The horses were unhurt but terrified, and it took Samm and Heron several minutes to calm them down enough to be saddled. Kira rewrapped Afa’s wound with dry bandages, and together they boosted him up onto Oddjob’s back, where he swayed and grimaced in pain at the change of pressure on his shredded thigh muscle. Kira bit her lip, angry that they had to take Afa even farther from home—not angry at him, or at anyone really, just angry. Angry that life is hard, she thought. Nandita raised me better than this. “If you have the strength to whine, you have the strength to do something about it.”

They were almost halfway from Long Island to Denver already, and it would be two full months out of their way to take Afa back home; two months they didn’t have. They couldn’t leave him, obviously, so they had to take him, hard journey or not. Besides, Kira thought, if there’s another computer system at the lab site in Denver, we’ll need Afa to access it. He’s the only one who can.

We just have to make sure he survives.

When they were all mounted and ready, Kira led them not to the freeway but to a large hospital on the other side. “St. Bernard’s,” she said, reading the weathered sign at the mouth of the parking lot.

“Should we look for antibiotics in the pharmacy?” asked Heron. “Or in barrels hanging from the collars of giant shaggy dogs?”

“As long as the dogs don’t talk,” said Kira, “I don’t much care.” The talking dogs still freaked her out, and she’d dreamed about them again last night—of herself living with them, wild and feral, unaccepted in both human and Partial society. She knew it was unfair of her to hate them. They couldn’t help being what they were any more than she could. She pushed the thought aside and entered the hospital, showing Samm how to sort the meds they needed while Heron watched Afa and the horses. They filled an entire satchel with antibiotics and painkillers, and mounted up to ride west.

Into the toxic wasteland.