“There you go. Look, I also think they’re lying to us about the radiation—I’ve got a lump that keeps reminding me of that, and it’s got me petrified. So for the good of everyone, it’s time to follow your lead on the football field and switch from defense to offense.”

We were driving through the woods now, with sunlight rays diffused by the branches making funky patterns on the road.

“I hear what you’re saying about the radiation,” Jordan said, “but the workers at the power plant don’t seem to be dying, and they would’ve been exposed to the most radiation. I’ve only seen my dad once since we got back to town, and he’s fine.”

“Aside from his personality being totally altered.”

“Well, yeah, there’s that.”

I sped around a curve and suddenly was blinded by a blast of brilliant white lights. I slammed on the brakes and shielded my eyes.

“Get out of the vehicle with your hands up!” came a voice through a bullhorn.

Four large banks of floodlights, the kind used on construction sites, were directed at the car, and I could see nothing beyond their glare.

“This is your final warning,” the bullhorn announced. “Exit now, or we will shoot.”

CHAPTER 29

Maggie

THE LIGHTS WERE too bright for me to see whether guns actually had been drawn on us. I’d never had a gun pointed at me, at least as far as I knew. I didn’t think they’d actually shoot us, but still, this was terrifying. And infuriating.

It was just another day at the office for the soldiers, though. They dismissed us like we were meddling brats from Scooby-Doo, even as I shot them looks that, if they could kill, would have landed me in the clink. Jordan and I were ordered into a Jeep back seat, and two soldiers took us to my house while another pair drove back the Malibu.

Mom answered the door with deep rings under her eyes. She’d been out for so much of the night and no doubt hadn’t expected to return to an empty house with the car missing. Her expression now combined relief with deep irritation.

“Oh, for goodness’ sake,” she said. I loved that she still used phrases like “for goodness’ sake.”

I hadn’t actually calmed down—I didn’t appreciate being treated like a toddler getting plopped back into a Pack ’n Play—but as I opened my mouth, the lieutenant, a doppelganger for Louis Gossett Jr. in An Officer and a Gentleman (which Jordan had chosen for us to watch a while back—maybe he thought he’d sweep me off my feet like I was Debra Winger, though I thought Richard Gere was kind of smarmy), stepped forward and asked, “Is this your child?”

“I am not a—” I started, but Mom put up her hand to silence me.

“Yes, officer, thank you,” she said.

“These kids bypassed the checkpoint at the edge of town, and we were forced to intercept them. Your daughter said they needed to get to the military hospital, and we informed her that it had been closed down since the evacuation was terminated.”