“Wait until it’s properly dark. Wait until there’s not as many soldiers looking for us. If I’m right, we’re just inside the surveillance scanner, so we should be safe.”

“And if you’re wrong?” I ask.

“Mosquitoes will find us in about five minutes.”

“We should’ve taken Apple-Moth with us,” I say.

“Yeah, right,” Sam laughs. “That stupid thing would draw attention to us in a heartbeat.”

I smile, remembering the drone’s irritating voice and enthusiastic personality that refused to be wiped out.

And then something occurs to me: We’ve been traveling toward the center of the city.

“How far are we from the financial district?” I ask.

“About four miles that way,” she says, pointing to one side of the cold room.

“Right,” I say, staring at the wall as though I can see right through it, all the way to where Molly is.

I think about leaving, about sprinting all the way to the financial district, making my way to the hidden vault and finding my sister, but the sound of soldiers swarming the streets tells me that I’d not only be captured immediately, but they’d find Sam too.

“You okay?” Sam asks. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”

I smile and half laugh. “I have so many things on my mind,” I tell her.

“The end of the world will do that to you,” Sam replies, smiling back. She reaches into a faded old box and pulls out a cardboard tube. She opens it up and produces a bottle of whiskey.

“Go get two of those glasses from the bar,” she says. “We’re going to be here awhile.”

“What? We can’t drink, we have to stay alert. And you’re preg—” I stop myself as Sam’s eyes narrow. “Yeah, all right, we could have one, I suppose.”

I move quietly to the bar and grab two dusty glasses from a shelf. I find a packet of old dishcloths, take a relatively clean one from the middle of the bundle, and use it to wipe the grimy glasses inside and out.

I take them back to Sam, who pours a generous measure of the ancient whiskey into each glass.

“You go first,” she says, looking suspiciously at the amber liquid.

I hesitantly hold the glass up to my nose and smell the alcohol. It’s sharp, but not at all unpleasant. It’s like burnt wood and strong coffee. I take a sip and it lights up my mouth. My tongue feels at once hot and cold; the alcohol surrounds my teeth and clings to the inside of my cheeks.

“Whoa,” I choke out, my voice sounding like I have Drygate flu.

“Good whoa, or bad whoa?” Sam asks.

“It’s pretty good,” I say, my voice still hoarse. I steel myself and take another sip.