“The only proof I have is that I’ve been lying asleep in a hospital bed for days and no one’s come yet.”

The Commander narrows his eyes, but my words seem to sink in. He folds his hands on top of the table.

“I’d like to know, in that case, why we should take you in. Why should we house you? Feed you?”

“Because it’s the right thing to do,” I say. “How else will we rebuild our civilization? At some point we need to start taking care of each other again.”

My words seem to anger him.

“This is not a hotel,” he snaps. “There are no free meals here. Everyone chips in. If we let you stay you’ll be expected to work. Fort Noix is only for people who can contribute. Only for the tough. There is a graveyard out there filled with those who couldn’t hack it here. No one here rests on their laurels. Fort Noix is not just about surviving—we are training an army of survivors.”

I can feel my fighting instinct kick in. I pull my hands into fists and thump them on the table. “We can contribute. We’re not just weak children looking for someone to take care of them. We’ve fought in arenas. We’ve killed men, animals, and monsters. We have rescued people, kids. We are good people. Strong people.”

“People who are used to doing things their own way,” he contests. “How can I expect you to alter to a life under military command? Rules keep us alive. Order is the only thing stopping us from perishing like the others. We have a hierarchy. A system. How will you hack being told what to do after so many years running wild?”

I take a deep breath.

“Our father was in the military,” I say. “Bree and I know exactly what it’s like.”

He pauses, then eyes me with dark, beady eyes.

“Your father was in the military?”

“Yes,” I reply sternly, a little out of breath from my outpouring of anger.

The Commander frowns, then shuffles some papers on his desk as though looking for something. I see that it’s a list of our names. He taps mine over and over with his fingertip then looks up and frowns.

“Moore,” he says, saying my surname. Then he lights up.

“He’s not Laurence Moore?”

At the sound of my father’s name, my heart seems to stop beating entirely.

“Yes,” Bree and I cry at the same time.

“Do you know him?” I add, my voice sounding desperate and frantic.

He leans back and now looks at us with a whole new respect, as if meeting us for the first time.

“I know of him,” he says, nodding with clear surprise.