“Are you sure they’re not tracking us?” asked Samm. “They should be going slower than this if they’re stopping to search.”

“They don’t have to search for us, they know where we’re going,” said Xochi, echoing Kira’s thoughts from earlier. “They’re trying to reach the water first.”

“Then we go north,” said Samm. “We need to stay ahead of them.”

“You’re the boss,” said Jayden, but she could tell he didn’t like it. They stuck to the main road now, practically jogging to keep the right pace. The wide street was relatively clear, and they could move quickly even in the dim light. Xochi and Marcus were breathing heavily, struggling to keep up, and Kira was wincing with every other step, feeling lances of pain through her burned leg every time it hit the ground. Soon they heard more engines behind them, getting closer each minute, and the next time Kira turned, she saw lights behind them like glowing eyes.

“Get off the road,” she grunted, and the group dove into the greenery, burying themselves behind tree trunks and kudzu. Three small jeeps roared past, engines snarling like wild animals. Kira counted four or five soldiers in each one.

“They’re not even looking for us,” said Kira.

Marcus leaned out to peer back down the road. “Nothing behind them. You think it’s a coincidence?”

“They’re trying to cut us off,” said Samm. “The only good news is that them being here means we’re probably on the right path.”

“Doesn’t do us any good now,” said Jayden. “We have to go west.”

“We don’t know what’s west of here,” said Kira. “For all we know we’d be running straight into the Grid army. These could just be outriders.”

“It’s smarter to stay on the path northward,” Samm agreed. “At least this way we know what we’re getting into.”

“Okay,” said Marcus, “but we stay in the trees. Now that they’re ahead of us, they could be waiting somewhere and watching the road.”

The trees slowed them down, and they moved almost by feel through the thick woods. Several times they had to cross side streets, and every time Kira held her breath, certain they would hear a cry of alarm, or worse yet a gunshot. Nothing came. When they reached a long stretch of ruins—old shops and offices—they crossed the main road to the far side, sticking to the cover of the woods.

Eventually even those woods thinned, and Kira looked out across a wide expanse of streets and cross streets and flat, empty parking lots. Squat buildings rose up like fat, sagging mushrooms, and the pavement was cracked and dotted with weeds and trees, but even so it was terrifyingly open.

“Another strip mall,” she whispered. “We can’t cross this.”