Kate must have also felt the shift in the air, in the attackers, in herself, because her eyes met his. Her fingers twitched, and an instant later he caught sight of metal in her palm.

“I’ll take the bitch with the knife,” said Kate, driving the switchblade into the woman’s thigh. She shrieked, and Kate got her hands up and shoved the woman’s arm, ducking out from under the blade. At the same moment, August lunged, knocking the man with the gun back as hard as he could into the one behind him. The gun went off, then clattered to the tarmac as the two went down, a foot away from where the others grappled and swore, knife and bat forgotten. August heard the rumble of an approaching truck, the short, sharp burst of its horn, and grabbed Kate’s hand and ran. Shouts rang out after them, along with the sound of a body hitting pavement and muffled curses, but August didn’t look back as he and Kate sprinted around the corner of the truck stop and across the glaring tarmac toward the open gate.

The truck pulled through, and the barricade began to close. The guards were turned away, eyes fixed on the darkness beyond the semi, and by the time they saw August and Kate coming, it was too late. They were out, and through, moments before the gate slid home and locked.

They veered off the light-lined road and into the fields, August straining to hear the sound of tires over his pounding heart, but the trucks didn’t follow, the guards didn’t fire, and the gate didn’t open.

Still, they didn’t stop. Didn’t look back.

August lost track of the seconds, lost track of the fact that Kate’s hand was still tangled in his, lost track of the fever and the pain. Was he crazy, or was it actually starting to fade?

They ran, cutting a jagged path through wild grass, past bunkers and lines of trees, and by the time they finally slowed to a walk and then at last a stop, they were alone, surrounded by nothing but darkness and the distant glow of the road.

Kate gasped for breath, pressing a hand to her wounded stomach, and August sank to his knees, fingers splaying in the cool, damp dirt.

He wanted to lie down. To press his cheek to the ground, the way Ilsa did, and just listen. Kate dropped to her knees beside him, her shoulder against his, and for several long moments they sat there, swallowed up by the wild grass. The night was so quiet, the world so calm; it was hard to believe there was any danger in it.

August caught the distant grumble of trucks and tensed, but the semis held to the road, none of them bold enough to venture beyond the safety of the light.

When they finally got to their feet, the first light of dawn was beginning to break across the horizon, turning the world a bruised purple instead of black. His vision swam, and Kate reached out a hand to steady him. “You okay?”

The question echoed in his head, rippling his thoughts like a stone in a pond, becoming an answer as it spread. Okay. Okay. Okay.

And it was crazy, it was impossible, but he was. The pain was thinning, his muscles and bones finally starting to loosen. He drew in a shuddering breath, shock mixing with joy. Leo was wrong. He’d done it. He’d come through.

“August?” pressed Kate. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” he said, the word filling his body and mind. It was the truth.

“Good.” She had something cupped in her hand. She turned it toward the thin dawn light, and then started walking.

“Where are we going?” he asked, falling in step behind her.

Kate didn’t look back, but the answer reached him, catching on the air and carrying like music.

“Home.”

VERSE 4

FACE YOUR MONSTERS

For six years, home had been a house at the eastern edge of the Waste, far enough from the darkness that no one came, far enough from the nearest town that the lights didn’t reach.

V-City was a place from the past, a place for the future, but Kate and her mother lived in the present. She wanted to remember it as boring, dull, restless, but the truth was, it was perfect. And she was happy. The kind of happy that smoothed time into still frames.

Arms wrapped around her shoulders while she read.

A warm voice humming while fingers braided her hair.

Wildflowers in vases and cups and bowls, wherever they would fit.

Color everywhere, and sunsets turning the fields to fire.

Somewhere else, the world was really burning.

Somewhere else, shadows had claws and teeth, and nightmares came to life.

But there, in the house at the edge of the Waste, it hadn’t reached them. There it was easy to forget that the world was broken.

The only thing missing was her father, and even he was there, in the photographs, in the shipments of supplies, in the promises that soon they could come home.

After, she told herself a lot of things. That she’d always wanted to leave. That she was sick of the little house. That when she spoke of home, she meant the capital.

The sun rose against Kate’s back, showering the fields ahead of her with light. Dew glittered on the tips of the grass, and dampened her pants from shoe to knee, and the world smelled fresh and clean in a way the city never did. August walked a few steps behind, and Kate watched the coordinates on the watch shift up and down, inching closer.

He was quiet, but so was she.

They skirted factories and storage facilities, each guarded as heavily as the Horizon, and caught the wary gaze of a haggard-looking woman standing outside a squat compound, checking to make sure she hadn’t lost anything in the night. Midmorning Kate saw a skeletal town in the distance, light glinting off the metal roofs and outer walls. They steered clear, kept to the tree lines when there were trees and the tall grass when there were none. And the whole time, Kate kept her eyes on the watch, the numbers edging closer, closer, closer.