I look around the room to make sure I didn't already take it out. A quick survey tells me I didn't. I pull out the next drawer and then the next.

There.

In the bottom drawer.

I try to think back. I'm certain I put it in the top drawer. I lift it out, wondering if Kayla might have wandered in here. She sometimes comes in to sift through the basket of shells and other treasures that she and Jenna have collected at the shore.

I hear the truck horn honking, and I run out the door. I've never done a single day of hard physical labor in my life. My parents always kept me busy with my books and studies, and the chores I had were never any harder than vacuuming or washing the windows. I guess today will break my standing record.

Allys rolls her eyes when I slide into the cab of the truck.

"I know," I say. "City boy."

"What's the purse for?"

I shrug. "It's a pack. Water. Protein cake. Getaway car."

She snorts. "Thinking ahead. That's good."

"For a city boy."

She smiles. "You do know I like to tease, right?"

"Really? I wouldn't have guessed."

"Smart city boy."

From the street she turns onto a narrow dirt road just past the house that could easily be missed because of the overgrowth surrounding it. The truck bounces along the deeply rutted road, and Allys seems oblivious to the numerous times the fenders scrape bottom. It's an old truck with none of the bells and whistles of Dot's cab. It even uses a key in the ignition. I assume it's mostly utilitarian, which is maybe why Allys is not worried about dents and scratches.

I don't know much about Allys's history, except that she is as old as Jenna. As old as me. And yet she's as clear skinned and young as a seventeen-year-old girl. Still. After all this time. How much time do I have? My stomach churns, and I wonder how Gatsbro got it all so right. How did he know that when I was nervous or surprised or simply hit with something too big for me to handle, my stomach was the first to betray me and tell me, Locke, your world isn't right? Or maybe I give Gatsbro too much credit, and he had nothing to do with it. He never knew me, after all. Maybe my stomach clenching is just all saved memory. I take a deep breath to calm my stomach, even though the message is correct. My world isn't right.

"Like the view?"

I look away. I thought I was being discreet in looking at her. She must be able to see out through her ears. "Sorry," I say. "I'm still--" It's too hard to explain.

"Still trying to take it all in?"

"Something like that."

"Give yourself time. It took me a while. Ha! I guess that's an understatement. I'm still trying to figure it all out." She breaks loose with all the things I was wondering about, telling me about the illness that shut down her organs, how she betrayed Jenna and told her own parents to report Jenna and her family, and how Allys's parents instead sought out Jenna's parents to help Allys in the same way.

"That must have been some U-turn for you. How did you feel when you woke and discovered what they had done?"

"Spitting mad. Confused. Sometimes grateful. There probably wasn't an emotion I didn't go through. Mostly I was a pain in the ass."

I feign surprise. "You?"

"I know. Hard to believe, isn't it?"

"What made you change your mind?"

"A boy with the most gorgeous green eyes I had ever seen."

"Good old-fashioned lust?"

She laughs. "Plenty of it." She makes a sharp turn and parks the truck in the shade of a large oak tree. "And life," she says in a more serious tone. She turns to look at me. "Life changed my mind. In little bits and pieces, it grabbed hold of me. After the first six months, I flipped back through all that had happened in that short time and all that I would have missed. My first kiss, my first chocolate peach, things as simple as rainfall on my skin--"

"A chocolate peach?"

"Oh, Lord, you haven't had one yet? We'll have to remedy that. But later. Let's go see how the trenches are coming." She swings open the truck door and hops out. I grab my pack and do the same. She pauses and takes a second look at me as she reaches into the bed of the truck for a bag.

"Something wrong?" I ask.

"What's with the coat?"

I pull on the collar. "This? Nothing. What about it?"

"You look like you're part of the Resistance."

I didn't think there still was a Resistance. Miesha made it sound like it died with her husband. "How do you figure?" I say. "These are free and common. Government issue."

"Some people wear them for protection, others with purpose. Huge difference. The homeless roll them up in their packs when they don't need them, and when they do wear them, they pull them tight against the weather. You wear yours like you own the planet."

Swagger, Locke, like you own the planet. I remember when I put it on the first time at the train station. I liked what I saw. Something dark and dangerous. I needed to feel dangerous and not like a seventeen-year-old kid on the run. It was just a coat, but I knew it was something more too. Maybe it did feel like a statement. But I'm not part of any Resistance. I don't have time for other people's troubles. I have enough of my own.

"I'll take it off if it bothers you."

She shrugs. "Doesn't bother me. Just curious. Leave it on."