Thanks for the tip, dad.

I follow the instructions step by step, holding back a gag as I clean the wound and touch the disconnected piece of skin. So. Gross.

“This is disgusting,” I complain.

Chris just grunts.

I “accidentally” prick him with the needle before starting the stitching. I actually get really close to puking weaving in and out of the flesh, which just makes Chris laugh at me. When I’m done, I close the stiches up like the book says and set down the needle.

“There. You’re a regular ragdoll now.”

Chris inspects my handiwork. It’s a little uneven, but hey. At least I did it.

“Not bad,” he comments. “Thanks.”

He lets his shirt drop and I start cleaning the needle with an antiseptic wipe.

“Does it hurt?” I ask, putting everything back in the kit.

“Nah. You?”

“I didn’t get wounded,” I remind him.

“You know what I mean.”

I shut my mouth, not because I’m speechless, but because if I start to talk I’ll burst into tears. Again. And that’s so not happening. Instead I just shrug and slap the kit closed.

“Cassie, we’ll find him,” Chris says, touching my arm. “We got this far, didn’t we?”

“Yeah, and he wasn’t here.” I turn around, glad he can’t see my eyes watering up in the dim lighting. “Who knows where they took him, Chris? It could be anywhere in the whole country.” I run a hand through my hair and toss the first aid kit across the room. “He’s gone. There’s nothing we can do.”

“There’s always something.”

Chris grabs my hand, pressing it against his chest. He’s warm, and I can feel his heart beating in a steady rhythm under his skin.

“Are we having a Tarzan moment?” I crack, not feeling the joke.

“As long as we’re both alive,” he says, tipping my chin up, “and our hearts are still beating, there’s still a chance. I won’t go down without a fight, and I know you won’t either. That gives us a chance, Cassie.”

I meet his firm gaze, and what I see there is encouraging. Exhaustion? Yes. A little uncertainty? You bet. But there’s also hope, and if Chris is still holding onto it, maybe it’s not so bad after all.

I wrap my arms around his waist and hug him tightly. Chris folds me in his arms and kisses the top of my head. “Listen to me,” he says. “Do you remember when we saw the dead bodies at the camp in Bakersfield?”

“Yes,” I nod.

“Those were systematic executions. There was no real reason for those. They do that to scare people into submission. Other people — like you and me — they’re going to make an example out of us. Just to scare the crap out of people. War criminals are perfect for that. People like you and me and your dad. Why the hell would they bother with an arrest warrant for the three of us when the military is killing whoever they want? Think about it. Three people out of billions? Why would they care where we go?”

I pull away and look into his face.

Light bulb.

“Because they need to keep the population under control,” I say, swallowing. “And killing off the few survivors or resistors will scare people from getting any ideas about rebelling.”

He leans closer, and I can smell the coffee on his breath.

“Exactly.” He brushes the hair out of my eyes. “And it’s a fact that they don’t usually execute those “examples” right away. They drag it out. They take them somewhere.”

My eyes widen.

“They take them to prison.”

“Someplace where they can publicize the whole thing.”

“But where?”

Chris smiles.

“I guess we’ll just have to find out, won’t we?”

I groan. “Are you kidding me? We just got here! All I want to do is hibernate for the winter. Is that too much to ask?”

Chris places his hands on each side of my waist.

“You’ll survive,” he says. “You always do.”

I grit my teeth. Even if there was any chance of locating my dad again, it would mean that we’d have to trek across the former heartland of California on foot through hostile territory. Again.

“We’ll wait until the storm dies down,” Chris tells me, almost like he can read my thoughts. “Then we’ll head back towards my house, check in with my parents, and try to figure this thing out. We’ll come up with a plan.”

“Yeah,” I say. “We always do.”

I hate hiking. I hate climbing, walking, running, crawling, rolling, jumping, bouncing, skipping, and falling. I’ve been walking endlessly for weeks now, and I don’t think it’s ever going to end.

It took us two weeks to get back to Squaw Valley because of the heavy storms, slushy terrain, crappy food supply and possible detection by people trying to sell us out to Omega hacks. Now we’re less than a half a mile away from the Young property, and I can tell by the look on Chris’s face that he’s happier than I am to be home.

And that’s saying something.

It’s not snowing at this elevation, which is fine with me. If I saw one more snowflake I’d end up screaming.

The trees are spindly, what my dad would call “sky roots.”

Poor dad.

Nope, don’t go there, I think. Stay focused.

“I’m going to have some serious fried chicken when we get there,” I say, grinning at Chris. “What about you?”

“My dad’s got a stash of beer in the basement,” he replies. “I could use a case or two.”

“Great. Fried chicken and beer. All we need is a pickup and a parking lot and we could be a couple of football fans,” I say. “You do watch football, right?”

“Baby, I played football in High School,” Chris replies, picking up the pace.

“You went to High School?” I say, puzzled. “I thought you did a charter school like Jeff.”

“No,” he shakes his head. “I went all the way through. And I was the star quarterback.”

I roll my eyes.

“Gee, don’t be modest or anything.”

“Our team was called the Lions.”

“How fitting.”

He shoots me an annoyed look, but I’m not enough to ruin his male-ego moment of football reminiscing. “You would have been a cute cheerleader, though,” he comments.

“Are you kidding?”

We both start laughing. He makes a move to grab me around the waist but I run forward, fueled by a surge of excitement to reach home. Well, Chris’s home, anyway. I jog a little bit, rounding the next corner. My footsteps come to an abrupt stop when my gaze lands on a bunch of trees and bushes on the side of the road. It’s not the shrubbery that draws my attention. It’s the lack of it. Charred, black, sooty ashes are smeared all over the ground.

Everything is burned.

Chris’s steady footsteps come up behind me. His face is a hard mask that betrays no emotion. I’ve started calling it his “battle-mode look.” He swings his gun into his hands and releases the safety switch.

“Stay behind me,” he says, his voice dangerous.

“But…”

He gives me a look that says, “Don’t argue.”

I nod.

I stay behind his shoulder as we approach the wall of trees and bushes that once hid the almost invisible dirt trail that led up to the Young property. The grass, flowers, trees, shrubs and weed are destroyed.

“My parents wouldn’t have done this,” Chris murmurs.

A lead weight settles in my stomach.

Both of us wired with dread, we start walking faster up the dirt trail. There are lots of tire tracks winding up and down the mud, almost washed away. It takes us about ten minutes to reach the top of the hill.

 Chris swears.

I drop to my knees, not wanting to see what I’m seeing.

Everything’s been burned to the ground.

And the Young family is nowhere in sight.

It’s a funny thing. The world, I mean.

When the EMP hit, I kept thinking that it was the end of the world, but seriously…is it really? Didn’t people live without cars and phones and electricity for thousands of years? The only thing that makes this different from the seventeenth century is the fact that nobody knows how to live without technology. Nobody knows how to accept the fact that there are very real bad guys out there trying to take away the things that are most important to us: Each other.