Maggie guided the car around a curve, a sliver of pink becoming visible on the horizon.

“Could be worse,” she said. “Could be raining.”

I couldn’t remember ever seeing the sunrise without having slept first. The road hummed, and I felt myself drifting off. Wait … I didn’t want to dream about the scientist again. I tried to will my eyes back open, but they no longer would obey. They were done, and so was I.

CHAPTER 28

Maggie

NOT LONG AFTER I pulled away from our house and heard enough of Jordan’s ramblings about the monster scientist with the sword that sprang out of his arm, I audibled, as Jordan would say. Mount Hope isn’t huge, but it’s spread out across many acres of farmland, and trying to find my mom among the farms could be frustrating and ultimately futile. And what would she do when we found her? She couldn’t treat Jordan at the spot; we’d still have to come home—and that was assuming she wasn’t in the middle of some precarious situation involving dangerous animals.

No, Jordan needed immediate help. He needed to get to the hospital.

I reached the roadblock sooner than expected. The sky was beginning to glow, though the sun hadn’t peeked out yet. An olive-green truck blocked the left lane, and a plastic red-and-white barricade stretched across the right. Beyond the truck, I could see what looked like a major operation: civilian tractor-trailers being unloaded and their contents getting stacked and moved by several forklifts.

Six riflemen milled around the roadblock, and one held up his hand as we rolled toward it. I stopped, and he walked up to my window.

“The road is closed,” he said. His rifle hung over his shoulder and neck, and on his upper arm was a black band with the white letters MP for military police. He looked to be about nineteen, skinny, pale, with a wheat-colored caterpillar mustache no doubt intended to compensate for his baby face, though it just made him look like he was playing dress-up.

“I’ve got to get my friend to the hospital,” I insisted, nodding toward my sleeping, bandaged companion. I sent out a silent prayer that he wouldn’t wake up and freak out upon seeing more military personnel.

“The hospital is inaccessible right now,” the rifleman said blankly. “The road is under construction.”

“Can you take him, then?” I asked. “He’s been cut bad, and infection has set in.”

He was shaking his head before I’d even finished my sentence. “You can get antibiotics at the pharmacy in town, and there’s a veterinarian in town that could give him stitches.”

“That veterinarian is my mother, so, no, he needs more than that,” I said, getting heated. “I know people who went to the army hospital two days ago, and—”

“They were flown by helicopter.”

“Okay, he’ll take a helicopter, then.”

The rifleman said nothing.

“Explain this to me,” I said, feeling my cheeks flush. “There’s no contamination from the power plant. That’s what we’ve all been told repeatedly. No radiation, no nothing. So why are we still quarantined?”