“Come on,” Alec demanded. He shoved the last of his gear into his bag and threw it to Laura.

She wanted to ask what Alec was going to do with Brown, but knew that asking wouldn’t help anything. If the ranger was lucky, he’d shoot her. If she was unlucky, he’d leave her there to die—her mind too scrambled to know how to survive on her own.

Laura looked at the ranger again, and their eyes met. There was no emotion or movement. If Brown hadn’t blinked, Laura would have assumed she was dead.

“Dan,” Alec called. “Laura. Come check this out.” He had unfolded the map.

Laura was strapping on the heavy frame pack, adjusting the straps around her chest and hips as she and Dan met Alec.

“Keep your eyes on the map,” Alec said quietly. “Don’t look up. They’re here.”

“Where?” Dan asked. He finally seemed alert.

“I saw movement in the trees to the west, near the two dead pines.”

Laura forced herself to keep her head down. “You’re sure it’s the army?”

Alec nodded. “Uniforms.”

“Why haven’t they shot us already?” Laura said.

“They’re not in position yet,” Alec said. “At least, I don’t think they are. And maybe they’re trying to figure out what we can do—what our powers are. Maybe they want to capture us alive.”

“How many?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Alec said with a smile. He jabbed the map. “We’re only four miles from the road if we go cross-country. Laura can do that in—how long?”

She pursed her lips and looked down the rough slope at the forested terrain. “If the ground is like that, thirty minutes. Maybe forty.”

“How fast can you do it carrying someone?”

Laura thought about Brown lying on the grass. When she’d heard that the soldiers had arrived, she’d been relieved, thinking that the girl might live. “She doesn’t know anything else,” Laura said. “She’ll slow us down.”

Alec almost couldn’t contain his glee. “You won’t be carrying her, Laura. You’ll be carrying me.”

“What?”

“It’s simple,” Alec said, grinning. “You can carry me faster than I could run myself. And we’ll be in a big hurry.”

“Why?” Dan said, annoyance in his voice. “Where will you be going without me?”

“We’ll be running from you,” Alec said. “And you’ll be chasing after us. I need you to start an avalanche.”

Dan looked at the long dry grass under their feet, confused.

“They can’t chase us if the mountain is falling down around them.”

Dan stammered for a moment. “I’d have to touch it. I couldn’t run.”

Alec was so pleased with himself he looked like his smile would rip into his cheeks. “You don’t need to run. Just tear this mountain to hell and protect yourself. When the soldiers are taken care of, follow us.”

Laura had pulled a bag of toiletries out of the frame pack, and had the contents splayed on a rock as though she was looking for something. Alec paced impatiently, barking the occasional order for her to hurry.

“I’m going to go pee,” Dan called.

“Fine,” Alec yelled, mock exasperation in his voice. “Take your time. We’ll be waiting here another hour for Laura.”

This still didn’t feel safe, Laura thought. At any moment, one of them was going to get a sniper’s bullet in the back of the head.

She looked over her shoulder. She couldn’t see Brown. If the military didn’t immediately move in for her, she’d die in the avalanche.

“I’ve counted four,” Alec said quietly as he walked past Laura.

“Five,” she said. She couldn’t be sure they were all different people, though. “Light infantry. M4 carbines.”

Alec stepped next to her, digging in the frame pack. She peered inside and saw his hand wrapped around the pistol.

“When it happens,” he said, “we’ll both run—give them two targets instead of one. When I tire out, you carry me.”

Laura nodded. She took a pair of gloves from the pack—Alec wouldn’t stop her now—and walked to the bush where Brown lay. She knelt down at the ranger’s side.

“I’m sorry, Gina,” Laura said. “This will be better than being crushed.”

With a single quick snap, Laura broke Gina Brown’s neck.

She had just stood when a plume of dust exploded in front of her. Alec was already running, and gunfire erupted. Laura jumped forward, doing a tuck-and-roll down the rocky hill, and then darted for the trees.

Laura could hear bullets hitting the ground around her, but only for an instant before the sound was drowned out by the deep, shuddering groans of erupting earth.

A boulder, twice as big as her head, flew over her shoulder, and Laura sped up, hurtling wildly through the path of an earthquake.

SIXTEEN

“THEY’RE CALLING IT THE FREAK WAR,” Sibley said. Aubrey, Jack, and a few others were sitting on nearby cots, listening as he spoke. “This thing that we’ve got, this disease, it didn’t start in America. They think it started in Russia, maybe, or China. No one’s sure. Before we even knew that we were getting sick, they had already diagnosed it and were training the freaks to fight.”

“They?” Jack said.

“Whoever it is,” Sibley answered. “Nobody knows.” He seemed to enjoy being the center of attention, the only one who knew what was going on. And he probably didn’t know very much—just more than the other teens in the warehouse. Or he could have been making it all up.

“So there’s a whole army of . . . ?” Aubrey started but didn’t know what word described people like her and Matt and Nate.

Sibley shook his head. “No, not an army. There’s not enough of us for that. They’re terrorists.”

Aubrey leaned forward. “What do you mean ‘not enough of us’?”

He smirked. “I’m not dangerous, so don’t worry. Sitting right here, I can do exactly nothing.”

“What can you do somewhere else?” Aubrey asked, her eyes wide in the dim light of the warehouse.

“I can kill plants,” he said, looking almost embarrassed. “It’s not even a dramatic death. I touch them, and they’ll die over the next couple days. If it’s something big, like a tree, it’ll die in a couple weeks.”

“Wait,” Jack said, looking at Aubrey, concern spreading across his face. “This is a disease?”

Sibley laughed. “Well, it sure as hell isn’t the X-Men. I don’t know how it works, but everyone who has some kind of power—even stupid ones like mine—have a lot of side effects. Ever since I started, I’ve been getting ulcers. And if I get cut, I’ll bleed for weeks.”

Aubrey’s eyes met Jack’s, and she nodded. The fatigue of disappearing was one thing, but the blindness—it scared her to death.

“So, if it’s a disease,” Aubrey said, “then why is everyone different? If we all got a cold then we’d have the same symptoms. Why can you kill plants and someone else can turn into a monster?”