I’m already nervous about marching across the city to an area I’ve never been to before, but what makes it worse is that we have company.

There’s a horde of zombies following us. A big one. The Vashons actually gathered it together! They hunted these things down from all over the city and drew them to the park. I thought it was insane, but they weren’t worried. I guess this is part of what they did when clearing their island. You get as many together as you can in a contained area and destroy them as a group with fire, explosives, whatever. I guess it uses less physical effort and lowers your level of one-on-one contact with them. It makes you far less likely to be bitten because you never get that close. The only real danger is the herding—you have to give them something to follow, and once you do, you better hope it knows how to run.

And what are we leading these zombies toward? What’s our endgame?

They’re a gift for the southern Colony.

“A guest should never arrive empty-handed,” Alvarez had explained with a wink.

The majority of us left camp well ahead of the herd to make sure we had a buffer, but we still come across random strays on the way. There’s a circling group of Vashon soldiers constantly jogging by, up and down our caravan, keeping up a patrol. Even if a Z does show up, none of us has to deal with it. I feel weird about that. About being taken care of. It’s something I don’t think I’ll ever get used to.

“Good to see you found him again,” Ali says, showing up beside me out of nowhere. I jolt, wondering if she’s been taking shadow lessons from Cren.

“Good to see you with us again. Were you sick?”

Ali falls silent. It drags out for a long time, making me worry. And wonder.

“Yeah,” she finally says, her voice low.

“Are you feeling better?”

“Almost.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

Ryan subtly nudges my arm with his. I look up to find him shaking his head at me faintly.

“What?” I ask.

“Just leave it.”

“Leave what?”

On the other side of me Ali chuckles.

“She doesn’t know she’s being rude,” Ryan tells her. “Sorry.”

“I’m not being rude!” I protest. “And don’t talk about me like I’m not here. I was trying to be nice asking how she’s feeling.”

“I’m fine now,” she assures me, still grinning.

“Good,” I grumble, feeling stupid and annoyed with the whole conversation. And yet for some stupid reason, I keep talking. “I grew up alone. I haven’t spent time with people in years. I’m not good at it.”

“Yeah, me either,” she says lightly.

“You’re better than me.”

“I have more practice. It’ll come to you.”

“If everyone doesn’t run screaming from me first.”

She looks at me sideways, her eyes flitting to Trent and Ryan next to me. “Certain people never will.”

“I don’t know about that.”

“I do. My moods are pretty touch and go. I have good days and I have bad days.”

“And you have really bad days,” Sam chimes in.

I look behind us to find him walking a few paces back. Always close to Ali.

She gives him a severe look that’s ruined by the grin tugging at her lips. He smiles sweetly at her.

“I do,” she admits. “I have really bad days. But people like Sam are still with me.”

“And Jordan.”

Ali nods, pursing her lips thoughtfully. “Yup, Jordan has never run screaming. Not even when I told him to.”

“Why would you tell him to?” I ask.

“Because I love him and I feel like he deserves better than me.”

Yeah , I know the feeling.

I want to know what’s making Ali sick even though I’ll never ask about it again. I told Ryan he’s my social compass and if he tells me to leave it, I’m going to leave it. No matter how much it haunts me. I have a couple of theories, but none of them really make sense. Leading contender based on bad moods that make her dangerous?

She’s the Incredible Hulk.

***

Alvarez wasn’t kidding—this Pod is completely different.

The Colony up north is nice compared to how I live, how Ryan lives, and definitely how the stadiums live: it’s clean, there’s power, it’s not overly crowded. But this… this is different.

I can’t say I like it more, even though I get why a lot of people would. Especially the people living in the stadiums. Show this place to them and they won’t be cowering anymore. They’ll be ready to fight. Some would probably be ready to kill.

I can see it through Trent’s binoculars where it sits across the water. The peninsula reaches out and juts north to run parallel with the shore road we took to get here. We did it so openly it makes me nervous. I’m still getting used to being seen by a few people in the same room as me. Parading around for hundreds of people to see? That’s disturbing.

We rolled down the street right up against the bay, showing them that we were coming. They can see the majority of us, they can see the trebuchet. They’re watching us set up shop dangerously close to their gates at the entrance to their Pod and I take a little satisfaction in watching them scurry and scramble. They’re freaked and it shows.

There’s an outer fence beside the gate—one nearly identical to the fence I climbed to get into the stadiums, razor wire and all. After that there’s a gate that connects to a wall. They’ve built a decent perimeter around the island. Alvarez said there are houses all over the place along with a warehouse, but I can’t see much other than trees and the odd patch of roof peeking through.

“Why don’t the Vashons have a wall like that?” I muse.

“They’re in deeper water. It’s a natural barrier against the zombies,” Trent replies instantly. “They’re also on an island. This is a peninsula. There’s land access to block.”

“That makes sense.”

“Also they’re paranoid nutjobs.”

I chuckle, sneaking a glance at him. He’s smiling.

“How long do you think we have before our shadows get here?” I ask, gesturing over my shoulder.

Trent studies the crowd of monsters making their way steadily toward us. I imagine he’s using the feel of the wind, the direction of the sun, the height of the building—all of it together in his massive brain to come to a scary accurate prediction.

He shrugs. “Eventually.”

“That’s it?” I asked, surprised by the simplicity.

“Assuming they don’t get distracted, yeah. They’ll be here when they get here.”

“Distracted as in get ahold of the Vashons leading them and stop to eat?”

“Yes. Meaning that.”

“That’s pretty vague.”

“If you want a more accurate ETA, you’ll have to go ask the zombies.”

I scrunch my up my nose with distaste. “Pass.”

Instead of running to my doom, I lean over the edge of the building to see around two hundred worker bees moving in the streets below me. Alvarez has ordered almost everyone to build barricades in the streets near our camp. Old cars, old furniture scrounged from inside homes, random debris from the streets—it’s nothing like the barricades the MOHAI had built up to keep the zombies in, but it should be enough to keep any stragglers from getting lost along the way to the Colony’s gate.

None of us will be going anywhere near it. Well, no one but the unlucky few who have to guide the zombies there. The rest of us are either coming in underground with the cannibals, creating diversions to confuse and distract, or hanging back with the trebuchet to help Crenshaw cast his spells. The cannibal crew will come up inside the walls, place more explosives to weaken them from the inside, then run like hell back to the tunnels and back to base. From there, we’ll sit back and let the zombies do the dirty work, flushing people out of the bombed-out Colony and running panicked into the night. Then it’s ours. Easy.

It sounds like a brilliant plan on paper, but something about it doesn’t sit right in my gut. I have an anxious, sick feeling that just won’t go away.