“Damn, girl!” I said.

“I, for one, am not trying real hard to be the shepherd,” she said, aiming a wink at me and the gun at my father’s rear end.

I felt Dad’s weight slowly lift off me.

He smiled—a mirthless, mechanical smile. “Despite what happens to me, I hope you will soon be convinced of the futility of your situation,” he said.

“The only thing you’ve convinced me of is that I’ll never cooperate with Ishango,” I said. “I’ll throw myself off Mount Hope before I let her use me.”

I reached my hand toward Maggie, and she handed me the gun.

Was that uncertainty I saw flickering in his eyes? Was there a trace of my father in there after all?

“I’m sorry, Dad,” I whispered. “I love you, but Maggie’s more family to me than you are now.”

I tightened my grip on the gun.

I wasn’t sure I could do this. But I had to.

With a swift movement, I pistol-whipped him in the back of the head, below the curve of the skull. It was the spot where I’d seen the implant in my own brain. My hope was that a blow this hard might dislodge his implant the way it had shifted mine—without killing him.

With a groan, Dad fell heavily onto his knees, then pitched forward onto the ground.

I knelt beside him and felt for a pulse. It was there. Relief washed over me. In spite of what he’d become, I could never forgive myself for killing my father. And he was my father. If there was any chance of removing the implant, I had to keep him alive. Charlie needed a dad, too.

I ran back to Dr. Gooding, with Maggie two steps ahead of me. “How’s she doing?” I asked.

“We need to get her to a hospital.”

“Bud …” Maggie’s mom rasped, then grimaced in severe pain.

“What about you?” Maggie asked me.

“I’m fine,” I said. “Hardly even bleeding.” I wiped my hand over my brow and felt a smear of blood left there.

“Right,” Maggie said.

“Well, my hand is a bit messed up, but my rib and that whole area seem strangely okay. Wanna see?”

I started to lift my shirt to admire the small, burning puncture wound beneath my chest, but Maggie was back with her mom.

“I got her,” I said, and hoisted Dr. Gooding in my arms. We headed down the trail slowly, stepping over the wide fissure in the ground. Maggie carried the bag of explosives with delicate fingers. “Our best bet is the hospital at the sick camp. We’ll ram through the barricade again if we have to.”

“Okay,” Maggie said in a small voice. Then louder: “Or we could try going through the woods. Canville’s just ten miles away.”

Then came another voice: “You forget your—ah—movements are being tracked, Rho.”

Fuck.

As quickly and gently as I could, I put Dr. Gooding down and scanned the trees for that former human, whose voice had seemed to come from everywhere. My ears strained to hear a twig snapping, a leaf brushing—anything to clue me in to where he was.