A grey mist enveloped the forest. The Jeep continued a winding trek through the trees, still a day’s travel to the next base, according to Rowic. Evan broke his stare from the landscape and looked to Andrea beside him. She still lay unconscious. Soup and water were easily passed through her lips, but she responded to nothing else.

  Evan was frozen on the inside, where his family and friends had kept him warm. What would fill him now that they were dead and scattered? The two IDs were in his hand again, Ken’s and his, like he’d never saved his friend to begin with. He thought of Blink, and how she had been unconscious, barely stable; Twitch holding her hand in solemnity. Had Daniel flown them away fast enough to escape the interceptors? Had Cranston and Nyla sacrificed themselves? Who was alive? Who was dead? The questions peeled at Evan’s mind, allowing fear to seep into it. The thought of this new base they were heading toward was a molding apple in his mind. For some reason that he couldn’t explain, he knew that Death was still ahead, waiting to greet them as it always did.

  Vihn looked back to Evan through the review mirror. “Almost there. How’s Andrea doing?”

  She still lay unmoving. Evan hesitated to check if she was breathing but relented a finger under her nose. “She’s still alive.”

  “Good.”

  They continued until Vihn was satisfied with a place to camp for the night in the remains of a ruined town.

  Fire crackled before him, yet Evan was still cold. The broadcast of his father toyed with his thoughts. It was clear in his mind, defined enough that the flames swayed with images of his father’s face. A smile… the kiss of betrayal. If the video was true, then the Governor was alive, and all the rebels were dead. He had sold them out and abandoned Evan in the process. Ken had died. He’d been riddled with bullets at the hands of Krow, but it’d been Evan’s father who had pulled the trigger. Evan had seen enough to know he couldn’t trust the FND broadcasts and had experienced enough to know that they might ring true.

  What was the point of it all? The answer eluded Evan, and so he turned to face the last sliver of red that was the Sun as it sank beyond the tree line. Maybe the truth would arrive on the back of the next day.

  “Hey, kid.” Vihn stood beside Evan. “It’s time to put out the fire.”

  Evan didn’t say anything, instead burying himself further into his arms. Vihn sat next to him on a chunk of crumbled stone that had once been a part of a wall that had fallen from a hotel, showcasing the interior of its rooms.

  Vihn sighed. “It sucks.”

  “It sucks,” Evan repeated.

  Vihn pulled his old photo from his pocket and hunched over it. “People die, Evan.” Creases formed around his eyes. “Always.”

  It was a hopeless message, and one that Evan was starting to believe. He focused more on the rebel’s face. There was pain there, the kind of pain Evan had felt when… well, quite often lately. The pain when nothing was in his control, yet everything was his fault.

  “Did you love her?” Evan asked about the woman in the photo.

  “Well, kid. I had… at one point. But…” Vihn sucked in a hollow breath. “I guess since we’re not going anywhere tonight, and there’s nothing to drink, I might as well tell you about it.”

  “About what?”

  “Farfa.” He concentrated harder on the photo, as if unlocking memories from within its frayed paper form. “I did love her, once. She promised… Woah, this is going to be a longer story than I’d remembered.” He shook his head. “I used to have a sister, Nadia, and she had a baby. It was Unification Day… the purge. A friend had given my sister and I a tip that the enforcers were cracking into the Afflicted housing zones and rounding them up. All of us, no matter who. They were also executing anyone who resisted, and nabbing people who they simply heard rumors of being Afflicted. But my friend told us not to worry, we should group up with as many Afflicted as we could, and she’d send us an escort to take us out of the ghetto. I thanked her; said I owed her my life for the help. We waited there. We waited all night. Finally, someone came… but it wasn’t her. It was the Feds. Not just the soldiers, but they’d brought monsters with them. Hulking suits of armor, with machine guns and rockets strapped to them. It was then that I realized the rumors were wrong. The Feds hadn’t come to take us away. They’d come to exterminate us. They opened fire. Any window, door, car, home – any place where someone might be hiding was lit up by gunfire. They gunned down whole families. They murdered everyone. I woke up that night… blood gushing from my side… I crawled; it was all I could do. There they were. Nadia and her baby, my nephew… Colton... pale as the Moon. A single bullet had passed through them.

  “The next morning, Farfa was on the news. She’d been promoted, ‘Freshest Representative of Monolith Industries.’ They’d made her a board member in exchange for selling us all out. I knew this then, that anyone who was a part of Monolith, or the Federation, was the embodiment of evil. So… Here I am, holding onto this photo because it reminds me of my destiny.”

