It was well into the afternoon when the floor hatch opened and Donovan helped them out. They were inside some kind of warehouse space, and they weren’t alone.

“Welcome to the United States,” a woman yelled. She had a machine gun slung over her shoulder. Two younger men stood beside her, each with an automatic rifle.

Rose shook her legs awake and jumped down from the bed. “Nice guns, jeez.”

“We’re gonna take you to a safe house. You can stay there for a few days, then we’ll get you farther in, into a neutral zone,” the woman continued, reaching to give Nam a hand down.

“Neutral zone?” Nam repeated.

“Well, that name’s a little deceiving. No place is really neutral right now, but they’re parts of the country that are not seeing much violence. We should give them a better name, but ‘a slim shot in hell’ is a little too long.” She smiled. Her front tooth was gold.

They all sat down for sandwiches and coffee before Donovan left again, tipping his greasy baseball hat at his travelers. “Good luck.”

“Thank you,” Rose called after him as he climbed back into the driver’s seat and the gates were opened so he could leave, off to deliver non-Native goods for non-Native people now that the Natives were handed over.

“Come, sit, finish.” The woman with the gold tooth waved them back to the picnic table. “We should talk about where it is exactly that you’d prefer to go, which zone, if you end up having a choice.”

She refilled their cups with strong coffee and was opening a tin of cookies when a new man, this one older and dressed in all black like the rest of them, burst in a back door.

“Fi, we got a report in!” He waved a piece of paper and jogged over.

“From the border incident?”

“Yup.” He handed her the page and bent over with his hands on his knees to catch his breath.

“What’s it say?” Rose was on her feet.

The woman read in silence.

“What the hell does it say?!” Rose felt that same panic from the barn.

The woman, Fi, looked up at her, took in her anxiety, weighed her options, and told her the truth. “A group of travelers, including a pregnant woman, were taken by one of the vigilante groups around here.”

“Oh my god,” Rose gasped. “That’s Wab. It’s them. Where are they? Where did they take them?”

“Relax, Rambo,” Fi said, reading the rest of the page. “Ah, shit.”

“What?”

“Says here the Canadian government has sent officials over to repatriate them.”

“Repatriate them?” Nam asked, confused.

“They’re coming to take them back,” Rose answered, plopping back down on the wooden seat. “To take them to the schools.” It took her a minute to regroup. “Are the Recruiters here yet?”

“Uh…they are expected to cross over tonight, a few hours from now,” Fi said.

“You asked where we want to go, right?” Rose leaned across the tabletop.