AARON The officer’s eyes were red, the whites threaded with veins, dark bruised circles hanging beneath them like he hadn’t slept in days. He leaned down slightly, one hand resting near his holster. “Where are you coming from?” I glanced from him to the sheriff’s truck parked sideways across both lanes of the Interlink Highway. Its engine idled low, a steady growl under everything else. Powerful floodlights mounted on either side of the road washed the pavement in harsh white glare, flattening shadows and making it hard to see beyond a few yards. Still, I could make out the silhouette of a deputy standing in the truck bed. He was not pretending to be casual. His rifle was raised, steady, aimed straight at my chest. The smell of Senator Fernandez’s blood rose in my memory without warning, metallic and thick, as if it were still clinging to my clothes instead of locked away in the past. My heart thudded harder. I stared too long. Elena’s hand slipped into mine, warm and grounding. She cleared her throat softly, the sound pulling me back from the last time men with guns had surrounded us, shouting, ordering, deciding who lived and who did not. “Sorry, sir,” I said, shaking my head once as if I were tired instead of terrified. “We’re coming from Clearwater Bend, Alder State.” The man’s mouth twisted into a scowl. “Never heard of it.” “It’s between Hawthorne Ridge and Blackstone,” Elena said, leaning slightly forward so her voice carried. She sounded calm, but I could feel the tension in her fingers wrapped around mine. The officer nodded slowly. His gaze drifted past us, through the open space between the seats, into the back of the Compact Cruiser. Lucas lay curled on his side in the reclined seat, knees drawn up, his face pale and slack with exhausted sleep. For just a second, the hardness in the officer’s expression softened, something human slipping through the cracks. Then it was gone. He looked back at us. “Driven through there. Nice place.” “It was nice,” Elena said. Her voice tightened, a sharp edge cutting through the words. “Until the street in front of our house turned into a war zone.” The officer’s brow furrowed. “What happened?” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. “A group of kids decided to fight an army patrol.” He nodded, slow and grim. “We’ve been hearing things like that all day. Stories everywhere. Army trying to take over. Folks say they attacked the Capitol.” My mouth opened. I almost corrected him. I almost told him it was the kids who fired first, that someone had a rocket launcher, that insurgents not soldiers had hit the Capitol. The truth pressed against my teeth, desperate to come out. Elena’s hand tightened painfully around mine. I stopped myself. “Thank you, sir,” I said instead. “We’ll be sure to avoid the military.” “Some of them are still good,” he said, his tone shifting. “I served four years, so I know.” His lip curled into a sneer. “But the military has changed since my time.” I wondered briefly if soldiers from before his generation would have said the same thing about him. “Anyway, where are you headed?” “Ravenport, Highland State,” I said. “Her parents live there.” The officer nodded again, satisfied. “Alright. Be safe on the road. Don’t stop for anyone except law enforcement and state officials.” He lowered his voice. “Can’t trust the feds right now.” He stepped back and waved us forward with a short, decisive motion. The knot in my stomach loosened just a little as the sheriff’s truck rumbled forward and cleared the road. I raised the window, the glass sliding up with a soft hum. Just as I shifted my foot toward the accelerator, there was a sharp tap on the glass. My anxiety spiked instantly. Elena squeezed my hand so hard it made my fingers ache. I lowered the window again. “Yes, sir?” The officer leaned closer, his eyes flicking toward the back seat. “Make sure you get your boy in a seatbelt.” His voice softened. “It would be a shame to survive all this only to lose him in a car accident.” A warm, almost gentle smile spread across his face. I nodded quickly. He stepped away. I put the car into drive and eased onto the road. As we picked up speed, I reached back, twisting awkwardly, and gently pulled the safety strap across Lucas’s small body, fastening it with a quiet click. He stirred but did not wake. We drove in silence. The road stretched ahead of us, empty and uncertain, the headlights carving a narrow tunnel through the darkness. After a while, Elena let go of my hand. “Why do we think we’ll be safer at my parents’ place than we were in Clearwater Bend?” she asked. I glanced at her, the question hanging heavy between us. I had no answer ready. No answer at all. “I…” The word fell apart before I could finish it. My gaze drifted back to the road, fixing on the cracked yellow line as if it could tell me what to say. Elena turned to her phone, the glow lighting her face. Her fingers moved quickly across the screen. The road made me uneasy, just like her question. Cars were everywhere, scattered along the highway, but most of them sat dark and lifeless. Their drivers had abandoned them once the batteries died. Strangely, many had been pushed to the shoulder, cleared just enough to keep the lanes open. I wondered if one person, realizing they were stuck, had decided to be decent and move their car out of the way and whether others had followed. Or maybe what remained of the government was still trying, in its own fractured way, to keep the roads usable for supplies and soldiers. “She’s still posting,” Elena said quietly, her voice flat. “Who?” “Miriam.”