“Bioweapon!” he screamed. “Fall back, fall back!” He practically tripped over himself trying to get away from the sick, blistered baby. Isolde wrapped her arms around the child and turned away; the soldiers scrambled for the door they came through; Kessler surged forward, shouting for them to stay, that it was all right, and a terrified Partial shot her in the chest. The shot was like a signal for the world to go mad, and in a heartbeat the entire room was filled with gunfire, Partials roaring the retreat, Ariel’s group diving for cover and scrambling for their weapons. Bullets and shrapnel flew through the air, bouncing off pots and pans and showering the room in dust and plaster. Ariel drew her pistol and dropped to the cover of the central counter, firing into the wall of Partials without even pausing to aim. Xochi went down, and Nandita beside her, but Ariel couldn’t see if they’d been hit or were simply hiding. Isolde ran for the back door, Hobb roaring a warning and shielding her with his body. Two tufts of red flew up from his back, and he shoved the mother and child out into the storm.

Chapter Thirty-five

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Green and the other soldiers wanted to move quickly, hoping to travel another mile before nightfall, but Kira insisted that they bury the two Ivies. She had killed several of them by now, but this one had shaken her. They took the bodies to the nearest residential street, found a pair of shovels in the shed of a small, blocky home, and spent an hour digging a hole: first through the snow, nearly three feet high and frozen into hard-packed ice, and then through the stiff, unyielding soil below. Commander Woolf said a few words, and then Green and Falin performed a Partial ritual Kira had never seen before: They fanned at the body, spreading the link data of DEATH out into the air. If there were other Partials in the area it would give away their position, but Kira didn’t bring that up. It was obviously important to them.

Marcus and Woolf were traveling with a group of forty-seven refugees, including a soldier named Galen. They traveled as far as they could that night, exchanging stories along the way: Marcus and Woolf told of their excursion up to Trimble’s stronghold; Kira told of her journey out west, and of her eventual revelation about the dual cure for RM and expiration. That night they camped in a high school auditorium, tearing down the tall, moth-eaten curtains to build a series of smaller tents among the old rows of chairs. The auditorium had no exterior windows or walls, which helped keep the brutal cold at bay, and the tents helped trap their body heat where it could do the most good. Kira crawled into a small tent with Marcus and Woolf to discuss their plans.