The train rocks. It’s not going anywhere near as fast as the trains Malorie took in the old world. It feels more like she’s riding a bike. Yet, for someone who hasn’t even ridden a bike in sixteen years, the motion is alarming. She has questions. Should she ask them? It’s dangerous enough that she’s brought the teens this far. In fact, it’s downright insane. Now that’s she’s here, on board, swaying with the motion, listening to the whining wheels, facing a stranger in a hall she cannot see, a stranger who, she assumes, does not wear a fold, who looks directly at her, it’s not hard to count this as the single most unsafe thing she’s ever done.

There is no good or bad anymore.

Only safe or—

“Just a car,” she says again. “That’s all.”

Dean claps his hands together.

“Okay. I get it. Follow me and I’ll show you the first available one.”

“Is there one right here in this car?”

“No,” Dean says. “We’re standing in one of the storage cars. As glamorous as you can imagine. Come this way.”

He moves and she follows. She can feel the energy of the teens behind her as if they are bridled horses, waiting to be freed. Both, she knows, must be out of their heads with curiosity. Tom has tried, over time, to invent other modes of travel. At Camp Yadin he fashioned a wheelbarrow into something of a padded rolling chair. It strikes Malorie now that Tom’s silly invention feels safer to her than this giant, swaying machine.

Yet Dean does sound smart. This means something to her. And while smart does not beget safe, it’s better than the alternative.

“How can you be sure the tracks are clear?” she asks.

She thinks she can hear Dean smile.

Is she really on a train? Can this be?

“I’m telling you, let’s sit down in the dining car. There are so many exciting answers for all the questions you’re asking. I mean, think about it…” He stops walking, and Malorie nearly bumps into him when he speaks again. “Wait. I didn’t even ask your names yet.”

Malorie can almost feel the words crawling up the throats of her teens.

“I’m Jill,” she says first. “And this is John and Jamie.”

“How old are you, John?”

“He’s twenty.”

She thinks she hears something like a smile on Dean’s face again. He knows she’s lying. But she doesn’t care. She wants to get to a car. Close the door. Lock it.

Sam and Mary Walsh.

“And you, Jamie?” Dean asks.

“She’s twenty-one,” Malorie says.

“A great age. Any age is a good one in this world. It means you’ve survived.”

They walk. The train sways. Malorie imagines a black landscape passing, gradations of darkness, a world she and her teens will never see.