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picked at the thin skin around my fingernails, watching as the car sped closer to the construction site. The list of slights against Charles took on significance now. Things I’d done or hadn’t done felt like more reasons he’d tell my father the truth. I’d been the one to insist he leave the bed that first night. I couldn’t stand it when he looked at me too much, when he talked to me too much, when he talked to my father too much, when he said anything positive about the regime. Though there were moments when things were bearable, most of the time we spent together in the suite was marked with his questions, his effort, and my silence or criticism.
    â€œGenevieve, I’m speaking to you,” my father said. I flinched when he touched my arm. “We’re here.”
    The car had stopped outside a demolition site. They’d torn down an old hotel that was used as a morgue during the plague. It had been boarded up for more than a decade, the bones of victims still inside. A few bundles of flowers sat on the ground—wilting roses, daisies that were now shriveled and stiff.
    The site was blocked off with plywood fencing, but there were openings leading down to the massive crater in the earth. I got out, walking toward a break in the wall. “Genevieve,” I heard him call behind me. “That’s not for you to see.”
    About thirty feet below the earth was a giant pile of rubble. A bulldozer pushed concrete back, against the edge of the foundation. Another crane sat motionless, its giant yellow fist lowered to the ground. Throughout the site, boys from the labor camps were clearing brick and ash using shovels and wheelbarrows. They were thinner than the boys I’d seen inside the City previously. There’d been rumors that with the liberation of the camps, the boys who’d been here at the time were now trapped and worked doubly as hard to make up for the others.
    One of the older boys pointed at us from below. Charles turned and started up the incline, pausing for a moment by a tangled heap of steel rods and concrete. He yelled something at two younger boys who had their shirts off. They were darting around the far end of the site, kicking something. I squinted against the sun, slowly making out the dark hollows in its side. It was a human skull.
    I covered my nose, overtaken by the dry stench. I’d heard hundreds had been buried inside the hotel, their bodies wrapped in sheets and towels. There were rumors that some had still been alive, suffering from the plague; that terrified family members had left them there in their last hours. Dust had settled on every surface within a quarter of a mile. The pavement, the surrounding buildings, the rusted cars that sat, wheels off, in a vacant parking lot—it was all covered with a thin layer of gray.
    I kept my head down as Charles came toward us, walking up the plywood ramp that had been anchored to the side of the ditch. I tucked my thumb under the strap of the bag, reminding myself of its contents. The nearest tunnel was still thirty minutes away, even if I ran. The best chance I had was to take the car back with my father and escape when we turned onto the main road. The south tunnel would be just ten minutes from there. Using the alleys in the Outlands, there was a chance I could lose the soldiers who followed me, if I moved quickly enough.
    â€œWe have some news for you,” my father called out when Charles came closer. The shoulders of his navy jacket were covered with dust. He pulled off the yellow construction hat he wore, cradling it like a baby.
    He glanced from my father to me, then to the car idling behind us. The soldier was standing outside it, his rifle slung over his shoulder. “It must be important. I can’t remember a time when Genevieve visited me on a project.”
    The King rested his hand on my back, pushing me forward ever so slightly. “Go on, Genevieve,” he whispered.