  It was clear to Evan what Vihn meant. “Revenge,” he whispered.

  The old stranger crumpled the photo and looked to Evan. “Bloody, and absolute.”

  Evan wondered if he could do it… If he faced Krow again, maybe he could… Evan imagined crushing Krow’s head with his powers, just as the purifier had done to Zachary. Hang him, just as they’d done to Luna. Riddle him with bullets, just as he’d done to Ken. Evan’s skin prickled. Would he be able to kill Krow when the time came? Would he be able to kill his father, the man who had betrayed him? Though, who was more deserving of death than Evan for murdering his own mother, starting this whole mess? Maybe this was all part of a punishment he deserved. If only Andrea would wake up, then maybe she could tell him the truth about what had happened. He obsessed over all of it, until he finally faded into sleep.

  *****

  Evan woke, stuffed against the side of the Jeep. His mouth was dry. He popped open the door and stepped into the night stroked forest. His palm slid against dew as he guided himself along with the Jeep’s frame, slunk to the back, and rummaged through a satchel for a water canteen.

  The night sang with many sounds. An owl’s hoot, crickets chirping, the wind rustling through the pine and maple trees. A crunch that pierced the night.

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  Evan looked behind him. The pitch darkness shrouded over everything, and little was visible. It didn’t matter, the water from the canteen soothed his throat, and he was ready to return to sleep. He made his way back, slipping his hand across the Jeep’s frame again.

  Another crunch of leaves caused Evan’s heart to skip. This time it was closer. He stared into the abyss. A low rumble came from his left, then to the right, then in front of him. The sounds encroached toward him from the three sides. On his right and left came the glint of animalistic eyes, though not in front of him, despite equal sounds of a stalking predator.

  He squeezed back into the Jeep and engaged the lock. “Vihn, Rowic, something is out there.”

  The two snapped awake and joined Evan in observing the outside.

  “What is it?” Rowic asked.

  “I only saw eyes or something.” Evan shifted around to check for other entities.

  Vihn unsheathed a flashlight. Its beam pushed back the darkness.

  Directly in front of the driver’s seat prowled a large wolf. Very similar to the ones Evan encountered in the city ruins near Alpha base. It was unnatural, with thick veins and muscles exposed from gaps in its wicked fur. The eyes flickered bright yellow, peering into the light, unperturbed.

  Rowic said, “Maybe we should keep driving.”

  Vihn shook his head. “Driving at night is too risky, it’s harder to maneuver, and drones patrol the forests more at this time.”

  Chills wrapped Evan’s spine as he stared at this strange creature.

  “Rabies dude. I’ve seen it before,” Rowic whispered

  “Those are Afflicted.” Evan slid back from the window and buckled Andrea in case the animal charged them. “They came out when Alpha was attacked the first time.”

  “It’s still just an animal. It can’t bother us while we’re in here.” Vihn turned off the flashlight and slumped back in his seat.

  A thud shook the Jeep from behind. The three rebels jumped, and the flashlight was back on. Nothing was there, but the bed bowed under some sort of force. A few canisters and boxes of equipment toppled over, but there was nothing visibly pushing them. The vehicle shook as the bed rose again.

  “Freaky.” Rowic grabbed his rifle.

  From outside, a rhythm of beats rushed the Jeep. Boom! The vehicle lifted off the dirt then thudded back down. The side where Evan sat was caved in, the window shattered. A wolf shook in front of the door, glass shedding from its fur; it had rammed itself into the Jeep. After a moment, it dashed back into the darkness, a blur of motion. It charged into the Jeep again, nearly tipping the car on its side.

  “That thing's fast!” Rowic fired his gun at the beast. But the creature was already gone, and the bullet hit the mud instead.

  “Ok, I change my mind.” Vihn started the ignition.

  The wolf with exposed muscles leaped at the broken window. Rowic fired again. Blood sprayed from its side. It rolled across the dirt, blood gushing from its shoulder. Almost instantly, a shard of metal oozed out of the wound, which then sealed shut as if nothing had happened.

  Three Afflicted wolves. One was running at an impossible speed, the second with the power to heal, and a third that could not be seen. It wasn’t hard to believe that the same chemical could have mutated an animal in the same way humans had been, but their control over their powers was astonishing. Were the animals even aware of their special abilities? Maybe the powers only worked in conjunction with their natural hunting patterns; speed and regeneration couldn’t require too much mental awareness.

  “Let’s not wait for that thing to hit us again,” Evan said.

  The wolves encroached.

