My eyes flick to Clay up front. There’s a puffy, red lump where my knuckles mashed his jaw. He sits ramrod straight, tightened fist in his lap. He’s worked up, though I’m not sure if it’s Hatch or his dad or me. He deserved the punch. He put me in that hospital where I was almost raped and used for birthing experiments. And now he’s here with his father. They saved me from plan B, but whatever the Sheriff’s got in mind can’t be much better.

I watch Albuquerque, or what’s left of it, zoom past as we drive by. Ethan stares up at the angling buildings, their windowless sides tracking up higher into the sky than any he’s ever seen. “Did people live way up there?” he asks, his eyes on a battered skyscraper.

I nod. Ethan stares upward, his mouth open. My eyes are on the dark doorways, the abandoned cars, the empty parking lots with garbage skittering like crumpled animals. Every now and then we see vagabonds with dark vacant eyes and tattered clothes living in abandoned buildings. Occasionally we see people with matching shoes, full sets of teeth. There’s one benefit to the Breeder’s hospital. They’ve created jobs, income and a sustainable place to cluster around. Some of the buildings show signs of repair: boarded-up windows instead of gaping holes, swept sidewalks, cars that might actually run. We drive past what must’ve been a park, with decrepit benches, tall branching trees and a large grassy field. Vendors have set up booths made of recycled material. Ethan points at a vendor selling both scavenged office furniture and handmade items, chairs pieced together with plywood and two-by-fours, tables molded out of street signs and rusted rebar. The delicious smell of cooked meat wafts in the open window. A man ladles stew out of a large vat, spewing steam into the air. It makes me think about all we’ve lost as a civilization. How so much seemed to fall away when the population tanked and we were reduced to basic survival. As Auntie always said, “Leave men to their own devices and this is what you get.” Maybe the Breeders will bring some civilization to our uncivilized world after all. Too bad they’re willing to sacrifice human life for progress.