***

They were only ten minutes away from Alex’s community now. He’d run through all of the different scenarios of how it would play out. The seeds he had stored under Harper’s house were his only real bargaining chip now. Once those were gone, he’d lose all leverage. And he wasn’t even sure if the pardon deal was on the table anymore. This would end in one of two ways: either he would be sent to a farm camp, or they would kill him. Alex didn’t like either of them.

The Main Street community structures came into view. Less than five minutes away now. Alex tried concentrating on the last time he had been in Harper’s house. Did he have anything there that he could use? The cloud of hunger loomed over his mind, fogging his train of thought. Focus. Alex shook his head sharply, fighting off the pain throbbing in his head when he had his answer. The kitchen.

The tires of the SUV splashed through the mud road, past the community stores and buildings, and made its way up to the cul-de-sac. The brakes squealed to a stop. The driver got out and popped the door open. Warren was in similar cuffs outside the house.

“Well?” Gordon asked.

Alex nodded to the Harpers’ house. Two of the sentries walked on either side of him, with Gordon right in front. They stepped inside Harper’s house. Like most of the homes, it was fairly empty. Most people had burned their furniture for warmth during the first winter.

“Show me,” Gordon said.

“Through the kitchen. In the back,” Alex answered.

“You first.”

The restraints around Alex’s wrists hid the trembling of his arms. He controlled his breathing to steady himself. He stepped through the doorway into the kitchen, the two sentries following him. His eyes immediately went to the sink. Each step closer brought the bottom of the sink into view, and every inch that appeared without the outline of a knife caused panic to overtake him. Alex moved closer to the edge of the counter, trying to get a better look inside the sink. And then, just before the bottom of the sink appeared empty, he saw the faded black handle of a knife.

Using both cuffed hands, he swiftly snatched the handle of the knife. The doorframe to the kitchen was small, causing the two sentries to cluster, making it awkward for them to reach their rifles. Alex brought the tip of the blade into the side of the first sentry’s neck. An eruption of blood spouted from the contact. Blood squirted between the sentry’s fingers as he tried to stanch the bleeding. Before his partner could reach for his sidearm, Alex brought the blade of the knife across his throat as well.

With both sentries clutching their wounds, attempting to hang on to the last few seconds of life they had left, he shoved both into the kitchen’s hallway, bottlenecking the only entrance, keeping the knife in hand, and sprinted out the back. Dirt flew up from his heels. One hundred yards away was the forest of dead trees, clustered together in a decaying shamble.

The sentries finally made it through the kitchen, and shouts quickly transformed into gunfire. The bullets ripped through the air close enough to Alex’s head for him to feel the vibrations of the shots. Alex pumped his legs, pushing toward the tree line. His legs burned, and the metal from the cuffs cut against the skin on his wrists. Finally, he made it into the cover of the trees, which would grow thicker the deeper he went.

The cloud cover blocked out what moonlight was shining. The gunshots fired behind him lessened. They couldn’t see him now.

Alex pushed his body beyond the limits of what it wanted to do. It begged and cried out for him to stop, to rest, to eat, but he couldn’t. Not yet. He had to keep going. The constant placement of his feet one after the other on the uneven ground was the only thing keeping him alive. And if he was dead, then so were Meeko, Harper, and the rest of his community. So he pushed on, running to the thick tree at the other end of the forest to collect the rifles he’d stored there the day before.