We ride until nightfall. The uphill treks prove to be the worst, but after the initial mountain, rolling hills seem like a joke. My calves and thighs burn from pedaling; sweat glues my blonde hair to my neck and forehead. When I try to wipe it away, ash smears across my skin.
When Stephen finally announces we should stop, Isaac jumps off his bike so fast that he trips and has to catch himself on me to keep from face planting.
"We'll guard in pairs and take turns," Stephen says as Isaac flops out in the grass. "Clare and I'll go first. Y'all get some sleep."
Apparently, neither of us disagree with that plan. I'm so tired that I would probably fall asleep while guarding.
"Did anyone bring any sleeping gear?" Isaac asks halfway through a yawn.
Stephen shrugs. "Look through the bags and see what you find."
Isaac turns to Clare and taps her on the shoulder. She looks up with a smile and hands him her bag. Does she read lips or minds? Isaac signs what I know means "thank you," and we start to spread the items out on the ground.
So far, we have a blanket, a change of clothes for Clare, a jacket, three granola bars, a pack of matches, one canteen of water, and a folded picture of Jackson and a woman. No sleeping bags, no kindling, nothing.
Already, the temperature is dropping. I tug my jacket tighter around me, and Isaac hands Clare hers.
"Anyone know how to build a fire?" I ask, shivering. "We'll freeze before we make it to Compound 4."
Everyone just looks at one another.
"I can." Isaac pushes up off the grass and heads to the line of trees.
"Where did you learn that?" I ask. He smirks over his shoulder at me.
"I slept outside most of my life, Jay. I definitely needed to know how to keep warm."
I grimace. Of course he did. I saw the shape of the tent he slept in. Unless Hartley's handing out top-quality sleeping bags, he had to get cold.
"Should someone go with him?" I ask as his back disappears into the tree line. Clare nods and stands to follow him. "Hey, Stephen." He looks down at me. "Can Clare read lips?"
"Yeah, but it ain't as easy as sign language."
Makes sense. My stomach lets out a horrific growl, and I clamp a hand over it. Those three granola bars won't be enough for all four of us. No matter how starved I feel, I'm going to have to get over it.
"We were gonna leave tomorrow," Stephen says when he catches me eyeing the food. I look up at him. "Never could quite agree on whether or not to send you back. Quite a few people said there was no point in trying to save everyone when we should be worrying about ourselves first. Ollie reminded us how selfish that was, but some people aren't easily swayed.
"But just this morning, the majority voted to leave tomorrow. We were making a list of the supplies you would need and who all to send when Ollie took a break. That's when y'all saw the trucks. The crap hit the fan after that.
"I wasn't supposed to come. Mandy, Justin, and Clare volunteered. I was staying with Jackson."
He speaks with remorse and loss. There's a touch of anger there, too, but it isn't aimed at me. The chances of us getting back to the Alma are slim. It isn't his fault that Ollie chose Mandy to stay behind instead of him, that Hartley blew up his home, that I showed up out of the blue and ruined everything. Why does he have to be punished when nothing is his fault? It isn't fair.
But I don't know how to fix it.
"I'm sorry we brought you into this," I mumble in apology. Isaac and Clare reappear, arms full of skinny twigs. "It's not right."
"You didn't do this, darlin'. It ain't neither one of y'alls faults." He hands Isaac the matches and sighs. "Eleven years ago, some high-up official got some wild idea that the world needed to be fixed and that it was his job to do it. Ashford brought me into this. Not you."
Isaac's fire comes to life in front of us, and the air starts to warm up. We fall into a happy, sleepy silence and watch the sun set on the mountain behind us.
"Get some sleep, Jay." Stephen pushes off the ground and walks to sit beside Clare on the edge of the road. He signs something to her, and she laughs silently. I watch as he wraps his arm around her and pulls the girl into a hug.
It's not fair that these people have to suffer because I decided to leave the compound. I should have stayed put.
With a loud sigh, I remove my jacket and spread it out on the grass. Then, I lay down with my hands behind my head. The fire draws me towards sleep, and before I know it, my eyes droop closed.
"Will you be my pillow?"
My eyes pop open, and I look sideways at Isaac, shocked. "Excuse me?"
"Can I use you as a pillow?" he repeats with a laugh. "The ground's way too hard, and I can't spare my jacket."
I laugh and lay my head back down. "I thought that's what you said. Go ahead."
Isaac scoots closer and lies perpendicular to me. He rests his head on my thigh, sighing happily.
"I'm hungry," he whispers, letting his eyes close.
"Yeah, me too."
"I think I've been hungry since we left the compound. The food may have been terrible, but it was reliable."
My hand moves to his head, stroking his hair with a smile. "You'll have to be hungry for just a little while longer. There isn't enough food for everyone. Stephen and Clare need it for the trip back."
Isaac nods. The weight of what I just said must've gone right over his head. He is tired.
I don't have much of a plan going forward, but I know that I can't keep letting people make sacrifices just to help me. If they go into the compound, they won't come back out. I refuse to be the reason a boy lives the rest of his life fatherless, especially when I had to go motherless. They cannot go past The Wall.
Within a minute, Isaac falls asleep. I continue running my fingers through his hair until my arm gets tired. Eventually, I let my own eyes close and fall into an exhausted sleep.
###
"Jay."
I jerk awake. Stephen kneels in the grass beside me, barely visible in the dim moonlight. Rubbing my eyes, I shake Isaac awake by twitching my leg. He sits up with a yawn.
"Is it time to switch?" I ask, stretching with Isaac. Stephen nods.
Around us, night continues. We're surrounded by some of the blackest darkness I've ever seen. There are no streetlights; clouds partially cover the moon. I can't even see the stars through them. As Isaac and I take our spot on the asphalt, a thought hits me. Would we be able to see Infected coming? If it wasn't for the fire, I wouldn't be able to see my hand in front of my face.
