Kira struggled through the snow, clinging to the stretcher they’d rigged to help carry Green. The Partial army was too close, and the night too cold; if they stopped they’d be cut down, or freeze to death, and so they kept walking, step after step, inch after inch, while their feet bled in their shoes and their hands froze in their gloves and the relentless storm howled around them. One mile. Two miles. Five miles. Soon almost everyone was pulling a stretcher, each one cobbled together from whatever they could find in the frozen houses on the side of the road: brooms and mops and shirts and dresses. They draped the stretchers with blankets, trying to keep the injured from freezing, and relied on their own exertion to save themselves.

On the sixth mile after the last blown bridge they were hailed by the first line of defense along the Rockaway peninsula. The land here was barely a thousand feet across from ocean to bay, and the tattered remnants of the Defense Grid were dug into homes and makeshift bunkers, headquartered in an old public school. They brought the refugees there and lit fires to warm them, pulling out all their stock of food and water. Another thirty people had died of hypothermia, and one man’s feet were blackened and dead from frostbite. Kira let the soldiers help and crawled into a corner under a dry blanket to collapse into sleep.

When she woke the next day she was shocked to still be alive.

Despite the early morning light indicating the new day, her exhausted body told her she’d only been asleep a few hours. Kira forced herself up and over to the meager fire, where she held her freezing hands up to the scant heat, wondering if she would ever feel truly warm again, then sought out the leader of the outpost. He was an older man, grizzled and weary, who introduced himself as David.

“Kira Walker,” said Kira, shaking his hand. She saw the shadow of recognition in his eyes and nodded. “Yeah, that one. Has the Partial army caught up to us?”

David shook his head. “We’ve been watching all night for them, and we have snipers and IEDs—improvised explosive devices—along the peninsula, but there’s no sign.”

“They’re probably massing for a major assault,” said Kira.

“Or defending their rear flank,” said David. “Tovar and Mkele are still out there, with whatever’s left of the resistance, and they might still be buying us the time to escape.”