He should have listened closer to that hopeful shit.

If he was being honest, he hadn’t really bought into his dad’s whole “I’m going to save the quarantine zone!” shtick. A lot of people thought it was only a matter of time before the whole zone revolted and tore down the walls. It was a miracle it hadn’t happened already. They’d been in here for over twenty years.

President Howard had made it clear that he would destroy everyone inside the walls before he let the people inside infect them all.

So. Lennon was going to get sick or he was going to get blown up. Or both!

The ground was approaching faster now. The quarantine zone didn’t care that he hadn’t made a plan or made peace with his terrible options.

There was grass, at least. This would be his first solo landing, and he had a feeling it was not going to go great. At least he wasn’t landing on concrete.

He put his feet together and prayed. He wasn’t religious, but it couldn’t hurt.

His feet touched the ground, and for a hot second he thought he might nail the landing. Then he was rolling and grunting and there was grass in his mouth. He was tangled in his parachute. He had not nailed anything, and for a moment, he was glad that his friends weren’t there to capture it on video.

He finally stopped. He couldn’t see anything but the orange parachute. His body felt numb, panicked, and he didn’t want to move for fear of discovering he’d broken several limbs. It took him a moment to realize that his mouth was still wide-open from screaming. He snapped it shut.

He shifted his arms. They felt fine. He moved his legs. One knee ached, but it was probably just bruised.

Slowly, he crawled out of the parachute.

He stopped with just his head peeking out, bracing both hands on the ground.

Grass and rolling hills. In the distance, he could see an old boarded-up gas station and a two-lane road.

He shrugged off the parachute and stood, turning in a circle. There was no one.

He had no idea if he was in the north or the south. The quarantine zone didn’t have a formal government, just rival gangs that controlled the two halves—the Spencer family in the north and the Lopez family in the south.

He had no idea which to hope for.

It occurred to him suddenly that if there was no one nearby, there was no way for him to catch whatever form of the virus was floating around this place. Maybe if he just stood right here and waited, the military would send a helicopter. There was plenty of space for it to land.

His heart lifted. It wasn’t totally unreasonable. Surely people had seen the plane over the quarantine zone. And the people in here had ways of communicating with the US government. They just chose not to, for the most part.