“How’s Malik?” I ask, unwilling to take my sights off the road.

“Breathing,” Blaise answers, sparing a glance behind him. He seems reluctant to take his eyes from the windows too.

Up ahead, a beat-up retroreflective sign tells us, “Welcome to Oklahoma.” Blaise reads the tiny print below. “Labor conquers all things.”

“Is that state motto supposed to be encouraging?” I ask, dumbfounded. True, labor has conquered the American spirit. Work or die, basically. But to advertise that?

“It was meant to make migrants believe human labor can overpower anything,” Blaise says, suddenly insightful.

We stare at the uncultivated, unpopulated land.

“Doesn’t seem to have worked.”

The only thing that’s been conquered here is people.

But not us, I give myself a little pep talk. A short stint through the Oklahoma panhandle, and then we’re into the panhandle of Texas.

“We’ll be in Texas in forty-five minutes,” Blaise calculates from the map.

“Okay,” I say. “Okay, we’re okay. The run-flat tires will hold out.”

Another pep talk.

Blaise secures his seat belt, then swivels his chair to face the rear windshield. He’s the new watchman.

“Nothing?” I ask.

“Nothing.”

I strap myself in as well. Forty-four minutes to prepare for the next border crossing. I’ll need every second to recover my wits.

Of course, what little Zen I had going gets blown to bits.

“Headlights!” Blaise yells.

I give three quick flashes to warn the others, and then I kill my own car lights. The Cavalry charges forward, hitting eighty miles per hour on the shoddy dirt road.

“How long until they’re on us?” I say.

“Holy devil, they’re coming up quick!” Blaise shrieks at me. He gets his gun ready. “Tell me again why we offered to be the tail car?”

What do we do? What do we do? We only have one shooter and one driver. Against what?

“It’s definitely a Texas Guard SUV,” Blaise confirms.

“Malik!” I shout, reaching back to shake his knee. “Malik, now’s a good time to wake up, man! We need you!”

Nothing.

Yep, we’re going to be the sacrificial lamb for slaughter.

Just when I think it’s over for us, I hear the roar of a motorcycle.

“Rayla!” I shout. Straddling an antique Triumph, Rayla zooms past our car, straight for the incoming SUV. She doesn’t wear a helmet; the motorcycle’s headlamp is aimed toward the handlebars, lighting up her face.

She wants the Guard to know it’s her. America’s top wanted. She’s luring them to chase her, and not her Cavalry.

“No!” I yell, easing off the gas. “We have to help her!”

“No!” Blaise screams back at me, grabbing hold of my arm, making sure I don’t turn the wheel. “Never veer from the mission! Rayla knows what she’s doing!”

I look through my mirrors. She’s almost on them—she’s so small, a tiny firefly about to be swallowed by a nighthawk.

There’s no way I’ll let her face them on her own.

Before I can take action, Blaise lunges for the controls and punches on the autonomous system.

“Rayla told me not to let you do anything stupid!”

I try to fight him off, but he has twenty pounds on me.

He also has a tranquilizer in his hand. Where the hell did he get that?!

Backstabber! Literally.

The needle pokes into my upper back, and it stings. “Sorry, not sorry,” Blaise jeers.

“Bullshit—” is the last word I think before it’s . . .

Lights out.

ZEE

Governor’s Mansion

5:00 a.m.

That’s what a screen on a tall building says. The sky is still so dark I can’t tell the time. Does the sun ever make it through the buildings here? Skyscrapers, somebody called them.

Civilians in the capital work early and late. Just like Inmates at the Camps. I blend in with ease, walking the paths. Looking for a way in.

I’ve been at this for twelve hours. Up and down the walkways on every side of the mansion. Nothing to show for my work.

Governor Roth’s house is bigger than every Camp Warden’s house times two. A twenty-foot wall circles it like the gates I’m used to. His is see-through. Made from a material I’ve never come across. It doesn’t look like a Common vehicle could break it open.

The general is still in there. General Pierce.

Guards are everywhere. Guns. Drones.

“No stopping!” an electronic voice shouts. “No stopping! Move, move!”

There are more voices coming from the skyscrapers. From the screens, videos playing announcements. Citizens cheer. A woman next to me spits on the ground.

I try to listen. Understand. Learn anything new.

“Presidential nominee Governor Howard Roth hailed as the nation’s savior—”

“. . . inspires citizens everywhere to stand up against the greatest threat to the US since the Great Water Wars—”

“. . . Texas leads the fight to save the country—”

The Wardens told us that Texas was the country. There are more states? How many? Are they all on Governor Roth’s side?

One voice on a screen says Ava’s back inside the US. She could be headed here. Mira isn’t with her; the twins have separated. I don’t like that. It feels wrong.

I was separated from my twin. Why?

Governor Roth.

He’s outside. General Pierce is with him. They walk a path ten feet from his mansion. Thirty feet from his wall.

“He’s come out to greet us!” a man shouts. A handful of civilians run to the wall. They wave. Scream, “President Roth!”

“Stay back!” a Guard shouts.

Two shots go off. It comes from the crowd. They’re aimed for Roth, but the bullets bounce off the see-through wall. They land in the backs of two Guards.

Roth didn’t cower even for one second. He keeps walking. He feels safe. No one can touch him.

The Guards respond with their own gunfire. The screams cover up the voices on the skyscrapers.

We will all receive punishment for those two bullets. That’s the way it works. Even on the outside.

We have to be taught a lesson.

“On the ground, now! Wrists up!” the Guards shout.

Canisters are thrown into the air, chemicals spread across walkways. Women and men fall to the ground, coughing. They protect their faces with hands and shirts.

“I can’t breathe!”

“Present your wrists to be scanned!”

The chemicals burn my eyes and throat. But I’ve felt this pain before. I run.

Behind me, the Guard charges into the civilians. Fully geared. Guns firing. I hear them arrest every civilian in their path.

5:16 a.m.

I get to the back of the mansion. The screams have followed me. The Guards will get many points this morning.

Find a way in. The time is now.

I see a woman on the other side of the see-through wall a short distance away. A small bag hangs from her arm. She wears strange clothes, as many Dallas women do. Shoes with pointed heels. A long black shirt to her knees. It fits tight against her body. How can she run in that?