It looks like someone shot at her while she was being carried.

While Clark was carrying her.

Zaff. He must have regained consciousness when Clark was loading our bodies. Zaff shot at her—or maybe at Clark—and then Clark left us both for dead.

My anger surges. If I were in Tenebra it would explode into . . . something. A nightbeast to carry us to safety.

But there is no safety. Stranna is limp, and this isn’t the Nightmare. If she dies here in the desert, it really is my doing. And she’ll stay dead. I know that much.

Clark wouldn’t have wasted gas to drive us very far, so we can’t be more than a few miles from the warehouse. I pull out the map and unfold it, angling it to get a little light from the moon. I don’t see any desert. This is New York. There’s never been desert here. I lower the map and survey the hills and dirt. There’s something unnatural about them—not made from nature.

Click: we’re in a landfill, not a desert.

I stand and follow the tire tracks, one weary, aching step at a time, until I crest one of the hills. The tire tracks travel away from the landfill and down to meet an abandoned highway. I look at the map and scan the area around the warehouse. There are a couple highways that could be the one in front of me. I need to get closer to see a number. And a mile marker.

Two stalled cars sit in the expanse of what I can see in either direction. I think I see silhouettes of buildings stretching into the sky what looks like five miles or so away, but I can’t be sure without proper light. I’m not sure I can carry Stranna that far in the state we’re both in. Even if I could, what good would it do? We’d reenter the city with nothing.

For now, the cars are my targets. If I can get us in one of those and knock out the windows—or better yet, roll them down—we could be protected from the sun during my next Sleep without getting heat stroke. And I could figure out what to do from there.

I can’t wait for someone to drive along. I don’t count on a car having gas in it or a key to start it. I could try my hand at hot-wiring, but without gas that wouldn’t matter.

I head back to Stranna. Her breathing is labored, and she looks pale, but I tell myself it’s the lighting.

“God, help her.” I pick her up with effort and sling her over my good shoulder. My knees threaten to collapse, mostly from hunger and loss of blood. Once I get us out of the landfill, I set my gaze on the green Suburban.

I owe this to Stranna.

I’ve never been the rescuing-knight type, but Stranna is giving me plenty of opportunity. Then again, I’m also the one who tossed her into the jaws of the dragon so there’s that. If I fail now, Stranna won’t resurrect. Not from this. This is real life.

For the first time I wish we were in Tenebra instead.

She groans, and I try to soften my shoulder beneath her, but I can’t adjust her body or I’ll drop her. I’m not sure I could pick her up again.

I stumble the last few yards across the flat dusty ground and finally reach the Suburban. I set Stranna down, then try the doors. They’re all locked, so I smash one of the back passenger windows with a rock.

A burst of rancid heat comes out. I recoil and almost retch. A brief glance shows me the source.

A body. Some person captured by the Nightmare who died in their back seat.

I’m not about to clear out the cab and have us shelter in here. I check the gas tank. Bone dry. Likely the reason it’s here.

I cover my nose and mouth and do a brief quick search of the Suburban. I find a half-drunk bottle of water and tuck it into my back pocket. Then I pick up Stranna again and start the longer trudge to the other vehicle—a small green Jeep—praying it isn’t occupied by anything dead or alive.

The windows are already smashed, and the gas flap hangs open. Not occupied, but not good for anything beyond shelter. I lay Stranna in the back and then give myself a long moment to catch my breath.

How has it come to this?

Luc, that’s how. Luc promised those warehouse kids food, and the kids were taken advantage of by a needy family. I never should have gone there. I should have risked finding the high-rise with the gas I already had. I never should have sold that serum.

Never should have . . . never should have . . . never should have . . .

So many regrets. When will my life turn itself around and start making good for a change? Have I lost sight of that? I’m spending all my time in Tenebra training and surviving and helping Luc so I can get a LifeSuPod in order to . . . keep living and training and surviving. I’m living so much of my life trying to keep myself alive in order to live life.

An endless cycle.

There must be more.

I adjust Stranna along the Jeep’s back seats and bunch my shirt under the bullet wound at her back. Then I use a seat belt as a pressure bandage of sorts around her calf. It’s clotted quite a bit already, but all that movement from me carrying her has made both injuries bleed again.

No food. Hardly any water. No form of communication. I still have a half hour to . . .

What? Wait? Wait to enter Tenebra where I will hopefully enlist help from Luc? But what can he do? Send a group of eight-year-olds to save us?

This is bad.

I get back out and start walking. I venture over the next hill until I find another car—some beat-up old Volvo. Doors open, unoccupied. No gas. Aside from that, there are no other cars in sight.

Time’s almost up. It won’t do me or Stranna any good if I collapse on the road to burn up like a stranded worm.

I take note of our nearest mile marker and the highway number, then return to the Jeep and consult my map. We’re farther away from the high-rise now. Of course we are.

I give Stranna a dribble of water. She manages to swallow it without choking, but also without waking. That’s a good sign. I take a swig and then give her the rest in small doses.

I’m certain my time awake is almost over, so I use it the best way I can: brainstorming. My usual resourcefulness is stumped. I can’t carry Stranna out of this, there is no working car to steal, we have no one to contact for help on this side, and we have only Luc and his servant-children in the Nightmare . . .

Wait. What about the Spores?

Stranna is a Spore. Her people can supposedly wake up when they want to. But if that’s the case, why hasn’t Stranna woken up? It’s time I got answers. The Spores have them. The only question is will they give them to me?

I think they will. Because I have Stranna’s body as leverage.

Nightmare mist gathers at the edge of my vision. Finally. For the first time, I welcome it.

“How could you be so careless?” A spray of nightmist glass flies from Luc’s hands at his outburst. He directs it away from me, but I take a step back all the same.

He falls against the wall, breathing hard. One hand gropes for the edge of a marble bench before he sits there.

I’m still out of breath after running up the stairs into Luc’s atrium. Each inhale fights against the pain it brings in my bruised ribs and shot shoulder. I’d ask if he’s okay, but I’m too irritated by his accusation.

“This was done by your kids who were guarding the gas! I was trusting you by going there in the first place.”

It’s strange to recall with such clarity everything that happened in the Real World. There’s no disconnect, no struggle to pull up memories. Instead I woke up here in Tenebra as though it was a mere blink from one world to the other.

This is because Stranna stabbed me with her weird Spore sword.

“You should know I can’t control people from here,” Luc snaps. “Never ever blindly trust.”