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to collect if you’re wrong?”
    â€œGood call. I bet you a big piece of cake we hear from her before we finish breakfast.”
    â€œDeal.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “She won’t go Georgetown on us, will she?”
    Captured and sent to a hidden research facility to be tortured and executed. “No, of course not.” They’ll probably just kill her outright. As the altimeter ticks toward zero, I hope for that.
    I check my Beretta to make sure it wasn’t damaged when I fell, load a full magazine, then ready the chamber. I won’t be a prisoner again. Death is preferable. Anything but capture.

6
    In between inserting an IV, administering an oxygen mask, and checking Colin’s vitals, the EMT keeps looking at me. And not in the “I don’t believe your ridiculous gunshot story” sort of way. More like he’s trying to figure out where he’s seen me before.
    I’d hoped the scruffy hair, gaunt face, and lack of makeup would hide me from the scrutiny Preston warned me would occur. Had hoped to fade from public memory, maybe visit Dad and Sam in a few months—but on his last visit to the island, Preston informed me that I’d need to lay “Yoda low, Dagobah style” until the war ended.
    Then he pulled out his tablet and loaded the final scene from the Kissing Dragons midseason finale. Heavily edited with CGI effects, it showed me executing Baby, who’dbeen digitally transformed from a Silver into a Red because dragon children aren’t supposed to exist. And of course they took out the part where I stabbed James.
    According to Preston, a week after they released the video, the president’s press secretary announced our defection back to the other side and offered a reward for information leading to our capture.
    Half a million dollars. Each. A lot more than any EMT makes.
    â€œSo where did you say you were from again?” he asks.
    â€œI didn’t.”
    â€œYou a cheechako?”
    â€œI don’t know what that is.”
    â€œYep, she’s a cheechako. A foreigner. A Southerner,” Driver says, affecting a horrible accent. Something between Georgia and Canada. He laughs to himself. “Everything’s south of Dillingham. How’d you get up here?”
    â€œWe flew, yes, yes,” Allie murmurs. Her head’s resting on my lap.
    I stroke her hair, glance up to find Driver examining us in the rearview mirror. “Look, we’re tired. Don’t want to be rude, but could we quit it with the questions?”
    â€œI really should take a look at your ribs,” EMT says.
    Which means me taking off the jacket, him seeing the gun. Me using it. “I’m fine. Worry about him.”
    I force myself to sit up straight, hide my grimace behind my hand, and return my attention to the window. We speed past old wooden homes and shops, most fishing related. A town, a real town. Feels strange. Maybe because nothing in Dillingham is painted black. Maybe because I’ve lived in a prison camp or a shipping container the past several months.
    â€œYou see anything funny while you were waiting for us?” Driver says.
    I shake my head and slide my other hand over Allie’s mouth, but she seems to have fallen back asleep.
    â€œHeard them jets, though, right? Sheriff says they were DJs. Dragons in Dillingham? That’ll be front page for a week. Everyone’ll be sending in photos of junk they didn’t see, calling ’em dragons or UFOs. At least it’ll be a changeup from sasquatches.”
    I can see EMT’s expression in the window reflection. The mention of dragons has his gears turning. I reach under my jacket for my gun.
    â€œThought there weren’t any dragons in Alaska?” I say.
    EMT shrugs. “The Mengeles say it’s too cold for them, but you never know.”
    Cold has little to do with it. Not enough food supply to sustain numbers, according to Grackel. Nothing