“Then let’s get going,” said Marcus. “I want to be at least a hundred yards away when Yoon’s giant panther hunts me down like an alley cat.”

Chapter Twenty-nine

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Preserve sat against the base of the Rocky Mountains, on the outskirts of the Denver ruins. Before the Break, the sprawling city had become a megalopolis stretching all the way from Castle Rock to Fort Collins, from Boulder to Bennett. In the years since, it had become an acid-drenched hell, the western edge of the vast poisonous Badlands that consumed the Midwest. Every gutter and depression was filled with cracking salt pans, smoldering phosphorus, or the scattered dust of crystallized bleach. Not a single living plant or animal remained.

Samm and his group set out early in the morning on their journey back to East Meadow—back to bring the humans the cure, and the incredible news that the cure was self-sustaining. He worried about how, if at all, they would convince the humans and Partials to work together, but he supposed their group was a good demonstration: himself, Heron, Ritter, Dwain, and two more recovered Partials named Fergus and Bron; Phan had come with them as well, and Calix on one of their two horses. The Preserve had no horses of its own, just the two that Samm and Heron and Kira had brought with them from New York. Kira had named them, and Samm allowed himself a brief, wistful moment to think of her. The other Partials looked at him, immediately aware of his thoughts through the link. He thought of the horses again, worried about their ability to find food in the Badlands. Calix was riding Bobo, Kira’s horse, and following behind her on a lead was Oddjob, Afa’s curious, disobedient mount, now relegated to a pack animal. He’d always hated being ridden, stubbornly going his own way and ignoring their commands, but he seemed content to follow Bobo. Samm hoped it would last.

Thinking of Oddjob made him think again of Afa, the childlike genius they’d brought with them through the wilderness, the only human on their journey out—and, not coincidentally, the only one who hadn’t made it. He’d been injured in Chicago and finally died in the toxic fields of Colorado. Samm still didn’t know if any human could survive the journey, and Calix was particularly at risk. Her injury made her slower and tied up her body’s resources in healing; if anything happened to her it would slow down the entire group, making them all more vulnerable. Worse still . . . I would miss her, he thought. Afa was my responsibility, but Calix is my friend. If it becomes a question of abandoning her or dying myself . . . I don’t know if I’ll be able to make that choice.