“That’s Gardiners Avenue,” said Jayden. “We’re very close.” He paused. “How far do you think the wall goes around?”

“It doesn’t make sense to build it here and nowhere else,” said Gianna. “Otherwise they’d just build a fort and guard the intersection.”

“Either way,” said Xochi, “we can sneak past them mid-block somewhere. They can’t have guards along the whole length of it.”

The others agreed, and they picked their way through the overgrown yards of a sprawling residential neighborhood. They worked their way down to a spot halfway between cross streets, and when Kira peeked out through the kudzu-covered fence, she saw that the barricade was lower here—just cars in a line, with no reinforcing boards or boxes. They haven’t had time to finish the whole thing. As if to balance it out, the far side of the street was not a row of houses but a strip mall with a wide parking lot—anyone watching from a post at either intersection would have that much more time to see them as they pelted across the extra open space.

“Curse this wretched island and its strip malls,” said Kira. “Everything on this island is covered with trees—how can there be this much open ground?”

“There’s some underbrush,” said Xochi, “but probably not enough to hide us all the way across.”

“Look down there,” said Gianna, pointing south. “That next clump of soldiers is at least two blocks away. The gap between guards is actually pretty big—when it gets dark, we’ll have a pretty good chance.”

Kira looked south, then north again, gauging the distance. “Flip around the radio and see if you can find what channel that checkpoint is using.”

Gianna started clicking the knob, tic, pause, tic, pause, tic, pause, searching for an active frequency. Each time she heard voices she stopped, listening for street names, and Kira felt a surge of relief when they heard a man mention Gardiners Avenue.

“That’s us,” said Kira, tapping her fingers on the wall. “Keep monitoring all three channels; we’ll set a watch, lie low, and wait for dark.” She peeked back through the fence, sizing up the distances to either guard post. At night, if we stay down, they shouldn’t see us at all.

Each hour that passed, Kira felt her stomach twist further into knots. What am I? Why am I here—and who put me here? Do I have the pheromone? Do I have something worse? A hundred thousand questions swirled madly through her head, and she was desperate for answers. She forced herself to forget them, to think about the task at hand, but that was even worse. When she thought about Madison and Arwen, it was all she could do not to run straight to the hospital. She patted the wrapped syringe on her waist, and forced herself to be patient.