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her with big amber eyes, as if she understood. Then Arden turned to me and nodded, signaling for me to go first.
    I sprang up from our hiding place, pumping my legs as fast as I could, not looking back at Califia or the lantern or Isis’s silhouette, pacing in front of the stone ledge. Arden followed close behind, jumping over deflated tires, charred bones, and overturned motorcycles. The bag was heavy on my back. The jarred berries and meats inside clanked together as Arden darted ahead, the dog right beside her. I kept running, clutching the binoculars and sprinting toward the black mouth of the tunnel.
    I didn’t even see the battered cart. It was lying beneath a truck, its hooked handle reaching for my ankle as I passed. It pulled me, pack and all, to the ground. I screamed as my knee met the pavement.
    As Arden ran she turned back, her gaze scanning the mountains. “Get up, get up, get up,” she urged, stepping over the last of the debris until she was safe, out of sight, in the entrance of the tunnel. She and Heddy watched me from there, her voice calling beyond the darkness.
    I scrambled to my feet and grabbed the binoculars, which had been crushed beneath me in the fall. My backpack was dripping, and something thick and purple ran down my legs as I limped forward, trying to get out of Isis’s line of sight. When I reached the tunnel, I collapsed against the wall.
    “Has she spotted us?” Arden asked, holding the dog back to keep her from licking my face. “Where are the binoculars?”
    “Right here.” I held them up. The center had cracked, leaving the two scopes connected by only a narrow piece of plastic. I pressed them to my face, searching the hillside for signs of her, but both lenses were black. “I can’t see anything,” I said frantically, banging the binoculars against the palm of my hand, trying to fix them.
    Isis was probably halfway down the dirt path by now, sprinting to the houses to wake up Maeve. It wouldn’t be long before she came across the bridge to retrieve us. “Come on,” I whispered to myself, shaking the silly contraption to get it to work.
    But when I held them to my face again I still couldn’t see anything. No Isis. No Quinn. No Maeve. There was only infinite black in front of me, and my eyes, bloodshot and frightened, reflected in the glass.
    THE NARROW HOUSES OF SAN FRANCISCO WERE COVERED IN colorful, ornate carvings, their paint peeling off in sheets. Burned-out cars were piled at the bottom of each hill. There was shattered glass everywhere, making the pavement sparkle.
    “We need to pick up the pace,” Arden said. She and Heddy were a few yards ahead of me, wading through the litter on the sidewalk, crushed plastic bottles and foil wrappers coming up past her ankles. She glanced above us. The moon was disappearing, the giant black dome of the sky now streaked with light. “We have to get there before the sun rises.”
    “I’m coming,” I said, looking over my shoulder at the store behind me. A car had smashed through its front window, shattering the glass. Vines and moss hung down over the opening. Inside, beyond some overturned shelves, something moved. I squinted into the darkness, trying to make sense of the shadow, but then it was bounding toward me.
    Heddy barked as the deer sprinted out of the store. I watched it disappear down the road. We’d been traveling for four hours, maybe more, snaking our way through the city. We were almost at Route 80 and the bridge that would take us to Caleb. Soon the entrance ramp appeared, covered in moss. I kept waiting for Maeve or Quinn to show up, or for a Stray to jump out and force us to surrender our supplies. But neither happened. I was going to be with Caleb again. With each step I took, it seemed more certain, more real. From now on, it would be Caleb, me, Arden, and Heddy—our own little tribe—hiding out in the wild.
    We made our way up the ramp onto 80, weaving through the cars that would be forever frozen in