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smile. I think she's beautiful, but I try to see her as these men do: a middle-aged, pregnant burn victim. I drop my head and sigh. It doesn't matter what she looks like. She's a woman. Most men would give anything to own a woman or to have one to trade to the Breeders.
    They've assumed I'm a Bender, the half-male half-female mutations that are born now instead of girls, but it doesn't do me much good, seeing as how Tank-top man seems to have a taste for Benders. I picture his giant hands on me and feel the strong desire to crush something. His windpipe, hopefully.
    The leader opens the driver's door. He turns to Tank-top man. “Stephen, you're up front.” Then he speaks to the two men standing at his door. “Lavan, Kemuel, you're in the back. Stay alert.”
    The other two take their places: backs against the front seats, facing us. Lavan glares at us, the knife in his hand. Kemuel sits next to him, hands around his knees. He may be the only one who doesn't come from a family of giants. He's slender, about fourteen with the wisp of a mustache sprouting on his lip, curly black hair, and heavy eyebrows. His delicate features and long lashes make him almost pretty. Maybe he's a Bender, though his compadres don't seem to act like it. His clothes are more subdued, holey pants, a white T-shirt, and only a single silver chain dangling from his neck. He's the one who I'd go after to plead our case, the only one who might have some pity on his face as he looks at Clay's bruised cheek. I try to meet his eyes as the leader starts the van and bumps us onto the road, but Kemuel keeps his eyes on the holes of his pants.
    Clay's eyes are locked on his knees, too. I can almost taste the shame rolling off him. He fumbled the gun. If I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it. He's never missed a shot since I've met him, though he's never been this hurt either. I know how he's seething inside, wanting to crush these men. I watch his hands squeeze into fists in his lap. I want to touch him, soothe out the wrinkles on his forehead, but I’m not a fool.
    “Riley,” Ethan whispers as soon as the road noise picks up. “What's gonna happen?” His leg brushes mine as he leans in closer. I can feel him tremble even over the vibrations in the road.
    I whisper, “Don't worry.” Hollow words. We're all worried. No, terrified.
    “Shut up,” Lavan says. He glares at me with his clouded left eye.
    “Who's the Messiah?” I ask, jutting my chin out. “Why's he been waiting for us?”
    Lavan pushes back his beat-up ball cap and narrows his less swollen eye. “Shut,” he leans forward and raises his knife, “up.”
    I scowl and let my head bang against the van as the broken road vibrates us back and forth. If they wanted us dead, they would've killed us, which means one thing: they need us alive.
    ***
    Twenty minutes of driving through desert and we come to the remains of a town. We cruise past crumbled buildings and see two-thirds of a concrete warehouse, bone white and roofless, on the left. A house with loose siding waving like long fingers sags on the right. We pass a burned-out car husk. My eyes follow it until I see the bleached skull lying in the passenger seat. I flick my eyes to the horizon and try to control the awful dread crawling around my stomach.
    We turn down a long, dusty road that dips into a hollow valley. The road winds around to a building half a mile long. The giant rectangle looks like it used to be one of those large shopping areas, a… mall. Some shop names still cling above the entrances though many have fallen away: Dillard’s, something that just reads J. Pen, and Macy . At first glance the mall might seem like another dead building, but there are signs of life. To the west, in a cracked parking lot, several black rectangles angle toward the sun.
    Clay sees my eyes and nods. “Solar panels,” he says.
    “Shut up,” Lavan says. He flashes what's left of his teeth in a nasty sneer.
    We pull up to another aging white