Cole rubbed his hand over his face, nodding. “I underestimate it sometimes...you forget, because you function, and each time you get kicked down you manage to pick yourself up. But now, it’s starting to get harder, right?”

“Yes.” It was the first time I’d admitted it. The word was as hollow as I felt.

“It’s not that I don’t think I won’t be able to get up. It’s that I’m afraid one day I’ll just...explode. Combust. Take out everyone I care about because I can’t stop myself from feeling so damn angry all the time.” He pulled up his hand, holding it in front of his face, waiting for it to spasm again. When it didn’t happen, his gaze shifted down to Clancy. “They keep them locked in these white rooms. Lights are on the whole time and there are voices. Voices that don’t stop, that are constantly telling them shit like, you’re wrong, admit you’re wrong so we can fix you. They hurt the kids—they really hurt them, over and over. It was...I could barely stand to see it, and I wasn’t the one getting beaten. Was that...real? Can he make stuff up?”

My hands tightened around the wheel. “He can plant any image he wants in your mind, but I think the truth is bad enough that he doesn’t have to embellish it.”

“I don’t know what pisses me off more—what they did to the kids, or that they figured out how to contain the fire in them. Shit, Gem. How the hell...” He shook his head as if to clear it. “If he tells any of the others, if he tells Liam, what am I supposed to do? None of the kids will come within a hundred feet of me.”

“He’s not going to,” I promised. “How much more of that stuff do you have?”

He unzipped the pouch. “Three more vials.”

“Then he’ll stay out until we get to the Ranch and we get him secured,” I said. “We’ll keep him separated at all times, and I’ll be the one he interacts with.”

“Killing him would be simpler.” There was nothing heated or furious about his words, and maybe that was why they were so disarming. Just cold, ruthless pragmatism. It was unsettling how fast the switch flipped.

“Can’t,” I reminded him, recycling one of his own arguments, “he’s the only one who knows where his mother is. You can’t do anything to him, not until we find out where she is. I need the cure. Whatever it is, I need it. I hate him more than anything in the world, but I hate living this way more. I hate the idea of there not being an end to this.”

Cole turned back toward the window, watching the buildings around us blur around us. “Then you and me, Gem, we’ll have to figure out a way to stay one step ahead of our monsters.”

I nodded; my throat was tight with the need to cry, with the surprise of finally having someone who understood—who struggled not just with everything and everyone around them, but with themselves.

“Are you sure this isn’t a nightmare?” he asked quietly. “And that we won’t just wake up?”

I stared ahead at the road, the way the dust blowing in from the desert covered it with a faint golden sheen even as gray clouds began to gather over us.

“Yes,” I said after some time.

Because dreamers always wake up and leave their monsters behind.

4

THE RAIN STARTED IN WITH a clap of thunder just outside of Mojave, a small town situated at the base of the nearby mountains’ craggy slopes. In the distance, over their jagged crowns, I could see the first hints of green.

“That Days Inn,” Cole said, pointing to the small, two-story complex hugging the corner. “Pull in there. We need to get them another car, and we need to switch ours out.”

The town had been drained of its life some time ago, that much was clear by the complete and total lack of upkeep of its businesses and homes. It was a sight I’d grown used to over the past year, to the point that I didn’t feel the creeping sense of dread that came with seeing empty playgrounds, or fresh dirt in graveyards, or homes that had been chained and boarded up. So not even California, which had run independently from the rest of the nation under the Federal Coalition, had been immune to the new normal of economic strife that the rest of the country had been clawing through.

“People could be staying here,” I said. “They would stake it as their territory—”

“Look at the cars here,” Cole said, “the amount of dirt on them. They’ve been sitting here awhile. I haven’t seen any movement through the hotel’s windows or around the perimeter, have you? Park. Pull up right there, next to that gray Toyota.”

I turned off the engine as he double-checked that Clancy was still out and still secured with zip ties. He went to inspect the other cars to find a working one with gas, and I jumped down from the driver’s seat and all but ran around to the back to untie the tarp. The three of them sat up in unison, blinking against the dull light.

Cool rain streaked down my face and neck as I helped the others down from the back. The air was thick with that strange, wonderful, indescribable smell that was unique to storms in the desert.

“Hey,” I said, my hands closing around Liam’s arms to steady him as he slid down off the bed. “Are you all right?”

Liam nodded and squeezed my shoulder as he passed by. “Chubs—wait—dammit, buddy—” Without his glasses, the kid couldn’t see a thing. Chubs caught his toe on a pothole in the pavement and went down before Liam could reach him. After he used his good arm to get his friend back on his feet, he led Chubs toward the edge of the motel’s parking lot and they disappeared around the corner. By the lack of explanation and how quickly they were moving, I took a guess about what kind of business they were conducting.

“Was it as special up front as it was in the back?” Vida asked, hopping down next to me. Her joints popped as she stretched her arms and back.

“No one’s killed each other,” I said. “Was it terrible back there?”

“Nah,” Vida said with a shrug. “A little uncomfortable and cold at some points. You took a sharp turn somewhere and Grannie copped a feel by mistake. He looks like he wants to die of shame each time I bring it up. Basically, I’m going to milk that shit for all it’s worth.”

“Do you have to?” I asked pointedly.

“Whatever. He was more pissed off by us playing a game of who could think up the worst nickname for him.”

“Let me guess, you won?”

“It was Boy Scout, actually. I mean, come on. Even I couldn’t top Chubby Chubby Choo Choo. I almost pissed my pants laughing.”

I made a mental note to give Chubs a good, long hug before we set off again.

Glancing over to make sure the boys were making their way back toward us, a pop of color caught my eye. Shielding my eyes against the rain, I took a step toward the two small cement homes that were oddly positioned a short distance from the corner of the street. A crude array of graffiti marred the cracked cement wall that separated the side of the house from the nearby parking spaces.

“What?” Vida asked. “What’s with that face?”

Most of the art wasn’t really art at all, and a good portion hadn’t been spray-painted. I wiped the rain from my face, tucking my wet hair out of the way. There were names scrawled there in permanent marker—a Henry, a Jayden, a Piper, and a Lizzy all written in great looping letters under a large, black, outlined circle with what looked like a crescent moon inside of it. Vida trailed me as I walked over to it to get a better look.

My eyes skimmed over the wall, vaguely aware of the steps coming up behind us. One of the tags, this one done in blue spray paint, was fresh enough that the letters there—what looked like a K, L, Z, and H—were running, drooping down to the ground. I pressed my fingers against it, unsurprised that they came away sticky and stained.

“Oh. Wow.” Liam let out a startled laugh, stepping up next to me to get a better look.

“Oh, wow, what?” Chubs asked.

“It’s road code. Remember? At East River?”