“Find her,” said Kira, “and tell her we left a valuable medicine in our bags in her room—a red bottle, wedge-shaped, with a green ring around the lid.” It was an antibiotic, but this man didn’t need to know that; she just needed to draw him away. The man nodded and ran off, and Kira struggled on. She reached the next building, and now there were more people around, adults and children. Just a hundred feet, she thought. We’re almost there. A few of the people asked about Samm, their faces concerned, and Kira did her best to play it off without attracting more attention, but the crowd began to grow.

“What’s wrong?”

“Where are you going?”

“What’s happening?”

And then another voice, in the distance behind them. “Stop them!” The crowd looked up, confused. Kira pushed through them. “Stop them!” the voice cried again, and Kira recognized it as Vale. She kept walking, struggling to keep Samm from falling. A woman in the crowd grabbed her arm.

“Dr. Vale wants you to stop,” she said.

Kira drew her gun, and the woman backed off quickly. “Dr. Vale wants to kill us. Just let us leave.” Only fifty feet.

The woman retreated, hands up, and Kira crept forward, hunched far to the side to keep Samm’s weight centered over her. She clung to him with one hand, dragging him forward and warding off the crowd with her gun. She stole a glance behind her and saw Vale approaching with a group of armed hunters.

Samm groaned, groggy but awake. “Where are we?”

“We’re in bad trouble,” said Kira. “Can you walk?”

“What’s going on?”

“Just trust me. Wake up.”

“Stop them!” shouted Vale again. “They’re spies, come to destroy the Preserve.”

“We’re leaving,” said Kira through clenched teeth, struggling step by step for the open gate. Samm was still leaning on her heavily, trying to walk but too unsteady to do it effectively. The townsfolk hadn’t stepped in to stop her, still wondering what to do. “Just let us go.”

“Let them go and they’ll return with a thousand more like them,” said Vale. “They’re Partials.”

Samm’s speech was slurred. “So the recon trip didn’t go as planned?”

“You’re not helping,” said Kira. “Can you walk yet?”

Samm tried to stand up, reeling slightly, and fell back onto Kira’s shoulder. “Not well.”

“Is it true?” asked a voice. Kira turned to see Phan, and the look of betrayal on his face struck Kira through the heart.

“I’m a person,” she said. “The Partials—”

“The Partials destroyed the world,” said Vale, catching up to them. “And now they’re here, trying to finish the job.”

“You’re lying,” Kira hissed. “You destroyed it, and now you’re living in a fantasy, trying to pretend like the past never happened.”

“Don’t listen to their deceptions,” said Vale.