“Here is just as good a place to stop for the night as any, I guess,” Mist said whirling around to look at them. They’d come to a small clearing in the woods. By Rain’s estimate, they’d probably walked another fifteen miles since they came out of the tunnel, which would put them about twenty miles away from Gretchintown. Unless the Mothers found where the tunnel came out and employed some sort of tracking device to chase them down, they should be all right for a few hours.“Do you think they have hounds looking for us?” Walt asked as Mist set her backpack down on the ground and unzipped it.“I don’t know, but they’d have to find where the tunnel let out in order for those to be helpful,” Mist reminded them. She pulled out what appeared to be a small popup tent, one like the type Rain had camped in when they were children and had to learn basic survival skills.

Never in his wildest imagination would Adam have thought the night could have so many different sounds. In his own little bunk in IW, the only noise he ever heard was the occasional sound from another one of the Dicks. But even that was a rarity. To make sure the men were well-rested, gas to make them sleep was piped into their sleeping quarters every night. Everyone slept for a full eight hours—never more, never less. Now, sitting here, listening to what he imagined were mostly bugs and birds, he didn’t know when he might sleep again. Would he even be able to force himself to sleep on his own?It was pretty clear Mist and Walt were not sleeping. He tried to hide a chuckle, listening to them in the tent, which was about five feet away from where he sat, keeping an eye on the situation. He had the screen in his hand and checked it regularly to make sure there were no Mothers approaching from between the trees, but he felt fairly safe at the mo

The sound of a zipper ripping quickly had Rain’s eyes flying open just as quickly as she shot up and looked around, not sure where she was or what was happening but fairly certain she could be dead in a second or two if she didn’t get her wits about her.“We need to move out soon,” Mist said, leaning in the flap of the tent. “Up and at ‘em.”Relieved that she wasn’t about to meet her maker but still not sure what was happening, Rain dropped back down to try to clear her thoughts, expecting her head to fall onto the floor of the tent. Instead, she landed on something warm that made a soft groaning noise as her head made contact.Once again, she was up, spinning around this time as she prayed it was Adam and not an infiltrator. The former Inseminator lie next to her, a smirk on his face as if he were trying to hold back a laugh at her expense. “Sorry,” Rain mumb

Lungs burning, legs on fire, Rain pushed herself to continue to run as fast as she could, even though she had no idea how she was still moving forward over two hours after they’d started on their way. The others were breathing heavily as well. Certainly, Walt and Adam were in excellent shape, but it wasn’t as if they’d ever had the opportunity to run. The Mothers definitely didn’t let them do cardio exercises, like running on a tread machine or a stair climber, because it wasn’t exactly in their best interest to encourage their prisoners to run.“Let’s stop for a second,” Mist said, taking shelter underneath a tall pine tree, the lowest branches only a foot above her head. “I need to check the dots.”Rain assumed she actually just needed to get her breath since all of the other times she’d checked the tab, Mist had done it while still running, but Rain wasn’t about

Two days. Rain had been running for the better part of two days. They’d taken a few breaks for a half-hour here and there, but since the shield Mist had activated would last for about forty-eight hours before it would power down, all four of them felt compelled to continue to run while they had the opportunity to take advantage of the safeguard.Even though they’d figured out a way to beat the drones by tracking them as they moved around the grid, the shield provided them with the best opportunity to put some distance between themselves and the Mothers undetected. They’d each taken extra energy pills from the supply Mist had brought with her, which helped, but by the time the shield finally started to descend, over forty-eight hours after it had been launched, Rain thought her feet were going to fall off, and the cramps in her calves were almost unbearable.“Son of a bitch, it’s done,” Mist said, catc