“Can you get me to my son or not? I’m not taking a detour. If you won’t go to Silver City, then land this damn thing and I’ll steal another truck.”

Silver City was hours from her family on a normal day, without inclement weather—which used to mean snow or windstorms. Now it meant volcanic eruptions, earthquakes that python-squeezed the lungs of grown adults and nearly killed children, pieces of painted rock coming to life and attacking … She couldn’t handle anything else. Tears stung her eyes. “Please take me to my aunt’s.”

Chance reached for her hand, squeezed it reassuringly. He whispered, “We’ll find your family, mujer. No te preocupes.”

Calliope’s lips tightened reflexively; she resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He probably meant well, but she didn’t need her bisabuela’s words shoved at her. She never should’ve stopped at that hangar. A sticky sensation, a cracked jar of jelly, settled in her stomach. She couldn’t have seen her dead great grandmother. It must’ve been a delusion. Some trick he’d conjured, whether he’d admit it or not. She pulled her hand away from his.

Amy sighed loudly, exaggeratedly. “Oh-Em-Gee, fine. I’ll take the pregnant lady to her kid. I’m not a monster.” She clicked on the radio. Static. “Problem is, how do we get there? No GPS, no radio. No communications tower. We’re gonna have to old-school this. I’ve always wanted to go all Amelia Earhart. Fly rogue over the black triangle. Anyone have a paper map? They still have those, right? If we can find a map, we should be able to do this. As long as there are no clouds.”

From the crawlspace, a shuffling of papers. A little hand appeared, holding a stack of aeronautical charts. Calliope took the maps from Eunjoo. One was brown and tan, with degrees in angles across the bumpy mountainous terrain. White crosses marked Rattlesnake, Minersville, Aztec, Indian Services, and so on. Calliope had never heard of these places. She looked closer, then held up the map for Amy to see. “What are the areas inside the fuzzy purple lines?”

“I remember now. Yeah, I did learn this.” Amy mumbled something Calliope couldn’t make out, like she was reciting a list. “I think those are FAA controlled airspace. Doesn’t matter to us now, I mean, if no one’s there anyway.”

“The harder purple and blue lines?”

“Military. We could see if there’s any military around.”

His jaw gritted, his face hard, Chance said, “There isn’t.”

Calliope felt a tingling sensation of apprehension, but didn’t ask questions. She just wanted Amy to get them safely on the ground of her tía’s hacienda.

“The compass-looking things on the radio?” Calliope asked.

“Beacons for compass headings. They connect the paths between airports. But we’re not going to an airport …”

“So, what are we looking for?”