  “Screw it.” Vihn floored the accelerator, leaving behind the Afflicted animals.

  Evan looked at the beasts as they grew smaller. The lead one stared back with his yellow eyes, like stars in the night sky.

  *****

  The Jeep squished along the damp earth path. Luckily, they hadn’t encountered any more drones, or wolves, or rebels for that matter. They hadn’t gotten much sleep either.

  Rowic had taken the wheel. Evan rode in the passenger’s seat, and Vihn tended to Andrea with the last of his flowers. Fortunately, if they made it to Nan and Luis then they could get more of his miracle plants.

  Evan noted how Vihn’s eyes were still in that white haze, even when he wasn’t using his powers. He once said he’d pushed himself to this point before, where his eyes wouldn’t return to normal for many days. He’d used his powers a lot in the span of the last few days, and it was clear that his eyesight would be weakened for some time.

  Andrea had awakened for a moment to mutter something about surviving, pushing forward, don’t give up – stuff like that. But she still lay unconscious. Her wounds had healed enough that she was recognizable as herself again, which was good, though it seemed the healing had gone as far as it was going to go with their limited supplies. This meant some of the more intense burns and gashes had left behind craters and scars in her skin.

  “How far away are we?” Vihn asked.

  Rowic yawned. “Not very... Things look fairly familiar now.” The battery on his tablet had run dangerously low, and they’d turned it off so they could use it in case of an emergency.

  It was beyond Evan how Rowic or Vihn could navigate the forest. It was all trees, bushes, and more trees.

  “Heya, go ahead and switch the pad on for a moment,” Rowic said.

  “You’re lost,” Vihn said.

  “No… Not yet anyway.”

  Evan switched on the tablet and followed Rowic’s instructions until the hacker was satisfied with the information, and he’d have to be, because the device had died.

  “Ah – that’s fine. It’s… somewhere here.”

  “Rowic…”

  “There!” He pulled alongside a tree whose gnarled roots curved out from it like swollen muscles.

  They left the Jeep. Vihn used his powers to extend the overgrowth of the forest to cover their vehicle. Rowic guided him as they both proceeded to carry Andrea.

  “Evan, there should be a hatch somewhere by the tree,” Vihn said.

  After kicking around piles of dried leaves and pine, Evan found a wooden covering on the ground. He lifted it, dirt billowing from the movement. Underneath was a hollowed-out tunnel that the four of them could descend into.

  Evan switched on his wrist computer’s light. The tunnel extended forth for a stretch of crudely carved dirt walls. Seeing as there were no other directions than forward, Evan pressed on with the two others behind him. It wasn’t long before Evan heard the clanking of glasses, and the bubbling of some sort of brew. Then came the smell of flowers and chemicals, which was as much the smell of Heaven as Evan could imagine after what they’d gone through the last few days. Slits of light ran along the tunnel walls in front of him. He steadied himself forward until he finally saw the steel bars of the cellar room that was below Nan’s tea shop. One of the cells had tossed bed sheets and pillows, and Evan’s heart sank as he recalled Jeck had been the last person to sleep there. Resting forever in the rebel mausoleum that was Alpha base.

  Evan pushed open the cell. A dozen bells jingled above him.

  “Oh my, God…” came a voice from above. Shortly after, two sandaled feet creaked down the ladder there, followed by the quivering body of Nan. She dusted her hands off on her apron and stared at the four tattered rebels, her mouth gaping, and eyes glassy.

  “Hi Nan,” Vihn croaked.

  She hobbled over to him; arms cast wide open. She wrapped them around him and squeezed. “Oh, thank you, thank you, Almighty!” She sobbed and cackled, all while Vihn struggled to hold up Andrea without being knocked over himself. Nan noticed this and helped set Andrea down on one of the cots. The old lady barely gave Vihn a moment to sit as she smothered him with hugs and kisses, like a grandmother might.

  It was bittersweet watching this happiness. Evan knew what she was feeling, to find someone you love that you thought was forever lost.

  Another voice came from above. “Nan? Is everything ok?”

  Evan recalled that Luis didn’t talk…

  White light whirled in front of Evan. Standing there was a girl with short blonde hair, crouched in a fighting stance with a pan raised over her head.

  His insides leapt.

  “Evan.” The pan clattered against the ground as Blink dropped it and embraced him. “I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  And now it was his turn to cry, as all the pain he’d built up broke free, rushing into tears as he crumbled into Blink’s arms and held her tightly. She’s alive. Thank you, Almighty, she’s alive.

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