Everyone was lit in the ugly green glow of the radio that sat between Mitchell and the private riding shotgun. Transmissions came through it in staticky bursts of code, panicked voices calling for assistance while gunfire snarled in the background. Eventually, Mitchell flipped the radio off and we were left with the rush of tires against the road.
An hour later we merged onto a highway that was clogged with refugees heading east. Mitchell forced his way through the jammed traffic and pulled up to an exit blocked by two Fed Humvees. We came to a halt and Sergeant Mitchell and his private got out to talk to the sentries.
Alec pulled one of the headphones off his ear and cupped his hand over the side window to look out.
“I would not want to be one of them,” he said. Reese turned to see what he was looking at and laughed darkly.
A rusty pickup truck had pulled off to the side of the road, just beyond the roadblock. One of its back tires was lying on the ground in shreds. A skinny man in a tattered blazer sat beside it, his head in his hands; a jack and a deflated spare lay in front of him. Standing behind him was a young woman staring at his back and clutching the hand of a small boy.
“What’ll happen to them if they’re here when the Path comes?”
Kate had turned away from the window and was staring back at me.
“They’ll be given the Choice,” I said.
“Is that really what people say it is?”
I nodded and Kate turned back to the family at the side of the road. The man was standing now and waving his arms for help, but everyone passed by, studiously ignoring him.
“We should help them,” she said.
“Sure,” Alec said over his shoulder. “Maybe we can cram all of South Dakota in our plane and fly them to Canada.”
“Alec—”
Before Kate could finish, Mitchell was climbing back into the van. Up ahead, the sentries drew aside and our Humvee pulled through the roadblock. Mitchell put the van in gear to follow. Kate pitched forward, about to say something, but as the Humvee started to move, she swallowed it and collapsed into her seat.
Behind us, the man by the pickup had given up trying to flag anyone down. He sat in a heap, the useless tools in front of him, watching us as we slowly rolled away. I pulled Bear closer to me and looked away too.
We went through the checkpoint, and the two Humvees re-formed the roadblock, like a gate slamming shut behind us. Mitchell switched the radio back on, filling the van with static and disjointed communications. Up ahead, the Humvee bristled with rifle barrels poking out of every window, scanning the trees. The turret gunner stayed low but kept his weapon moving, sweeping back and forth. The private in our van leaned out his window, his face lit by the glow of his rifle’s night-vision scope.
The war sounds were nearly constant, distant still, but seeming to come from everywhere at once, like hearts beating out in the darkness. The air felt warmer too and dense, weighing down on us. Even Alec and Reese noticed. They pulled the headphones off their ears and sat up straighter, watching out the side windows as bursts of yellow and orange lit the sky above the tree line.
I wondered where Nat was right then. Had she and her friends gotten stuck in this fight? Or had they managed to push through, eager to throw themselves into an even fiercer one ahead? I could still feel the heat of her hand on mine and hear her voice, hushed, asking me to come with her. Why did that sound make me feel so small?
I shut my eyes and counted out the miles from Philadelphia to New York. Once we reached the capital, all I had to do was slip away from Mitchell and all of this would be over before I knew it. I tried to fill my head with green forests and the crash of waterfalls, but the memories were slippery, gone as soon as they came.
Diane said something and as I opened my eyes and turned to her, a blast of yellow light erupted on the road ahead. The sound of the explosion followed a half second later, tearing through the inside of the van like a tidal wave. I bent over my lap, clapping my hands onto my ears. The world outside spun wildly and then there was the squeal of brakes, and the next thing I knew, the side doors were flying open. The world outside the van was lit in flickering yellow and orange.
“Everybody out,” the private ordered. “Move move move!”
He pulled Diane out first, followed by me and Kate. I reached for Bear but the private shoved me away and went back for Reese and Alec. Mitchell was at the rear of the van, his rifle locked into his shoulder, firing into the tree line. Christos crashed into me and I stumbled farther into the road, where I saw the Humvee lying on its side, consumed within a wall of flames.
“Across the road!” Mitchell yelled over the gunfire. “Run!”
Diane and Christos blew past me, but I turned back for Bear. I made it to the corner of the van just as Alec and Reese were jumping out the door. Reese hit the asphalt and dodged away, but as the private reached up for Alec, a volley of gunfire exploded from the tree line. The private crumpled to the ground and when Alec tried to jump past him, there was another roar. He took the full force of a blast in his chest and was pitched back into the van.
Someone screamed behind me but I couldn’t move. Alec was half in and half out of the van, his legs hanging out of the door, still. The private was on the ground in front of him, his chest torn, surrounded in blood.
“Run! Get across the street!”
Mitchell pushed Kate into my arms. We tangled together as she tried to get past me and reach Alec. It was like time started up again. I shoved her away and kept her in front of me as we ran. We made it halfway across the road when I saw Bear. He was between the van and the Humvee, claws dug into the asphalt, barking at the gunfire that was pinging off the roadway. I handed Kate off to Reese and sprinted across the street. Terrified, Bear sank his teeth into my arm when I grabbed him but I held him tight and raced into the trees.
I found the others at the bottom of a hill. Reese was holding himself up with one hand braced against a nearby tree while with the other he mopped at blood pouring from a gash on the side of his face. Christos was on the ground, his face ghost white, his body limp. Kate was deeper in the woods, wailing, her fingers sunk into the flesh of Diane’s arms.
“We have to go back!” she screamed. “We have to get Alec!”
There was a crash behind us and I turned, expecting a squad of Path soldiers. It was Mitchell. He raced down the hill and dropped to his knees in front of me.
“Took us too long to get here,” he said, panting as he freed a spent magazine from his rifle and tossed it aside. “Drone took Rashad’s Humvee and now there’s movement everywhere. Path. Fed. I don’t know. You have to get them moving. Head west.”
He seized, digging one hand into his side. It came back shiny with blood.
“Sergeant—”
He knocked my hand away. “The plane is on an airstrip two klicks west,” he said. “Last we heard, no one controls it yet. You have to get there before they do. Get to it and get on it, all of you.”
“But you’re—”
“Go!”
Mitchell slammed a fresh magazine into his rifle and ran back toward the hill. Bear was barking again, wild and high-pitched, mixing in with the chatter of weapons fire and crackling flames coming from the road. Reese was the only one still on his feet, so I grabbed him first, turning him to face me.
“We have to go. Get Christos. Do you hear me?”
Reese nodded and lurched away. Kate was on her knees, slumped over with Diane at her shoulder. I took her arm but she thrashed away from me.
“We can’t just leave. We have to get Alec!”
“He’s dead, Kate.”
She looked up at me, eyes wild, uncomprehending. There was no time for this. I glanced at Diane, and she jerked Kate up without a word and got her moving.