“There has to be some kind of compromise,” I say diplomatically.
Bree, overhearing the dispute, comes over.
“Brooke’s right,” she says. “We have to keep going. If we stay here we’ll get caught by slaverunners.”
Ben folds his arms. “I’m not just going to change my mind because an eleven-year-old girl has told me to. That’s not how democracy works.”
“Who said this was a democracy?” Bree says haughtily. “Brooke’s leader. It’s her plan. She gets to decide.”
Everyone looks at me. I curse silently in my head. I wish Bree hadn’t put me in such a difficult situation. I know Ben’s going to read more into my answer than he ought to, that he’s going to think that I’m choosing Ryan when really all I’m choosing is common sense. But right now staying alive is more important than not hurting Ben’s feelings.
“I’m sorry,” I say to him. “But we’re driving on. It’s only a couple more hours before we reach the Mississippi. We can rest there.”
Ben shakes his head and looks so disappointed it makes my stomach ache. The atmosphere is beyond tense. Then suddenly, Stephan starts clapping.
“I’m so glad you guys brought me along for the ride,” he says. “This is so entertaining.”
Molly shoots him an angry glare.
With a heavy heart, I get back on my bike and try to kick it to life. But nothing happens. I check the gas gauge and realize that it’s practically on zero.
“Um, guys!” I call out. “I’m out of gas!”
One by one, everyone checks their own bikes and realizes that the same fate has befallen them. Every single one of our bikes has run out of gas.
I turn on Stephan.
“I thought you said the tanks were full!” I snap. “You said we could make it all the way to the Mississippi.”
He looks sheepish. “They were. I guess they just… well, the bikes are really old, you know? Maybe there were leaks in the tubes or something.”
Furious, I run over to the road that we’d come along. Sure enough, there are little droplets of gas all along the road. I run back to the others.
“Okay, now we really have to get out of here,” I say, urgently. “We’ve made a trail with gas all the way here. If there are slaverunners on that road, we’ll lead them right to us.”
Everyone looks terrified.
“You want us to walk?” Bree says, trembling. “In the pitch black?”
“We have no choice,” I say, marching ahead. “Come on! Everyone, get a move on!”
I’m starting to lose my cool. But the rest of the gang knows I’m right and they start to follow.
As the night grows darker and colder I curse under my breath. Our two-hour drive has just turned into a twenty-four-hour trek.
The sun starts to rise. We’ve been walking all night. As the black nothingness I’d found comforting disappears, I’m now faced with a sight of destruction and devastation.
Up ahead a rusted metal sign reads Galesburg, but it’s the only thing left standing. The rest of the town has been reduced to a huge crater. Someone dropped a bomb here so powerful it wiped the entire town off the face of the earth, leaving behind nothing but a welcome sign teetering on the edge of the crater.
It’s heartbreaking to think of what this place once was. To think of all the innocent families blown to pieces, their lives cut short in one catastrophic moment.
“I don’t believe it,” Ben says, breaking through my thoughts.
I look up. Just ahead, the only thing standing beside the long, straight road, is a used car yard, still filled with cars.
I try not to let myself feel too hopeful, but as the gang rushes over, the dogs barking excitedly at our heels, I start to feel that we might have had our first stroke of luck in hours.
Together we rush across the street to the auto salvage yard. They cars look like ones from the 1950s. The doors, thankfully, are unlocked.
Zeke climbs in the front driver’s seat.
“You’re not going to believe this,” he says. “It has a full tank of gas.”
I can’t believe our luck. But no sooner do we get the good luck than we’re immediately hit with the bad luck.
“Damn, no keys,” Zeke says.
“That’s not a problem,” Molly replies. “I can hotwire a car.”
I raise my eyebrows at her. She shrugs.
“We all have pasts, Brooke,” she says with a haughty little smile.
She gets the car started then does the same with another. Bree jumps in the back of the other car. Of course, Charlie joins Bree, and Penelope, too, wanting to be with her favorite human, clambers in. Then Jack starts barking at the kids and dog in the back seat, making it very clear that he wants to ride with his furry companion.
Ryan beelines for that car. “I should stay with Jack,” he says. “Plus, I want to drive.”
Molly takes the passenger seat in the other car next to Zeke. Ben takes the backseat behind Zeke and Molly, then it’s just me and Stephan.
“After you,” I say, trying to get him to take the pressure off me over whose car I get in.
He laughs and shakes his head. “No way. I wanna see who Brooke is going to choose!” He makes a kissy face.
“You’re a jerk,” I hiss, looking from one car to the other, from Ben to Ryan, torn, not knowing what to do.
Thankfully, Bree leans out the window. “Come with us, Brooke!” she cries. “Please, please, please!”
I smile. “Of course.”
I turn and clamber in the seat beside Ryan while Stephan waltzes to the other car, whistling nonchalantly as he goes. I don’t look for Ben’s expression. I don’t want to know how angry he is with me for choosing Ryan over him once again.
Once we’re all strapped in, Ryan guns the gas pedal and reverses out of the lot. Zeke does the same. At last we’re on the road, in vehicles. For the first time, the chances of us making it to Texas don’t seem so small.
“Let’s get to the Mississippi already,” I say.
Our two cars cruise along side by side, heading west. As we go, we try to avoid any of the towns or cities, cautious about how close we get to built-up areas. There’s no knowing whether they’ll be in enemy hands, crawling with slaverunners ready to kidnap us and bring us to their arenas. So we stick to the open roads wherever possible, the ones that cut straight through barren landscape.
Darkness falls like a blanket of black. We can hardly see anything beyond the hood of the car, and we certainly can’t see Molly, Zeke, Stephan, and Ben’s car behind us.
Ryan’s a careful driver but I know in another life he wouldn’t be. In another world, a world without the war that’s ravished everything, Ryan and I probably wouldn’t even get along. He’d be the cool senior boy, a bit fringe, a bit tough, driving some beat-up piece of junk and never seen without his trusty pit bull. I’d be… I don’t know what I’d be. I can’t even imagine who I’d be without all the terrible things that have shaped me.
At last, we reach the Mississippi and ride down the slope into the bone-dry riverbed.
Seeing the impact that the war has had on the Mississippi is truly awful. I hate what our species has done to the world, the ways in which it has destroyed nature. My only hope is that one day our country will recover, that the Mississippi will be the beautiful, life-giving river it once was.
“What’s that noise?” Ryan says, breaking me from my thoughts.
I strain to hear over the rumble of the engine. I can just about pick up a noise, a sort of whining. It sounds like a vehicle revving.
“It’s the other car, isn’t it?” I say.
Through the darkness, I can just make out Ryan shaking his head. My blood runs cold.