Or I should say the last chance you’ve got. I don’t know what will happen to me, but judging from those kids I saw floating on the metal slabs, it won’t be good. If the Harvesters find out who I am, it’ll be even worse.

I can hear leaves crunching just beyond the front door. The Drones, taking their final turn around the house. They’re coming. They’re coming for me.

I only have time to scribble a warning on the front cover of my notepad. Please read this whole account and read it well.

Good-bye and good luck.

We’re counting on you.

Epilogue

EPILOGUE

The document you are reading does not—cannot—exist. If you’re reading this, your life is at risk. Or I should say your life is at even greater risk than it was already. I’m sorry to burden you with this. I don’t wish you the kind of harm that came to me and the others from Creek’s Cause. This is what I’ve managed to piece together since it all began. I wrote it down knowing that words are more powerful than bullets—and certainly more dangerous. All is probably lost already.

But maybe, just maybe, these pages will give you a chance.

I hope you’re up to it.

NEXT: WHO WILL SURVIVE FOR THEIR …

LAST CHANCE?

Acknowledgments

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My thanks go to:

—Lisa Erbach Vance of the Aaron M. Priest Literary Agency, for whom I’ve run out of superlatives.

—Trevor Astbury, Rob Kenneally, Peter Micelli, and Michelle Weiner, my extraordinary team at CAA. What a job they’ve done for me.

—Marc H. Glick and Stephen F. Breimer, my expert counsel. Twenty years, boys.

—Melissa Frain, my delightful, insightful editor.

—Kathleen Doherty, my publisher, and Ali Fisher and Amy Stapp, also of Tor Teen, for their terrific support.

—Maureen Sugden, my erudite copyeditor, who slays with wit.

—Mark Sullivan, who taught Chance how to get off that shot with a Ruger M77 Hawkeye.

—Melissa Hurwitz, M.D., and Bret Nelson, M.D., for reading early and helping me make the implausible plausible.

—Christi Goodman, for generously helping me color my fictional setting.

—Dana Kaye, my astute and tenacious publicist.

—Delinah, Rose, and Natalie, for making my life outside my stories as vivid, unpredictable, and rewarding as what goes down inside them.

—My parents, for filling my childhood with the ingredients that give rise to imagination.

*No Rhodesian ridgebacks were harmed in the writing of this book, or Simba and Cairo would have had something to say about it. They are loyalty and goodness personified. Pretty impressive when you consider that they don’t even have opposable thumbs.

About the Author

ABOUT THE AUTHOR