeth into the coarse bindings. Another rope snapped in two, and I was able to squirm my hands free. My wrists were chafed and bleeding, but I was free.

I bent down and stroked Argos’s head. “Thanks,” I whispered, then rushed to Hope’s side. The knots were cemented with dried sweat and blood, and I turned back to Argos. He shuffled over and prepared for knot number two.

At that very moment, the train snaked around a sweeping curve. I could see the engine tugging our caravan of boxcars … and I let out an involuntary gasp.

“What?” Hope asked.

I pointed. In the far distance, bouncing off the low-hanging clouds, was a warm amber glow: lights from a town. Crazies. This was what the woman with the long black hair was trying to tell me: that we had to get off the train now, before we reached the town.

Argos was working as fast as he could, but it wasn’t fast enough. I needed a knife. Since my own had been stripped from me by Red, I needed to borrow someone else’s.

Four Fingers was fast asleep, his head propped against a crate. I scrambled to his side and clamped my hand across his mouth. His eyes popped open.

“It’s okay. It’s just me: Book.”

Once he made sense of what was going on, I could feel his smile beneath my palm, his lips stretching against my fingers. I removed my hand.

“I need to borrow your knife,” I said. “Just for a little bit.”

He recoiled, his hand falling across his weapon.

Ever since his accident in the Brown Forest—when Dozer had thrown him to the ground and he’d banged his head against a slab of granite—I didn’t know what Four could understand and what he couldn’t. But it was obvious he had no intention of parting with his knife.

“It’s okay,” I said. “I’ll give it back.”

His grip tightened on the handle.

I was getting desperate. Time was running out, and I had to free my friends.

“Hey, Four. How would you like to go on an adventure? Just a few of us.”

His smile returned, his hand began to relax.

“I can’t tell you where we’re going yet, but if you let me borrow your knife, we can get out of here right away. And Dozer won’t be coming with us.”

Four Fingers seemed to consider what I was saying. He tilted his head to the side as if deep in thought. The train rounded another curve. Once more the town’s amber glow came into view.

“Please?” I asked.

Four Fingers plucked the knife from his belt, presenting it to me like a general surrendering a sword. I snatched it from his hand before he had second thoughts.

I hurried back to Hope. The other prisoners were awake. Argos had made little progress in my absence, but not for lack of trying. He was panting heavily, saliva dripping from his tongue. I eased him away.

“Good dog,” I said, and stroked his flanks.

Hope thrust her hands forward, and I began sawing. The coils of rope snapped. Hope was free. She took the knife and we took turns on the next four. By the time we finished, both Hope and I were each covered in a sheen of sweat.

“Now what?” Flush asked.

At the same time, Hope and I shot a glance at the open doorway.

“Now we jump.”

We tiptoed through the car, avoiding sleeping bodies. Four Fingers hauled himself to his feet, and I returned his knife and guided him to the open doorway. Below us, railroad ties whooshed past. Beyond the gravel embankment stood a sea of weeds.

We were just getting ready to jump when some sixth sense prompted me to turn around. There was Red, staring right at me, his splotched face visible in the dark.

I suddenly regretted giving Four Fingers his weapon back. My mouth opened, but no words followed. What could I say? What lame excuse could I come up with?

Red’s fingers curled around his dagger’s handle, and I waited for his move. If I had to go at him without a weapon, so be it. It wouldn’t be pretty, but what choice did I have? Nothing was going to stop us now.

But it wasn’t a fight Red gave me, it was a nod. Slight. Subtle. Barely noticeable. Go, he seemed to be saying. Sorry it had to end this way.

I nodded back, releasing the breath I’d been holding.

I joined the others in the doorway. In addition to the prisoners and Four Fingers, Twitch was there also. Flush had asked him to join us, and he was right to do so. Dozer would have little patience for a blind Less Than.

The glow of the town was closer now, lighting up a chunk of sky. Hope tapped Diana on the shoulder, and the fiery Sister tossed her backpack into the dark. She jumped out after it. Scylla and Helen followed, then Flush and Twitch. Before Hope left, she turned to me and met my eyes. I had the feeling there was something she wanted to say … just as I did. Something like I’m sorry. Maybe something more.

