Grayson gestured for me to drink my juice. “You’re a deep sleeper.”

“I’m not normally.” I took a sip, and my mouth puckered.

“It’s your transition.” Maddock zipped the backpack and set it on a chair at the table. “I think you just slept off the last of it.”

“Thank goodness.” I drank more juice. The pulp was growing on me.

Devi came out of the nearest bedroom, carrying two more backpacks by their handles. “You snore, and you have bedhead.”

“I don’t snore.” Bedhead was a definite possibility.

Grayson laughed. “Finn says you do but it’s cute.”

“It’s not cute.” Devi handed the bags to Maddock, then headed back into the bedroom.

I drained my glass and ran my hands through my morning hair. “Where is Finn?”

“Um…” Grayson’s gaze trailed slowly back and forth across the living room. “He seems to be pacing.” She turned back to me and took my empty glass. “Today he’s more frustrated than usual by his inability to interact with the world. I think he wants to talk to you.”

“Wait, you can hear him? How?” I stared at the empty living room, but I had no idea where I was supposed to be looking.

Grayson shrugged.

“She can hear things the rest of us can’t.” Devi crossed the living room with a stack of clothing. “Like degenerates. And Finn.”

“I hear him like he’s talking from inside my head,” Grayson clarified. “Like I’m hearing his thoughts, but only the ones he wants me to hear. It’s different with the degenerates, though. I can feel them when they get close enough.”

“Weird.”

She stood with my empty glass. “Maddy can hear him too.”

I turned to Maddock, fascinated.

He nodded. “Yeah, but not like Gray does. I actually hear Finn, like I hear you. As if he’s standing right next to me.” He frowned and dropped another can into a new bag. “Or shouting from the other room, as he’s doing right now.”

“Make yourself useful.” Devi emerged from the bathroom and shoved a toiletry bag at me. It was nearly full of half-used tubes of toothpaste, rolls of floss, and sticks of deodorant. “Take everything we could possibly use in the badlands. We can’t risk breaching another town until we’re no longer a national headline.”

I stood, suddenly relieved to realize I’d slept fully clothed. “Wait, you’re leaving? Today?”

“We’re leaving,” Maddock corrected. “You have to come with us, Nina. If you stay here, they’ll find you. They’ve locked down the town and they’re patrolling the wall. Our only chance to get out is during the press conference.”

“Which is where these come in,” Devi added from the bedroom doorway, where she held a white school blouse in one hand and a pair of navy slacks in the other. “The daughter’s closet is full of old school clothes, which should help us blend into the crowd on the way to the south gate.”

“What crowd?” I set the toiletry bag on the bathroom counter and dropped a bottle of acetaminophen into it.