Tim let out a breath, his face pale. He swallowed. “Strepp… Strepp doesn’t expect Becca or anyone on her squad to come back.”
I stared at him, trying to understand.
His voice rough, he said, “Becca’s on a suicide mission—and doesn’t know it.”
“No. No way,” I said, shaking my head. “Even Ms. Strepp—”
Tim tossed the file at me, cranked the starter, and gunned the engine so hard we spit rocks twenty yards behind us. “Look at the part right below that,” Tim directed, wrenching the wheel of the ATT.
I skimmed down a bit, my head swimming with thoughts of Becca. “What?” I said.
“Right below the part about Becca,” Tim said. “Where Strepp says that she’s heading to the capital to carry out the Revolution. Look—there are directions. Don’t you see that little map?”
“I’m trying not to cry or throw up,” I said, dizzily locating the map. “Uh, yeah, um, it says she’s going to meet the Loner. The Loner? Who the hell is the Loner?”
“I don’t know,” Tim said grimly. “But we’re going to take that page with us, and we’re going to find him.”
“Wait—what do you mean, we’re going to find him?” I asked. “Where are we going?”
“To find Becca,” he said. “We’re going to the capital, and we’re going to see what the Loner has to say.”
72
IT WAS MY TURN TO drive. My years of driving Pa’s combine made me okay with a vehicle this big, but right now I was so freaked about Becca that I’d have trouble driving a Hopper.
Becca. My twin. She’d been so proud and happy to be chosen squad leader, scouting out the unknown. I’d been so bummed to be separated from her and condemned to a freaking attic. Now I knew that Ms. Strepp had deliberately sent Becca to her death, and I’d been the lucky one with Tim, somehow avoiding the plague the rest of the compound had fallen victim to.
And Nate! Was he going to die with Becca? The two people I loved most in the world—the only people I had left—and Ms. Strepp had sent them off to die?
Ms. Strepp had done so many horrible things to me, Becca, Nate, Tim—everyone we knew. She’d made us fight, pretended to kill our friends, had starved and scared us—but we’d learned that she was training us for the apocalypse. That the dark and awful things we’d learned would help keep us alive.
But how would Becca’s death help anyone? How would Nate dying get us any closer to answers?
I brushed an angry tear from my eye and downshifted to handle this curvy mountain road in the dark. Becca couldn’t be dead. I would feel it. But goddamnit!
CRASH!!!!
It was like getting struck by lightning and running into a brick wall at the same time. Though we didn’t roll, my ears filled with the sounds of buckling, scraping metal, breaking glass, the sound of Tim slamming against the dashboard, our belongings flying everywhere. The front windshield shattered, and my vision darkened as something huge burst through the broken windshield right at me. A shocking, searing pain shot through my shoulder as a hot, furry mass snapped my head backward. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
And just as fast, everything was quiet again. No engine noise, no breaking sounds, nothing except my muffled attempts to breathe and Tim groaning in pain.
“What the fu—” Tim began. “Oh, no. No, no, no!”
73
“I CAN’T MOVE,” I MUMBLED into the—it was fur. Warm fur. “Can’t breathe.” Every breath brought the sharp scent of wild animal into my nostrils. My shoulder hurt so much that it had gone numb, as if my nerves had been like, Nope, too much, we’re shutting down.
I heard Tim moving, but couldn’t see anything.
“There’s a huge animal face in here. Looks dead. You okay? Anything broken?” he asked in a shaky voice. I heard him climbing out his window.
“I think maybe so,” I managed. “You?”
“No. Maybe some ribs.” Now his voice came from outside the vehicle.
“You hit a—an elk? It’s huge. I’ve never seen one in real life.”
“It hit me,” I said, turning my head. Even that movement brought a keen pain back to my shoulder. “I didn’t even see it. Can you—get it off me? I can’t breathe.” Hot blood ran down my arm and I hoped it was from the elk.