“I’m as ready as I’ll ever be,” I mumble. Great pep talk.

Don’t people use this time to prep their weapons or something? I rest my hand on the gun Rayla gave me, now stored on my hip, like sharpshooter skills will somehow transfer into me by touching the thing. Rayla taught me how to use it before we hit the road, and I’ve got to be honest, it wasn’t pretty. It’s like my Killer Drone shot was a fluke. Sheer damn luck.

Here’s to hoping my luck doesn’t run out.

I notice Rayla has gone quiet. Not good. Her head’s dipped at a low angle, her focus out the window, searching for the first hint of the capital city.

She’s worried about her granddaughters. Last we heard of them, Ava was being hunted by the Guard in Washington State, and Mira? Well, who the hell knows. She went dark after setting out to find Roth’s son. She could be anywhere.

What if we show up and the safe house is empty?

That won’t be good for anyone.

“They’ll be there,” I say to Rayla, leaning over Blaise.

Rayla doesn’t respond, but I know she heard me.

I just don’t know if she believes me.

When we hit the Dallas suburbs, self-doubt starts to kick in. I’ve never seen so much glass and steel in my life, and I worked at a car factory in Detroit. It’s just building on building on building. There’s no end.

And these are only outlying cities of the big one.

It doesn’t help I’m sweating so much it’s embarrassing. The underarms and back of my shirt are soaked through. Come on, I was born in Georgia, right? Shouldn’t that make me heat resistant, like those cows?

“I need water,” I inform the truck. “I’m dying here.”

But when I comb through my pack, I discover all my water bottles are empty.

“You really need to learn how to conserve,” Blaise says unhelpfully. I swear to Whitman the guy would sit and smile as I slowly died of thirst.

“Take mine,” Kipling offers, handing me his bottle.

“Thank you,” I say to my new best friend, Kip.

I suck down the water like it’s a magical liquid that can turn me into a bulletproof warrior. But you know, I’d settle for just the bulletproof part.

“Downtown Dallas,” Rayla growls.

I follow her sightline out the window. Dang. Still miles away, the looming mega capital is already a spectacle. It’s ginormous. Guardian Tower, the Guard’s HQ, stands out in the mob of high-rises. Well, that’s certainly sobering.

“There’s smoke,” Rayla points out.

To the west, black fumes mushroom out above the distant buildings. Fire or smoke grenades?

Whatever it is, it’s spreading.

“Our side or theirs?” I ask.

“It’s in the sector where our safe house is located,” Rayla says. The Last Stage, the Common’s rendezvous point.

Rayla seizes her pistol and checks the witness hole of her gun’s magazine, counting her bullets. She flips the safety switch to off. “Kipling, you’re up,” Rayla says.

“Yes, ma’am,” Kipling says, veering the semi toward the main highway that leads directly into Dallas. “I’ll have us there in twenty minutes,” he promises.

“Fortitude, everyone,” Rayla says.

Please let my courage hold.

I catch a glimpse in the truck’s side-view mirror and see the other forty Common cars following our lead onto the ramp. No one’s acknowledging the fact that our Common Cavalry’s the only one trying to enter downtown.

This doesn’t bode well.

Blaise and I exchange nervous glances.

“We got this,” he says to me, all dauntless, nodding furiously like a deranged bobblehead.

“Yeah,” I say, feeling a rush of adrenaline from the magic water. Bulletproof. “We got this.”

The skyscrapers come up quick. So this is where Ava and Mira lived? This is where it all began?

And I guess this is where it all will end.

The twenty minutes go by in a wink.

Up close, things don’t look promising.

“The city’s on lockdown.” Rayla says what we all see. The entire downtown is surrounded and blocked off by hefty concrete barriers and ten-foot barbed-wire fences.

“It looks like a scene from the Atlanta Outbreak,” I say. The Georgia capital was full-on quarantined for half a year.

I guess the new epidemic is the Common.

There’s no way in or out.

“Good thing we came ready,” Kipling says, gripping the wheel like a weapon.

The semitruck. It’s not just to hide the bike and my car until we need them. It’s to ram our way through.

Rayla jerks open a small door in the back of the truck’s cabin.

“See y’all on the other side,” Kipling says with a tip of his hat.

“Don’t die,” Blaise tells me by way of goodbye.

“Same to you.” I nod and disappear through the crawl space after Rayla. I worm my way across the short passage and drop into the rattling trailer of the eighteen-wheeler.

Rayla’s already beside the Triumph that’s strapped down by the rear roll-up door. “Hold on to something!” she shouts at me.

Oh, right, we’re about to become a battering ram. Prepare for impact.

The truck rockets forward, and I cling to a metal bar in a casual I-do-this-all-the-time kind of death grip. I just forget to close my mouth. Right as the big rig crashes into the barricade, the force slams my head forward, and my teeth crunch down on my tongue like a steel-jaw trap.

A flash flood of blood jets down my lip.

“You’re already bleeding?” Rayla chides, holding out a glossy black helmet with a tinted visor.

“Same to you,” I say, pointing to the dark spots staining her upper arm. That wound just won’t heal.

She ignores this and coils up her long hair into a ponytail before pulling on her own helmet. One sight of that silvery mane and it’s all over. “Saddle up,” she says, patting the seat behind her.

A last look at my car—Duke’s in good hands with Kipling—and I hop on the bike, locking my arms around her ribcage.

The truck makes a series of jerky turns. I can’t stand not knowing what’s going on out there. I know what should be going on. In the tried-and-true tactic, the Cavalry should be fanning out in all directions, making it hard for the Guard to know which car to chase. Fingers and toes crossed they didn’t target us. Kipling should be searching for a street with no surveillance. That doesn’t feel promising, given this city.

“Come on!” Rayla shouts, impatient.

Kipling seems to have found a good place to park, because we halt to a screeching stop and the door rolls open. Rayla stabs a lever with the heel of her boot, the motorcycle dislodges, the loading ramp juts out, and we’re off.

The city’s surveillance doesn’t know we don’t belong here. The cameras didn’t see the bike break through the barrier—we just need to blend in.

A pretty bleak undertaking considering we’re the only people in sight.

“Mandatory curfew! Return immediately to your residence, or you will be arrested!” a hostile voice browbeats the deserted streets through unseen speakers.

“Are we close?!” I shout. My question’s lost inside my helmet. I could scream bloody murder, and Rayla wouldn’t hear me.