But neither of us spoke.

Instead, she leaned forward, kissed me on the cheek, and leaped from the train.

Now that it was just Four Fingers, Argos, and me, Four seemed suddenly afraid. He began edging away from the opening.

“No,” he began saying. “No! No!” Even though the wind muffled his voice, it was more than loud enough to wake the others.

My mind scrambled. “You remember Frank, don’t you?” I asked. “Up in the mountains? The old guy who gave his life for us, so we could be brave and do brave things for others?”

“Fraaank.” He elongated the name in a way that told me he remembered. How Frank had fed us and hid us from the Brown Shirts and taught us all those skills. How he’d invited us into his cabin and told us about his family—even given us the clothes of his dead sons.

“So now we need to jump, because that’s what Frank would want us to do.”

Four Fingers nodded—he seemed to suddenly understand—and without waiting a moment longer, he threw himself into the darkness. I heard the crunch of his body against the ground.

That left Argos and me.

“You ready, boy?” I said.

“He might be, but you’re not.”

Dozer. Before I could react, he swung his meaty arm across my shoulder. I felt the sharp blade of his knife pressing into my neck, dimpling skin.

“Where’re you going?” he asked. “Or should I say, where did you think you were going?” He laughed, his sour breath splashing the side of my face. “The next time you wanna take off in the middle of the night, you might want to think about leaving the moron behind. He’s not so good at keeping quiet.”

My eyes darted to the doorway, but the knife dug in farther, a trickle of blood dribbling down my neck. “Don’t even think about it, Limp: your life ends here.”

In that fraction of a second I saw it all: our escape from Liberty and the trek to the new territory. The Less Thans held captive beneath the tennis courts. Frank in the mountains. Hope and the other Sisters. Cat. Good-bye.

As Dozer reached back to give my neck a final slice, we were both slammed to the floor with a violent thud. Dozer’s knife clattered to the side. When I got my breath and turned my head, I saw Argos shaking Dozer’s withered arm like it was a rat he was trying to kill.

“Get him off, get him off, get him off!” Dozer screamed, but Argos had no intention of letting go.

I stumbled to my feet. By now, the others were awake, trying to make sense of what was going on. Angela and Lacey were reaching for their knives.

“Come, Argos,” I said, but for once he didn’t listen. He continued to twist Dozer’s arm as though snapping a wishbone.

“Argos, no!” I cried.

I should’ve known better.

Argos looked at me with questioning eyes, and Dozer used that opportunity to kick him in the ribs. Argos yelped and went sailing through the air, flying out of the boxcar and into the night. I heard his loud whimper as he landed in the ditch.

Anger swelled in my chest. “You shouldn’t’ve done that,” I said.

“Why? What’re you gonna do about it?”

Stepping back as though about to kick a game-winning field goal, I launched my foot forward until it collided with Dozer’s groin. He let out an oomph and doubled over, grimacing in pain.

“Don’t you ever kick my dog again,” I said.

I turned and threw myself out of the boxcar, landing on the edge of the rail bed and rolling hard down the gravel slope, watching as the train receded farther and farther into the distance.

14.

HOPE WAITS ANXIOUSLY. BUT when there’s no sign of Book, she can’t stand there any longer, and she races alongside the track, imagining the worst. First Mom, then Dad, then Faith. She cannot add Book to that list.

When she finally catches sight of him, crouched over Argos, it takes everything in her power to stifle sobs of relief. “Are you okay?” she asks.

Book nods. “Had a little run-in with Dozer,” he says, his hands shaking. Her eyes drop to Argos, who favors a back leg. When Book scratches him behind the ears, Argos pants as though everything is fine.

Hope notices a thin line of blood on Book’s neck and can’t help reaching for it, dabbing it with her fingertips. Book recoils slightly, and for a moment their eyes meet. They’ve touched before—they’ve kissed—but this gesture feels profoundly intimate. Hope pulls her fingers back.

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