Better safe than blown to pieces.

I’ve been walking over an hour with nothing to show for it. Discouraged, hungry, and dehydrated, I raise my water bottle to my lips. My sore shoulders sag in defeat, but I quickly straighten up to my full height.

I’ve hiked at least four miles north into the wilderness. I’m not lost. I can’t be. According to my map, the coordinates should be no more than five miles from the start of the tree line. I’ll have to run into the border eventually.

A relentless obstacle of trees stands in my way, a secondary defense before the corrugated steel wall. Along with whatever else the Canadian Border Services Agency has protecting the International Boundary Wall. Antivehicle trenches. Double or even triple fencing with a no-man’s-land monitored by bright lights, armored trucks, and cameras. Autotarget sentry guns that use motion sensors. Gray wolves.

Rumor has it that the uninhabited sections of the border are patrolled by vicious wolves who attack anyone who manages to slip past the defenses. They’re leashed to a system of implanted chips and shock sensors that stop the wild animals from wandering off their line of duty.

America wiped out most of its own endangered animals decades ago—grizzly bears, bighorn sheep, mountain lions, bison, elk, red foxes. The list is extensive, so I have no fear of meeting anything wild on this side of the border.

Humankind is everything’s and everyone’s most dangerous predator. Blindly killing its own planet, slowly wounding it over the centuries. Forcing my generation to mop up the blood.

I stash my empty water bottle in my bag and push forward.

Endless green and brown, green and brown. Everywhere I turn, no matter how far I walk. Over six miles by now. I sigh, frustrated and exhausted.

You’re going to get caught before you ever find this damn wall.

I wipe the sweat dripping into my eyes with my shirt and reach out to remove a drooping branch with flat, pointed leaves from my path.

I suddenly stop short. Metallic gray.

A twenty-five-foot galvanized-steel wall, angled at the top to prevent climbing, stands guard in the middle of an open forty-foot swath cut into the forest.

I step slowly out from the cover of the trees, my heart pounding in awe. I face east, then west. The limitless wall stretches on to infinity.

But there’s no hint of a trapdoor. No hole to slip through to the other side.

I look up, craning my neck back so the hood of my jacket slips from the crown of my head. No rope to help scale the rigid steel plates. I study the foundation of the solid structure below. No tunnel dug into the likely concrete-filled ground.

There’s no way through in sight.

For thousands of years, societies have built walls to keep their adversaries out or their populations in. But history tells us they all eventually fall. Stone, brick, wood, concrete, barbed wire, and tamped earth cannot keep a sharp mind and a desperate determination at bay forever.

My fingertips lightly touch the rough edge of a hole in the wall before me, just big enough for a body to crawl through.

When I first found it, I anticipated a siren, gunfire, or a rebellion member shouting my name—but it’s just me, the silent trees, and this colossal barrier that I was trained to think was impassable.

I’ve sat facing the opening for a full hour now, staring into the hollow space, an arm’s length away from freedom. It’s right there, waiting for me.

But my body won’t move.

Thoughts of Mira—she’s suddenly in the center of my heart again—weigh my entire being to the ground like a stone. For the first time since our separation, I look behind me, scanning the tree line, thinking every dark shape is her.

My blood pounds in my ears and I feel dizzy. Tears fall unbidden down my stained cheeks. Where is she now? What if the military captured her? She could be on a plane headed for Texas at this very moment—lost to me forever. Or she could be lost in the forest, looking for me, almost two days without water.

I will not leave without her.

I briskly swipe the salty liquid from my chin. Turning from the wall, I face south.

The way back to my sister.

Prompted by the late afternoon sun, an orchestra of chirping birds and buzzing insects accompany my mad dash through the forest. Heedless of everything but my urgent need to find Mira, I fly over fallen trees as thick as cars and charge through sharp bushes that cut into my ankles. My head constantly swiveling, I scan my surroundings, penetrating the dense layers of vegetation and towering wood, hoping somehow my sister will simply appear.

“Mira, tell me where you are,” I say aloud like a prayer.

In answer, a small hummingbird dives down from the branches and hovers in midair directly in front of my face. Hypnotized by surprise and the soft hum of its furiously flapping wings, it takes several seconds before I register the telltale hole in its glossy purple throat and the silver needle-like beak. You’re not a bird at all.

A Scent Hunter.

I thrash at the drone, frantic with the certainty that its nose has already sucked in and identified my scent. The drone ducks and weaves, easily avoiding my jabs, and I see its body flash a threatening red as it zooms in for an attack.

I lurch away wildly and lose my balance. Tripping on a root, I tumble hard to the forest floor. The drone’s on me again before I can rise, but this time I grab hold of its tail feathers and launch the bastard into a tree.

I scramble to my feet and hurl myself past the tree line into an open clearing, listening for and confirming the drone’s tireless winged pursuit. The more I run, the more I sweat, leaving an easy scent track for the Hunter to follow.

But if I don’t run, it’s all over.

I see the outline of a small town on the horizon. Keep running. Get to the town. You can throw off your scent in a crowd. But I slow down as I struggle to breathe, a stabbing pain just below my ribs. Malnourished and dehydrated, I can’t keep up this pace.

The hummingbird swoops down again and floats effortlessly above my head. I exert all the power I have left in a final swing of my arms. Before my fist can connect with anything, a tranquilizer dart shoots into my neck, and my eyes roll back.

I careen to the ground like dead weight, and the last conscious thought that fires off inside my brain is Mira.

“You’ve changed your hair.”

Groggy and confused at where or who I am, the baffling words slowly reach me as if I’m leagues away, drifting at the bottom of the sea. Why does my neck feel so swollen? I try to move my arms to investigate, but I can’t—they’re caught on something. With momentous effort I open my eyes.

A blurry figure sits in front of me, panting heavily like a dog. I struggle to blink the details into focus. A dark-blue military uniform. The insignia of captain on the shoulders. Slicked-back dark hair and wet lips parted into a smug smile.

Halton Roth.

I spring to life, gulping for air, but I’m instantly thrown back, my wrists and ankles bound to a chair, thwarting me from wrapping my hands around his throat. A powerful rage ignites every fiber of my being. Half-crazed, I desperately fight my restraints. Triumph in his eyes, Halton waits on his silver folding chair, patiently waiting for me to finish my useless attempt at escape.

In one panicked sweep I evaluate my circumstances. My location hasn’t changed—I’m thirty yards from the tree line and several miles from the small town. But there’s now a military SUV parked sixty paces to my right.