“It’ll take the edge off.”

I take a sniff.

“It smells disgusting.”

“I won’t argue with that.” He takes a swig. “But it works.”

I shake my head, noticing Angela standing at the table behind Colonel Rivera. Her eyes are red and her skin is pale. Stressed? Probably. I bet I look worse, though.

“Are we going to survive?” I ask.

There. I said it.

Manny takes one more long drink, drops it back in his duster pocket, and looks at the ceiling. “There’s always a chance,” he says. “And that’s all we need.”

“We need more than a chance. We need hope.”

“We have it.” He gestures around us. “Here we are. Hope.”

“This is like the day of reckoning. We either sink or swim.”

“Or we sink and build a submarine.” Manny laughs at his own joke. “Not everything is so black and white, my girl. Success and failure isn’t just win or lose in this situation. It’s progress. It’s pushing back. It’s standing up for our homeland. If you start thinking about everything that might happen, you’ll drive yourself out of your head.” He pulls at the gold shield necklace hanging around my neck. The chain Chris gave me for Christmas last year.

“Bad things happen. And good people try to fix it,” he continues. “Sometimes we win. Sometimes we lose. It’s not up to us to decide what’s going to happen. We can only kick the can around while we’re here and do our best.”

“Since when did you get so wise?” I ask.

“Since I got wrinkles.”

I close my eyes, letting the background noise slowly fade away. I focus my concentration on one thing: My family and my friends.

They give me hope.

They give us a chance.

After everything that’s happened in the past week, I forgot that Vera Wright even existed. She and Angela are standing next to me near the hood of a retrofitted suburban. The moon is glaringly white against the night sky, casting a powdery glow over the Tehachapi hills. Behind us is the flat expanse of the central valley, a literal bowl reaching in every direction as far as the eye can see, each corner created by a line of mountain ranges. In front of us is the opening to a canyon with two massive interstates jutting out of its mouth.

Vera is dead silent. She was far enough behind the front lines during the attack earlier today to avoid any injury, but I can tell that the episode rattled her nonetheless. A sign that Vera Wright is, perhaps, somewhat human.

“You girls stay here,” Angela says. “I’m going to speak with Chris for a moment.”

I say nothing as she walks away, leaving me alone with Vera.

A force of one thousand men is gathered here. I’m pumped full of pain medication, my hands have been bandaged, and my arm still has glass stuck in the skin. I am at the lead vehicle of the foremost line of defense. The kill zone, I’ve been told. The sacrifice.

Colonel Rivera is following our militia force of five hundred men with his own force. Thinking of him trailing behind us like a dog with its tail between its legs make me sick. What a coward. What a user. I can’t believe we’re leading this assault all on our own.

“You know,” Manny told me earlier, “The Romans used to send mercenary forces ahead of their troops to weaken the enemy. The mercenaries were always the sacrifice. The kamikazes.”

“And that’s what Omega did to us? Flooded us with mercenaries to shake us?”

“To attempt to weaken us.” He winked, then. “But it won’t work, will it?”

“You look tense, Hart,” Vera remarks.

“Sorry. I must have been thinking about the five thousand death troopers coming our way,” I reply.

“No need to be sarcastic.”

“This coming from the queen of vitriol.”

She impulsively checks her gear again, taking a deep breath.

“Look, I know we have a misunderstanding—” she begins, but I cut her off.

“You know what? You’ve been nothing but mean to me since the day I showed up at Camp Freedom,” I say, surprised at my calmness. “I don’t know what I did to you, and frankly, I don’t care. Just leave me alone, okay?”

Vera swallows, red blotches appearing on her pale cheeks.

“I couldn’t let you compromise my authority in camp,” she says. “My mother and I worked hard for what we had with the Legion.”

“I worked hard for what I had with the Freedom Fighters.” I shake my head. “We’re not doing this right now. This is not the time.”

“We might not get another time.”

Both of us lapse into silence. I realize for the first time tonight that I am trembling from head to toe. Shaking like a leaf.

I’m not cold. I’m terrified.

At that moment Angela returns with Chris. Chris’s hair is pulled back tightly. He’s wearing all of his combat gear. Uniform, boots, vest, weapons, radio. His vest weighs about sixty pounds. The one I wear is tailored to my smaller build, but it still weighs twenty pounds. And when you’re running for your life, twenty pounds is a lot.

Unfortunately, vests are a necessary item out here. It might save my life.

“So how does this work?” I ask. “Do they come around the corner and stare at us before we charge at each other, Narnia-style?”

Chris smiles weakly.

“It won’t be so obvious,” he says.

“No. It won’t.” Jeff approaches, along with Max, Derek, Uriah and Sophia. “We have to work together, guys. Remember that. We’re a team.”

“Can I say something?” Derek asks.

Nobody objects.

“We’ve all be through a lot together,” he says. “I mean, from banding together in the foothills and duking it out after that last ambush in Sanger, we’re pretty tight, right? We’ve got guts. And there’s no reason we can’t come out of this alive, too. We can do this, you guys.” He pushes his blonde hair off his forehead. “And I just want to say that I’m glad that I can fight for our homeland alongside people as honorable as you.”

I press my hand against my mouth to hide my trembling lips. A tear rolls down Sophia’s cheek. Chris claps Derek on the shoulder, and everyone goes around exchanging handshakes and farewell hugs.

Sophia and I pull each other close.

“I’ll see you when this is over,” I promise.

“Okay.” She places her thumbs on my cheeks. “Thanks for being my friend.”

“No,” I shake my head. “Thanks for being mine.”

She joins Derek and Max as they separate into a different platoon — what would have been Alexander’s platoon but is now combined with Max’s.

“Uriah’s with us,” Chris explains.

Jeff says something to his brother in a low voice and Chris squeezes his shoulder. I bend down and check the laces on my boots, feeling inside the pocket for my pocketknife, and below it, my last will and testament. The one I wrote while I was still at Sector 20.

My other knife — the lucky one that Jeff gave me — is strapped to my belt. I’ve got my shiny new rifle on my back, ammunition, and a black beanie stretched over my head, hiding my curly red hair.

As the others disperse, Vera takes up her position towards the front of the line. Our vehicles will only get us so far, and now we’ll have to go on foot from this point on. Omega will have tanks on the freeway, anyway, and we don’t need to get our vehicles blown up. We’ll have a better chance this way.

“Hey,” Chris says, catching me around the waist. “You ready for this?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I reply, breathless. “You?”

He doesn’t answer the question.

“Be careful,” he pleads. “Don’t take any unnecessary risks. I don’t want to lose you.”

“You won’t,” I tell him. “I’m not going anywhere.”

Right now, I couldn’t be more honest.

I slide my hands behind his neck and pull him into a soft, final kiss. He snatches the beanie off my head and ruffles my hair, pulling back only to kiss my cheek.

“Give me my hat back,” I tease, grinning.