“Devi’s a friend. Well, more like the irritating girlfriend of a friend. She only speaks in commands and seems to think she’s the boss of the whole world, but she comes with the territory, and she carries her weight, so what can you do?”

I unzipped my bag and picked up two cans, but Finn rolled his eyes and snatched the satchel from me. “You’re not going back to school, so this is all worthless.” He turned my backpack upside down and dumped all my textbooks and notebooks onto the grimy floor.

A surprising bolt of disappointment shot through me at the realization that he was right.

I dropped the first two cans into my empty bag, trying to find points of commonality between my life before I’d killed my mother and this new existence on the run with dangerous abilities I didn’t yet understand and a beautiful green-eyed boy I didn’t really know. But I couldn’t find any. The before and after halves of my life seemed to have nothing in common except me.

And Melanie. She was still my sister, even if my mother wasn’t really my mother and my school was no longer my school and my future was now a huge question mark scribbled over the path I’d always assumed my life would take.

I couldn’t leave her.

“Where are we going?” I dropped two more cans into my bag, then picked up another two without glancing at the labels.

“Today? To our current home base. It’s much more comfortable, and it has running water and a functioning bathroom.”

Good. I’d been trying to ignore the pressure in my bladder ever since I woke up. “And after that?”

Finn shrugged. “We don’t have an agenda, but we’ll stay in the area long enough to hunt down most of the degenerates scenting you, unless the Church gets too close to finding us.”

I wouldn’t leave Melanie, even if that happened.

I zipped my full bag and stood, mentally preparing myself for how heavy it’d be, and was surprised when I lifted it with very little effort. Did the increase in my strength mean the degenerates were getting closer?

When I turned to Finn, I found his little campsite virtually gone. He’d managed to fit most of his equipment into that one huge duffel.

“Where did you get all that, anyway?” I waved one hand at the pillows and cans remaining.

“I…um…I’m pretty good with acquisitions. I’ll show you later.” He threw the bulging bag over his shoulder with as little effort as I’d needed to lift my satchel. “Ready? Devi and Reese should be here any minute, and hopefully they’ve thinned out the horde a little on the way.”