“You think any air’s getting in here?” I asked, almost worried about him, wanting him to say something to let me know he was all right.

“Wake up, and we can crack the panel again,” he muttered.

“What if we don’t wake up?”

“You ever wonder if that might be a blessing?”

I thought about all the life this guy had lived already, imagining the pain he’d burned through. And I thought about pain all the way till I slept.

“Banyan,” a voice started calling, hours later.

The voice came from behind me. Below me. And the voice kept calling, louder and louder, till finally I busted awake.

It was Crow. His legs were trapped beneath me, and I squirmed around, trying to get free of these bodies I was all jammed up against.

“What is it?” I asked him.

“You were dreaming. Hollering.”

“Is it morning?”

Kade was scrambling for the panel. Frantic as he tried to bust the thing loose. And when he got it free, no light poured in.

Everything stayed muffled.

“It’s froze solid outside,” he said.

We were buried in snow.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

We punched at the steel walls around us. Rocking and heaving and finally shoving the shelter to one side enough that we could force our way out.

Then we were tumbling into the big white drift.

I shook and scraped, shoveling my way upward. I thrashed at the snow and kicked myself free. Aiming for the sunlight above, high and bright, yellow and gold—and finally I broke loose into it, and I shivered, squinting at the vastness of a clear blue sky.

“Banyan,” called Zee, staggering up beside me and coughing. “Help me with Crow.”

We reached into the snow and dragged him up, and then we helped Kade dig his way out.

“You can stand?” Zee asked Crow, brushing the white flakes off his purple coat.

“It seems so,” he muttered, staring down at his legs, still sounding like a shell of the man we’d known. “For now.”

“For now’s a start.” She smiled up at him, and it was as if her smile could melt even Crow. He took her hand in his, his huge fingers squeezing Zee’s through the gloves she wore.

“Thank you, Miss Zee.”

“You don’t have to thank me.”

“But you didn’t leave me behind,” he said. “And now look at us. Look at all this.”

I followed Crow’s gaze, and my eyes grew full of what soared up ahead. A new world, now the blizzard and mist had vanished. A world of tall silver cliffs and spires. Rivulets of stone and ice engraved against the sky in an endless uprise, scraping the sun and tugging open the clouds.

Mountains, that’s what they were. Mountains that stretched on and upwards. And I could see no way we could cross them. I couldn’t even imagine a route through. But beyond those monoliths, far above the etched earthy swell, I saw plumes of ash. Steam and smoke.

“The Rift,” Kade said as our eyes scratched the horizon. We couldn’t see the lava fields, not yet, but the sky glowed orange out there, as if a terrible fire raged beyond the great peaks.

“I read about mountains,” Zee said, her voice small as the view was big. “Never thought I’d see them.”

I’d heard about mountains, too. My old man had told me. They were the call and curse of many a tale. And out of their snow had run old world rivers, deep and wide and clean.

I peered back the way we had come, and then scoured every other direction, searching for Harvesters but seeing no sign of life. The snow must have slowed Harvest down. It had even covered our tracks.

As the others gazed up at where the world grew jagged, I waded across to the tank, thinking we had best get moving, knowing Harvest wasn’t going to give up, and the trees weren’t going to make it south by themselves.

I dug out the tank’s wheels as the others talked, pointing up at the peaks and arguing about something. Next, I got the top of the tank loose of snow, and I set to work at breaking off the slabs from the sides. But as the snow crumbled and dusted, my hands quit working.

I backed away from the glass, stumbled smack down on my ass.

And I didn’t try to call out or nothing. It was like my voice had been snatched out of my skull.

Thought my mind was gone, too. Like it had given up and run away from me. Because inside that tank was the seven saplings and my father’s remains, shrunken and shrubby at the root of them, but next to that mess of green and black, there was now another body, all wrapped in purple.

I spun up off the snow and pounded my fists at the glass, and Alpha’s eyes blinked open, then locked on mine. Her head was floating up out of the liquid, her skin slippery and gold.

I heard Zee holler behind me. The others rumbling up. So they could see what I saw. It weren’t just the hunger and loss playing tricks on my mind.

Alpha shoved at the glass ceiling above her, and I got my hand under it so we could pry the top back, hoisting it open on stiff hinges. And before there was really space for it, I’d wedged my arms inside the tank and was reaching for her and holding her. The glass still between us. The warm, gluey liquid oozing up my shoulders and neck. Alpha pressed her head against mine, and I breathed in the chemical smells of the tank as I kissed my girl’s eyes and her lips, and all of her was so warm and soft but at the same time electric.

I peered down and saw the coiled saplings, and they were close enough I could have reached out and touched them, too. But I didn’t touch them. I just squeezed Alpha against me and hauled her out into the snow.

Crow slapped his arms around us, laughing. He leaned on my shoulders, and I could feel his breath blow hot on the top of my head. Then he pulled away. Trying to give us a moment, I reckon.

Zee and Kade just stood there and stared.

“How?” I said, gripping Alpha’s shoulders and holding her out before me, like she was a drink and my eyes were blown open with thirst.

“I’d been following your tracks. Then the snow started,” she whispered. “The tank was the first thing I saw. Bright and warm through the snowstorm. Even warmer once I managed to get inside.”

“I thought you was dead.” I was shaking so hard, I started shaking her, too.

“Almost. Got pinned under bodies, stuck in the hull, but when the boat sank, they floated off me. I swam up and out. Swam from one building to another, till I made it to land. Thought I was the only one still heading south, then I saw your tracks just before dark. Figured only one fool would be out on the snow with that tank, hell-bent on nowhere.” She turned to Crow. “Maybe two fools, I guess.”

“Don’t look at me,” he said. “They dragged my ass the whole way.”

I hugged Alpha so tight against me, we fell back into a big drift of powder. And she was grinning so hard, it was like I’d never really seen her smile before now. I kissed her. Right there, in front of the others. Hell, I might never have stopped if she hadn’t finally pulled away from me and pulled us back up off the snow.

She blushed red as she smiled at Zee. But then she frowned at Kade, glancing at the sub gun where it hung from his shoulder, her face turning sour as she turned back to me. “And what’s he doing here? We’re all still on the same team?”

“Hell-bent on nowhere,” Kade said, and he made this stupid salute.

Alpha leaned and spat in the snow. “What happened to your face, Red?”

“Your boyfriend’s fists.”