Ruins

“I crossed the entire continent looking for the people who built RM—the same ones who built the Partials—and the only thing I learned for sure is that everything they did was part of a plan. That plan has gone horribly, terribly wrong, and the people who made it have all gone crazy or just . . . given up. But the plan is still there, written on our DNA. And it’s all we’ve got.”

“So Partials cure humans and humans cure Partials.” He looked at her. “Where does that leave you?”

Kira took a breath, feeling a shadow of the same despair she’d felt in Morgan’s operating room, convinced that she was useless. “I can’t cure anything,” she said softly. “And I don’t think I expire. I don’t know where that leaves me.”

Green looked up at the sky, the blue growing lighter as the sun rose. “We need to rest, but I don’t want to stop before we get out of Ivie territory.”

“That’s probably wise.”

“We’ll go west, like I said before—maybe there are lakes over there, but if the Ivies have marked a border around this lake, I’m hopeful that means the others are safe.”

Kira felt leery of the idea, but she had to admit that cutting straight west was the fastest route away from their captors. “Maybe west for now,” she said, “but as soon as we’re out of danger, I have to get back to this mission. With or without you.”

He folded up the map, not saying anything. “Do you know where you’re going next?”

“As much as I want to talk to the other factions, I lost everything in that lake,” said Kira, “all my maps, all my notes, everything. I don’t know where any of the other factions are, and even if I did, I don’t know if I can spare the time to walk to where they are. Some of them are weeks away.”

“That’s not an answer to my question,” said Green.

“What I’m saying is that I have to go back to Long Island,” said Kira. “I don’t trust Morgan, but her soldiers might listen to reason. The ones in the occupation have already been living with humans for months now—perhaps they’re even seeing the effects of the process I just told you about. If I can convince anyone, it’s them.”

“And the humans?”

“They’ll be just as hard to convince,” said Kira, nodding. “But either way, they’re on Long Island. I have to go there.”

“You realize this isn’t taking us out of danger,” said Green. “We’ll have to go through Morgan’s territory, and into a war zone. We won’t even be getting away from the Ivies, because they’re headed in the same direction. The Blood Man said he was going after humans next.”

“Then I’ll stop him too,” said Kira, but paused. “Wait. Did you say ‘we’?”

“You’re talking about saving the world,” he said simply. “Of course I’m coming.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

Owen Tovar ran through the streets of Huntington, heedless of making noise, trying only to get as far from the coffee shop as he could. His bad foot made him lope along unevenly, and he pushed himself to go faster. The Partials had hunted most of his group to nothing; he’d sent Mkele east with what soldiers they had left, and stayed behind to draw the Partials away. It was a strategy that had worked well so far, but it wouldn’t work much longer. They had no men, no time, and no explosives.

Technically I have a ton of explosives, he thought, pelting between the cars. Partial soldiers had seen him now, and a few bullets whipped past him. But that’s all going to change in three, two, one—

The coffee shop behind him exploded, the force of the shock wave so great that it threw him to the ground, even a block and a half away. The Partials behind him were shredded by the blast, and Tovar rolled onto his stomach, covering his head with his hands as shrapnel rained down around him. His ears rang, leaving him temporarily deaf; he gambled that the Partials couldn’t hear either, and scrambled to the nearest side street before standing up and bolting off again. The soldiers would be too preoccupied to chase him for another few minutes at least; he needed to use that time to get as far away as he could.

Even as he ran, though, he knew he didn’t have any options. Delarosa’s forces had survived against the Partials through guerrilla tactics—harassing their flanks, hitting their supply lines, and then fading away into the wilderness. Tovar had needed to do more to get their attention, to draw them away from the human refugees fleeing south, and thus he had been more aggressive. And now they’d chased him all the way to the North Shore for it. He was surrounded on three sides by water, and on the fourth by Partials. He had nowhere left to run.