Chapter 5: Show Me the Way

The can of corn was still cold in her pocket when Mara heard the boots.

She was back inside the pharmacy by then, crouched behind the counter with her knife out, because that was how she did everything now. Glass crunched out in the front. Slow, even steps. Not a raider, raiders didn't walk like that. Raiders came in loud, in a pack, laughing at nothing. This was somebody trying hard to be quiet and not quite managing.

"Whoever you are," she called, "I've got nothing worth taking. Go on."

The steps stopped.

"Mar?"

She didn't move. She didn't breathe. That voice came from some other room of her life, a room with the lights off and the door shut, and she'd spent four years making sure it stayed that way. It was lower than she remembered. Rougher. But there was no mistaking the way he said it, soft on the end, like he was apologizing before he even got to the sentence.

"Mar, it's me. It's Toby."

She stood up.

He was in the doorway with the grey light behind him, and for a second, she honestly thought he was a Transfigured. He was that thin, that still. Then he lifted one hand, slow, palm out, the way you do with a dog you aren't sure about, and she saw the beard and the gray in his hair and the tired, tired eyes, and her whole body went cold and hot at once.

"You look terrible," she said. It was the first thing that came out. She hated that it was.

"Yeah." He almost smiled. "You too."

Neither of them laughed. They just stood there with the whole broken pharmacy between them, the ash blowing in around his boots. She noticed he'd lost weight in his face but not his hands. They were the same big, scarred, careful hands. One of them was holding a bent piece of pipe, like he'd planned to use it and hadn't had the heart.

"How did you find me?" she said.

"I didn't. I mean, I wasn't." He stopped. Started over. "There's smoke from a chimney pipe about six blocks from here. I followed it. I figured it was somebody. I didn't think it would be, I wasn't sure." He shook his head. "God, Mar. You're alive."

"Don't."

"I'm not, I'm just."

"Don't do that. Don't stand there like it's some kind of reunion." Her voice came out sharper than she meant. It always did around him. That used to be the problem, actually, or part of it. Her words came out like knives, and his came out like apologies, and neither one helped. "What do you want, Tobias? You didn't walk through this city for the view."

He swallowed. His eyes went to the shelf, to the little crank radio she kept up there next to the snow globe. She'd never used it. She'd cranked it once, in the first winter, and heard only hiss, and after that, she'd left it for dead.

"Do you have power on that?" he asked.

"It's a hand crank."

"Can I?"

She should've said no. Every part of her wanted to say no. But something about the way he was asking, quiet and careful, like he was afraid of what the answer would be, made her step aside.

He took the radio down and turned the crank. The little handle squeaked. He turned it faster, until a green light blinked on, and then he set it on the counter between them and thumbed the dial. Hiss. Hiss. A crackle like frying bacon.

"What am I supposed to be listening for?"

"Wait."

He held up a finger. She heard her own pulse.

Then the static folded in on itself, and there was a voice.

It was a girl. Small, steady, working hard to sound steady. This is Wren Holloway at the Cradle Valley seed vault. If anyone can hear me, the doors open at midnight. Only once. I'm still here.

The radio slipped out of Mara's hands. It hit the counter and bounced and skidded onto the floor, but the voice kept going, tinny and bright, as if nothing had happened.

I'm still here.

Mara realized she was on her knees. She didn't remember getting there. She was gripping the edge of the counter so hard her scar hurt, and some animal sound was coming out of her chest, a thing that wasn't a word. Tobias was beside her, then. He didn't touch her. He just crouched down on the glass and stayed close.

"It's her," he said. His voice cracked in half. "It's Wren. She made it. She's in there, Mar. She made it."

"Say it again."

"She's alive."

"Again."

"She's alive. She's alive."

She laughed. It came out wet and strange, and she pressed the back of her wrist to her mouth to stop it. Three years. Three years of not looking at that ridge, of not letting herself, of telling herself that if she never went, she'd never have to know. And the whole time, her daughter had been sitting in a mountain, counting days.

She wiped her face with her sleeve and stood up fast before she could fall apart for real.

"Okay," she said. "How far?"

"Thirty miles, give or take. Maybe a little more by road."

"And the door."

"Midnight. Time lock. It opens once, and then it seals for good." He rubbed the back of his neck. "I designed it that way. I know. I know how that sounds."

"What do you need?"

"The code I've got. That part's in my head." He met her eyes. It was the first time he'd really looked at her, and it landed like a punch. "What I don't have is the way. I tried scouting twice and got lost both times. The highways are cut to pieces. You've walked every street in this city, right? I saw the marks on the walls. Somebody's been mapping it. I'm guessing that was you."

"It was me."

"Then I need you." He said it flat, no padding, no pleading. Just the plain truth. "I can't get there without you. And she can't get out without me. That's it. That's the whole situation."

She almost said no. Not because she didn't want to go. God, she wanted to go more than she'd ever wanted anything. But walking thirty miles through this country with Tobias Holloway meant hours and hours beside the one person alive who knew exactly where every wound was. And she didn't know if she could survive that.

Then she thought of the voice on the radio. Small, steady, brave. Her own kid, doing everything right, waiting.

"Fine," she said. "But you do what I say. I say run, you run. I say hide, you hide. No arguing."

"Deal."

"And we don't talk about Finn."

Something moved across his face and was gone. "Okay."

"Okay." She grabbed her pack from under the counter and shoved the atlas into it. The seed was still sitting up on the shelf, next to the snow globe. She stared at it for a second. Then she snatched it, closed her fist around it, and tucked it into her inside pocket with the little bandage. She couldn't have said why.

Tobias had picked up the radio. He was winding the crank again when the thing hissed, and a second voice cut across Wren's recording. A man's voice, smooth and flat and amplified, rolling out of the speaker like fog.

Attention, all citizens of the Concord and all free survivors. At midnight tonight, the Cradle Valley repository will open. The Concord claims it in the name of the people. All other parties are advised to stand down. Interference will be met with force.

Then the line went dead.

"Concord," Tobias said slowly. "I've heard of them. They run the dam."

"They run half the roads out of here." Mara was already pulling on her gloves. "Which means they'll be coming from the east. We take the old Eastline tunnel, and we stay off the surface. Move."

They were out the back door, ducked into the alley, when she heard the engines

She stopped so fast that Tobias walked into her. Motorcycles, maybe six of them, roaring in from the north, close. Way too close. She pulled him behind a dumpster, and they crouched there with their breath fogging between them, and through the gap, she watched a line of black-jacketed riders pour onto the street in front of the pharmacy.

They moved like soldiers. They went through her front door in a clean stack. Someone shouted, "Clear." Someone else laughed. Then, a man stepped out of the pharmacy, holding something small and bright, and Mara's stomach turned over.

It was her tin cup. The one she'd left on the counter. The coffee was still steaming.

"Still warm, Sergeant," the man called. "They can't be far."

The sergeant, a heavy man with a shaved head, lifted a handheld radio to his mouth. Mara could hear every word.

"Command, this is Team Four. We've got the site. Two sets of prints, one male, one female."

The radio crackled. And the voice that came back was the same one from the broadcast, smooth and unhurried, almost kind.

Bring me the engineer aliv ", said Silas Voss. The woman only matters as long as she's useful. If she slows him down, put her in the ground.

Tobias hadn't heard it. He was looking the other way, checking the alley. He didn't see Mara's face go perfectly, terribly blank.

She grabbed his sleeve.

"Run," she said.