Crickets and cicadas sing in the trees behind us. An owl hoots occasionally, reminding me of the joke I told Howard that unfortunate night. I haven't spoken to him since then. Is he okay? Did they punish him for my behavior? Is his new partner treating him right? He really was my only friend for those two years on The Wall.
"Isaac?"
He looks over at me. "Yeah?"
"Let's play a game." Anything to keep from getting sappy while thinking about Howie.
"What've you got in mind?" He smirks at me.
"I Spy."
A dry laugh erupts out of his mouth. He attempts to reign the laughter back, pinching his lips between his teeth. "Alright. Go ahead."
I pretend to look around. "I spy something... black."
"Is it the sky?" he asks with a giggle. God, I love that sound. It's celestial, huge and magical, unbridled by man. If it's the last sound I ever heard, I would die a happy girl.
"You got it. Okay, I spy something else that's black."
Isaac looks around, beaming. "The road?"
"Man, you're good at this."
Our game goes on for a while. I tell him that I spy something else black, and he names off a random object. Eventually, we both run out of steam. Still giggling, Isaac takes my hand, and we fall into a bored silence.
When the sun finally rises, I could jump in joy. The fire's embers burn feebly, light orange against the blackened grass. In the distance, the smoke from the Alma still rises. I catch Stephen watching it curl upwards as he packs up his bags. Clare never looks back; she instead stomps out the remains of our fire.
"We'll be at the compound by nightfall," Stephen says as he puts his backpack on. "You got a plan?"
Isaac and I look at each other as we retrieve our bikes. He raises an eyebrow expectantly. I've never been good at planning things. We did leave so spontaneously that it was almost a disaster. There's something brewing in my head, but I'm almost afraid to put too much faith in it.
"We have today," Isaac finally says. "We'll figure something out."
Stephen nods and mounts his bike. The four of us ride a short distance before Isaac continues.
"If it comes down to it, we can just get Jay to tell Hartley one of her jokes, and he'll keel over in boredom."
I swat at him, scowling, but he pedals away from me. Everyone howls with laughter.
Most of the morning is spent rolling over small, short hills. No one has the energy to speak. We soar down steep slopes and push our brakes desperately. The smell of rubber fills the air.
As the ground flattens, we ride past the suburbs full of houses. Green and white highway signs hang over the road on metal poles. Some dangle by one bolt; others manage to hang on somehow with both anchors. I read street names aloud as we pass.
We coast past Sequoia Road, a sharp right turn after a semi-dried out lake. Time dealt badly with the next sign, because half of it has fallen into the road and the paint is dried up. A little way further, we cross under the Thrasher overpass. Graffiti covers the underside of the concrete bridge. My name is sprayed in bright red, the paint dripping down like water.
After passing two more signs, when the sun hangs directly above us, I start to recognize my surroundings. The mountains loom closer on each side of us, and the edges of Chattanooga peek over the hills. According to the markers, we're in the Mountain Creek area, which isn't far from Compound 4. Here, buildings are packed close together around us.
Everything stops abruptly, though. We top a hill, and the flattened world unrolls before us. The government leveled the area eleven years ago to build the compound. A blanket of green leads to Compound 4 in the distance, The Wall shining bright in the midday sun.
"We shouldn't go any closer," I say as we ride down the hill and stop near a line of trees. From here, the slope increases. We're out of sight of the guards here, but one step closer puts us in No Man's Land.
Stephen props up his bike and comes to stand beside me. A low whistle escapes his mouth as he looks at the twenty-foot obstruction ahead. "You got a plan?"
I chew on my thumbnail. "We wait until nightfall." I shudder as I remember how Duncan was shot dead in his tracks— in the middle of the day. "Then, Isaac and I will see if I can catch Howard's attention."
"Makes sense. What do you need Clare and I to do?"
I look back at Isaac. He pulls his lips tight and nods.
"I need you to stay back here and not get shot," I say. "There's a chance that Howard isn't even working The Wall anymore, and if he's not there, the new guards won't hesitate to shoot us. It's a long shot even with Howard."
Stephen doesn't say anything. He takes a deep breath and shoves his hands in his pockets. The canyons form on his forehead as he stares ahead.
"Isaac and I can handle it from this point. I really want you two to make it back to the Alma. They need you. Jackson needs you, Stephen."
Stephen runs a hand over his head and looks down at me. "No."
"No? No, what?"
"It ain't happening that way, Jay. You're not going in there alone. It's all of us or none of us."
"But you have to get back to Jackson. What if something happens and—"
Stephen cuts me off harshly. "Then he'll be alright! Jackson's smarter than I'll ever be, and he's got Ollie and Belle and Mandy and a dozen other amazin' people to help him survive."
"You don't have to do this," I whisper, biting the inside of my cheek. I taste blood on my tongue.
"Of course I don't." He grabs me by the shoulders. "But I want to. I need to. This is bigger than you and me. Bigger than Hartley and Ollie. If I don't go in there and help you stop the second strand, then no one has a chance. What is my life compared to the future? Life's a big game of Chess, Jay; you have to make sacrifices, and you can only control your own team. Make the smartest decisions, and always look ahead. Jackson understands."
I sigh. I should have known he wouldn't go for my plan. Can't he see that I'm just trying to protect him?
"It's going to be all luck from here," I say. "Even if Howard is up there, he isn't supposed to hesitate. We're taught that in guard training. Shoot first; investigate later."
"I've always figured myself a pretty lucky guy," Stephen says with a smirk. "It's going to be fine. We're right behind you."
Maybe so, but I wish they were safe. Behind me is a death trap.