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the rock. Its long, golden curls
are pasted with sweat to its neck and shoulders. Its hair is the colour of Harper’s when she bothers to wash it in the Mountain spring. It’s wearing clothes like the others in Forreal
do, salvaged from the Time Before, more holes than material. Its pale legs are scratched and bloody. When it reaches the highest point, it turns around and locks sparkling green eyes on Harper.
    It
transforms into a girl about the same age as Harper. Harper can’t believe what she’s seeing. It’s almost like looking at her reflection in still water,
but Harper is lean and fit and this girl is curvy and soft. Is she dreaming again?
    Beckett is at Harper’s side. A ray of sun illuminates the girl, casting a halo around her. He raises his hands to show he means her no harm. Her eyes scan him from his bare feet
to his loincloth. Harper thinks the girl lingers on his nearly naked torso before focusing on the white streak in his jet-black hair.
    The girl’s lips twitch in a slight smile and then she disappears down the other side. Beckett scales the rock but Harper can’t move. All these disparate images are falling
into place. A picture is forming in her head. In this vision, she’s no bigger than a rockstar. Shadows claim everything but the image of a girl so much like the one she’s just seen. The
girls – the one now and the one then – have the same features and colouring as Harper. But in the dream, the girl’s face is contorted in anger. She’s pointing something at
Harper. It’s a weapon of some sort. The air explodes with a flash and smoke and the most deafening bang.
    ‘Beckett!’ she screams, and climbs up after him. Her voice echoes among the hard surfaces. He doesn’t know the girl is dangerous. She grabs his ankle.
    ‘Harper, what are you doing?’ He shakes free and pulls himself up on top of the rock. Harper catapults herself upward. She wraps her arms around him and anchors him to the
spot. Her panic makes her stronger.
    She buries her face in his back. ‘Thank the Great I AM.’
    ‘I have to go after her.’ He tries to wriggle out of Harper’s grasp.
    ‘It’s not safe,’ she says. ‘Not with Terrorists Out There.’
    ‘She’s not safe,’ he says, but stops fighting.
    His eyes are trained on the blonde figure moving at a steady speed down the Mountain. They watch her until she disappears into the desert.
    Beckett closes his eyes. His lips are moving. Harper knows he’s sharing his secret hopes and fears with the Great I AM instead of with her.
    ‘Beckett,’ she says, because she can’t take the silence.
    ‘The Great I AM has led another Survivor to the Mountain,’ he says. ‘You shouldn’t have stopped me.’
    Part of her is jealous of this spirit that will always come first with him. The only thing she truly worships and trusts and believes in is Beckett.
    ‘She looks . . .’ Beckett doesn’t finish his sentence. She knows what he was going to say:
the girl looks just like you
. She couldn’t be the girl in
Harper’s vision but Harper knows there’s some connection.
    ‘Let’s continue our patrol,’ Beckett says, and heads up the Mountain, away from the girl and Harper.
    ‘What should we do?’ Harper asks, struggling to catch up with him.
    ‘Nothing,’ Beckett says. ‘We can’t tell anyone else about the girl or the lights until we understand the significance of these events.’
    It’s not like Beckett to keep secrets. ‘Why?’
    ‘You’ve seen how paranoid Finch and the other Cheerleaders have become. The Great I AM will reveal everything when it’s time,’ Beckett says with an assurance
that she suddenly finds irritating. The lights. These new images. The girl. Beckett can wait for the Great I AM’s pronouncement, but Harper already knows. She can feel it. These are bad
signs.

 
     
     
     
Chapter Five
     
     
     
     
    M y parents never showed up. I waited as long as I could to board the plane. I’d kept my head down, afraid