I make my way back to the Black Road Vertical, moving carefully, quietly, from building to building, listening for movement, watching for signs of life. I make it safely back to the impossibly tall building and begin climbing the stairs. Now, with the added weight of the food on my back, I have to take several rests along the way. Once I reach the 177th floor, I leave the bag at the front door of our apartment, and carry on up to the roof.

It’s strange being back up here, back where my sister and I stood in shocked silence as the boy had fallen to his death. It had been Molly who had pushed him. She’d had no choice—he had a gun pointed at her head—but self-defense wouldn’t have worked in a court of law, as it was us who were robbing him in the first place.

I had taken the blame; I had confessed to the murder of Jayden Roth and had been sentenced to death.

That’s where it all began, I think to myself, staring at the spot where the boy had fallen. I was sent to the Loop, became a test subject for the Smiler vaccine, and I survived the war.

I look to the other side of the rooftop, the place where my father—infected by the Smiler disease—used his last reserves of life to tackle one of Happy’s hosts off the edge and save my life.

Defeating Happy came at a high cost.

I can feel the surge of emotion inside me and I fight it, push it down and away, and focus instead on the garden.

It had taken two days of almost constant work to carry up the wood that makes the frame of the garden and the soil that fills the frame. I had planted carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, and green beans. There are signs of life, small shoots growing out of the tomato patch and tiny leaves sticking out of the soil where the carrots are.

I use the bucket to scoop the smallest amount of water I feel I can spare out of the rain collector and pour it onto the vegetables.

When is it going to happen? I think, looking out over the city, breathing in the warm air. When is it going to happen?

I think back to the Block, the most torturous, cruel, agonizing place I have ever had the misfortune of being inside, and I think about how I got out of there. Has it really been twenty days? Twenty days since the explosion, since the gunfire, since the screams and yells? The entire building had been bombed by Pod and Igby. They had calculated the exact amount of explosives required to blow away the back wall and leave the prisoners alive. Then they—along with Pander, Akimi, and my sister—had stormed the building, killing the guards and dragging us from the paralysis beds.