“Looks like you guys had quite a hike,” said the rescuer, a rugged, husky-voiced twenty-something woman with her hair pulled back in a tight ponytail beneath her baseball cap.

“We sure did,” I said as I took a seat next to Jordan. “We—”

Jordan’s raised eyebrows stopped me. He was right: We’d never finish the story by the time we landed, and casually fessing up to destroying the mountain and the town’s nuclear plant might not be the wisest move. We’d already had to explain Mom’s gunshot wound: something about an errant hunter’s bullet fired during the cliffside’s collapse. The rescuer, Brianna, had her hands full and didn’t bother asking more questions.

I took Jordan’s hand, which, like mine, had Mom’s blood on it.

“This is it,” I said, leaning in to his ear so I could be heard over the helicopter’s roar as we flew over fields and country roads that led far away from Mount Hope.

“This is what?”

“Well, what are the odds of us ending up in the same place?”

He laughed. “Are you trying to get rid of me?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just saying, after your dad’s implant is removed, you two will reunite with your mom and Charlie while I’ll probably go to my mom’s sister’s place in Texas.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of assumptions right there. You think my dad’s implant will be so easily removed? And why wouldn’t you keep living with your mom?”

“Oh, I plan on living with my mom—and maybe Bud Winkle, too,” I said, and mock gagged. “But I suspect it won’t be in Mount Hope anymore. Same goes for you all. Look.”

Those same roads along which we’d all convoyed back into town weeks earlier were full again with cars headed in the opposite direction. But this was no orderly retreat with the military and police acting as crossing guards every block; these people were gunning it, getting the hell out of Dodge, riding the shoulders, and taking their ATVs over fields when necessary. From what I could tell from the lines of fast-moving traffic, these drivers weren’t stopping at nearby camps, either, but going pedal-to-the-metal until they reached the real outside world. Civilization at last.

“The Evacuation, Part Deux,” Jordan said.

“The last sequel, I hope.”

“Yeah,” he said. “Still, I bet all of us will wind up back at that sick camp. Maybe we’ll find my mom there. I hope she’s healed by now.”

“Excuse me!” I shouted over the rotors to Brianna. “Are you taking us to the sick camp?”

“Those were my orders at first,” she replied. “But with your mom’s gunshot wound, I insisted on taking her and these other gentlemen to the hospital in Charleston. At first I heard some argument, then nothing, so here we go.”

“Thanks!” I replied.

“What she said,” Jordan added.

The two of us faced each other again.

“So who knows?” he said.

“Exactly.”

“Well,” he continued, “we survived a year apart once—and I’m guessing this time Ishango won’t be cutting off our access to cellular technology and that thing known as the internet. We may be apart for a few months, but we’ll be able to travel this time and go wherever we want, right? And I’ll want to be where you are.”