And then I walk out.

All casually, like Leah once told me. Pretend to know what you’re doing, and people will let you go about your business, she said, the first time she stole food and pads for us.

I keep my head high. I wrap myself in one of our work coats, though the weather is soft and gentle. I pick up an abandoned backpack from the guard station. I use a scarf as a face mask. And I walk like I know what I’m doing. Like I know where I’m going.

I do. One step at a time. I remember the way from our unfortunate nighttime walk. I remember the way from the guards driving us here in the first place. It’s one of the upsides of the way my brain works. I understand how patterns work, and I can remember them.

So I keep walking. One step and then another.

When I’m out of reach of Hope, and no one has come to take me back, I drop my shoulders and lower my head, and I look down at my feet. At the ground, covered in orange and red and brown leaves.

Hope may seem silent at times, especially now that it’s so much emptier, but it’s nothing compared to the stillness outside. It’s not completely desolate. The wind rustles through the trees, and the foliage on the ground crunches and whispers. I know absolutely nothing about birds, but I can make out three or four different calls.

Still, there are no voices, no footsteps—and especially no one who’s coughing.

I can breathe here. I feel at ease here.

And I keep walking. One foot in front of the other.

“This may be the only way in which we’ve ever been different,” I tell the Leah in my head, the Leah I’m always talking to. “You always hated the outdoors, and I loved it. I like how the leaves and the grass bounce beneath my feet. I like the breeze on my skin. I could grow to like the quiet too. It reminds me of me.”

Leah would laugh at that. I miss hearing her laugh. No matter how bad things were, that always made me feel like everything would be all right.

I reach the corner in the road that leads to the mountain path and the roadblock. I heard whispers last night that the soldiers are gone and Josie and Saoirse hid out here in a tent or a cave or something.

When I near the roadblock, I find nothing there but the empty corpse of a truck. The rough patch of road is overgrown with weeds and grass, and the wheels are completely flat. I crawl a little closer. A dark shadow rises from the canvas cover, and I scramble back.

Two large birds take flight from their comfortable hideout.

I push myself to my feet again and wait to see if I disturb anything else. If I can see any movement. Then I do what every sensible person would do in my situation. I take a deep breath and run past the truck with all the speed I have, and I don’t look back.