Alive

Prologue

The cold didn't hurt anymore.

Alma wasn't sure if that was a good thing.

Her boots sank into the fresh layer of snow with every step she took, leaving deep, uneven tracks behind her that stretched far into the darkness, disappearing between the trees and the abandoned road she had been following for what felt like hours. Maybe it had been hours. Maybe it had only been one. She had stopped trying to keep track of time sometime after the sun disappeared behind the mountains, when the little light that remained had faded into a dark blue sky and the temperature had dropped enough that every breath should have burned inside her lungs.

It didn't.

That was what worried her.

Her brother used to tell her that being cold was better than not feeling the cold at all.

She could still remember the way he'd said it, like it was just another one of the countless things she needed to know, another lesson squeezed somewhere between how to check whether canned food had gone bad and how to tell when an infected was close enough that running was smarter than fighting.

If you're freezing, that's good.

She hadn't understood.

It means your body's still fighting.

Alma swallowed, lowering her head against another gust of wind as it swept through the trees and sent loose snow scattering across the road.

She didn't want to think about him.

Not now.

Her fingers tightened inside the pockets of her jacket, and she pulled the fabric closer around herself even though the zipper had broken days ago and the thin shirt underneath wasn't doing much to protect her from the cold. She had wrapped another piece of fabric around her waist beneath the jacket, hoping that an extra layer—any layer—would help, but she couldn't tell whether it had made a difference.

She couldn't really feel much of anything anymore.

Still, she walked.

One foot.

Then the other.

Then another.

Her tracks followed behind her.

Alma had spent the first few days trying to hide them whenever she could, stepping onto rocks instead of mud, moving through patches of dead grass, brushing away footprints when the ground was soft enough to betray where she'd gone. Her brother had taught her that too. Never make it easy for someone to follow you.

But snow made hiding almost impossible.

And tonight, she simply didn't have the energy to try.

If something was following her, it would find her.

If someone was following her, they would find her too.

The thought should have frightened her more than it did.

Instead, Alma stared down at the next place she intended to put her foot and concentrated on making her leg move.

Because what would she do if someone found her?

Fight?

She almost wanted to laugh.

There wasn't enough energy left in her body for that.

Five weeks.

She had been alone for five weeks.

Five weeks without a real meal, without knowing where she would sleep the following night, without waking up to another person's voice telling her where they were going or what they needed to do that day.