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arm, the wrist glinting metallically. Dit, dit , dit . “His wristwatch.” She felt drained and lifeless. “He’s gone.”
    Jayden pulled the arm away from her, steadying her with his hand. “Let’s get out of here.”
    “We have to take him back,” said Kira.
    “This was not an accident,” said Jayden. “Someone came through here and set this bomb—someone who knew we were coming. They’re probably still nearby.”
    Kira frowned. “Why would someone blow up a weather station?”
    “It was a radio,” said Gianna. “We didn’t see it all before it blew, but I know that much for certain. This was the biggest communications hub I’ve ever seen.”
    “Voice,” said Kira.
    Jayden’s voice was low and grim. “And after that noise, they definitely know we’re here.”

CHAPTER FIVE
    J ayden gathered the survivors in the shadow of the smoking wagon. “There’s no way we’re getting home in this thing, which puts us at least two days out from civilization. Our radio’s been destroyed as well. We’re on our own.”
    “We’ll have to rig a stretcher for Private Lanier,” said Marcus. “He has a compound fracture in his shin. I’ve set it as best I can, but he’s not walking anywhere.”
    Kira scanned the trees and ruins around them, tensing at every movement. She’d been in the hospital once when the Voice attacked; she’d seen the wounded soldiers they brought in, moaning and screaming in pain as the triage medics wheeled them into surgery. It still shocked her to think that any human would harm another one.
    “Build a stretcher,” said Jayden. “We have two horses left: Patterson and Yoon will ride ahead and send backup as soon as they can reach the Defense Grid perimeter. The rest of us follow on foot.”
    “It’s nearly thirty miles,” said Yoon, “and the horses are already tired. They can’t do it in one shot.”
    “They can go for at least another hour,” said Jayden. “You’ll run out of light by then anyway. Go as far as you can, then let the horses rest till first light.”
    “We don’t have to go all the way back to East Meadow,” said Gianna. “There’s a farm community west of here, and several more to the east. They’re a whole lot closer than thirty miles, and Lanier can get help sooner.”
    “Our map was in the side of the wagon that blew up,” said Jayden. “I’m not in the mood to just wander around the island looking for rednecks.”
    “They’re not rednecks,” said Gianna. “Most of them have more education than you do—”
    “Their amazing educations aren’t much good to us without a map to find them,” said Kira. Why was Gianna arguing at a time like this? “East Meadow’s our best bet—we can follow major roads the whole way.”
    “Lanier’s not going to make it back,” said Gianna, “not with that fracture. The farms have hospitals just like we do.”
    “Not ‘just like we do,’” said Kira, “and no, Lanier’s not going to die on the road. Do you have some kind of medical background you forgot to mention?”
    “Anyone can see—”
    “Anyone can see that he’s bad,” said Marcus, speaking calmly, “but we’ve splinted it, we’ve wrapped it, and I can drug him so hard he’ll think he’s flying home on a magical gumdrop rainbow. You could get high on his farts.”
    “Patterson and Yoon, go south to East Meadow,” said Jayden firmly. “The rest of us follow with the same goal, but”—he looked at Gianna—“if we run across a farm or an outpost or anything like that, we can try to commandeer another wagon.”
    “You don’t have the authority to commandeer a wagon,” Gianna snapped.
    “And you don’t have the authority to disobey my orders,” said Jayden. “This is a military operation, in a state of emergency, and I will take you home the way I think is best if I have to drug you as much as Lanier to do it. Am I clear?”
    “Is this what we have to look forward to?” asked Gianna. “Is this our brave new world