Delarosa turned back to the second Partial, pulling the rest of his equipment into a pile beside the first. “Back when it was a work farm, yes. Now it’s just a . . . crime scene. Anyone left alive has scattered.”

“Did you escape in the attack or shoot your way out first?” asked Haru.

“I’m not here to kill humans,” said Delarosa, and stood again, facing him directly. “I was sentenced to a work farm: You’re right. Do you remember what for?”

“For killing a human,” said Marcus. “That kind of undermines your credibility.”

“For doing whatever it takes,” she said. She gestured to one of her companions, similarly cloaked and hooded, and he came to collect the piles of equipment. “We’re facing the extinction of our species,” she said sternly. “That comes before everything else—before kindness, before morality, before law. Things you would never have done twelve years ago aren’t just acceptable now, they’re required. They’re a moral imperative. I will kill a hundred Shaylon Browns before I let the Partials win. I’ll kill a thousand.”

“That’s exactly what I’m talking about,” said Cantona. “That’s the only way we’re going to survive this.”

“If you kill a thousand of your own people, the Partials don’t even have to fight,” said Marcus. “You’re doing their job for them.”

A bird chirped loudly in the forest, and Delarosa looked up. “That’s our cue to leave. Looks like these two had backup.” She ran to the edge of the clearing, but Haru shook his head.

“We’re not going with you.”

“I am,” said Cantona. He grabbed a second rifle from a fallen human soldier. “Come on, Haru, you know she’s right.”

“I’m not abandoning these civilians!”

“Actually,” said one of the farmers, “I think I’m going with her, too.” He was an older man, made lean and leathery from hard labor. He held up his hunting rifle and took a sidearm from a fallen soldier.

Cantona looked at Delarosa, who nodded and looked back at Haru. “We won’t use you as bait again.” She turned and melted into the forest. Her people went with her, then the farmer, and last of all Cantona. He paused, waved, and followed her into the trees.

Marcus looked at Haru, then at Hartley, then at the three remaining farmers. They’d armed themselves with rifles and ammo from the fallen soldiers. “Two of you are wounded?”

“We can walk,” said one of the women, a fierce look on her face.

“That’s great,” said Haru, “but can you run?”

They stopped in a schoolyard, panting with exertion. The pursuing Partials had claimed two more of them, leaving only Marcus, Haru, and two farmers. One of them was wounded, a brown-haired woman named Izzy; she leaned heavily against the wall, eyes closed, her breathing ragged. Haru was out of ammo, and Marcus handed him his last clip.