“There,” said Xochi, and they broke into a run. A long white dock stretched out from the shore, beaten by the elements until it was practically driftwood, and at the end bobbed a wide motorboat with a tattered canvas awning. Jayden leaped in, looking in the dashboard compartments for a set of keys, while Samm searched the dock itself for extra tanks of gas. Neither found anything, and they cursed and ran to the next house along the shore. This one had a small sailboat, which none of them could pilot, but it had a small motor, and the keys were in the ignition. The engine turned over on the seventh try. Samm found gas cans, but they were empty.

“You’ll need extra just in case,” he said. “We’re much farther east than our last crossing, and the sound here is two or three times as wide.”

He took the cans toward the house, ready to take gas from the cars, but Kira stopped him. “What do you mean, you’ll need gas?” she asked. “You’re not coming?”

Samm shook his head, looking out at the water, up at the house, anywhere but at Kira. “Your people will kill me.”

“The Partials will kill you, too,” said Kira. “You’re a traitor now. At least with us you’ll have … something, friends, I don’t know. We can help each other.”

“You’re a wanted terrorist,” he said. “Lot of good we’d do each other.” He began moving toward the house.

She watched him, then looked back at the others. “I’m going to help him with the gas.” Marcus glowered at the dock but said nothing.

Samm and Kira trudged up the short hill to the house, which turned out to be some kind of beachhead resort. The parking lot was filled with cars, one of them even sporting a skeleton, and Samm got to work crawling underneath and puncturing their gas tanks with his knife, letting the degraded, sludgy fuel drip down into the cans. Kira wanted to talk to him, to ask him about what she was—just to say it aloud, I am a Partial, but she didn’t dare. She paced uselessly, hemming and hawing, starting and stopping, so afraid to talk that she could barely even think. Finally she gave up, and she let the old habits take over, eyeing the old cars for anything she could salvage. Most of the cars were packed with luggage—people fleeing the virus? Fleeing the country?—and the tightly sealed suitcases revealed clothes in much better condition than the rags she’d found before. She found clean underwear, rugged jeans that mostly fit, and an armful of shirts and socks that she brought with her just in case.

“So,” said Samm. He was sitting on the ground, the gas cans scattered around him.

Kira paused, holding the clothes. “So.”