this path, not really. But I’m here. We will see this thing to the end.”
“There might be fighting. I don’t know what kind of guards we’ll face, security or otherwise.”
“Then you definitely need us,” Jazmine smirked. “In case you’ve forgotten, you kind of suck at fighting.”
“April has to stay here,” I said. “She needs to keep working on the cure, to find out what we missed. And Penelope will have to stay as well, so she can test it. What I’m trying to do, I don’t know if it’s going to work, but if it does, it’ll change everything.”
“What about Luke?” Trevor asked.
“What about him?” I asked.
“He’s resourceful. And without him, it’s just three chosen against, who knows what. We might need someone who grew up outside the compounds, who knows the wild, how to survive.”
“He doesn’t seem like the type to put his life on the line.”
“He’s a good guy, I know it. And even if he’s not, maybe we need someone who is determined to survive. In case we fail. Someone to keep the mission alive, after we’re gone.”
Chills ran down my spine. It was a good idea actually, but I hated thinking about it.
“Fine, if he wants to risk his life, but I’m not slowing down for him. We’re headed to Skormhead,” I said. “Jacob told me the ash is thicker there. It’ll take us a few days, at least.”
“Wait, but why would the ash be thicker there than anywhere else?” Trevor asked.
“Because,” I said. “The sky isn’t broken. It’s just hidden. And we’re going to fix it.”
We said goodbye to Sam and the others. Even though we’d only been there a night, I was sad to leave. It was like finding a family, a home, I never knew I had.
We walked all day, following the remains of a vast highway. Cars were half buried in mud, rusted and broken. We walked across them, hood to hood, like giant stepping stones. It was dangerous to cover this much distance in the open, but I didn’t have time to be subtle.
Before he said goodbye, Damien had given me three vials of elixir. His essence, pulled directly from himself, gifted freely to me.
If I was alone, I would have sprinted all the way to Skormhead, but the others couldn’t drink so much. We decided to ration it to two drops a day; what we knew was the safe limit given to the chosen at the citadel. It kept us walking all day at a brisk pace, though the others still felt like they were slowing me down.
I wished there was a faster way to travel, but motors would make too much noise. We stopped when it was too dark to see, taking turns sleeping and standing guard; nestled against the rocks, somewhere inconspicuous, with no lights or fire. Some nights we sheltered in abandoned buildings or vehicles, huddled together for warmth. By the third day the landscape was different. It was drier away from the coast, with rocky orange mountains and prickly shrubs. We wasted a whole day walking around what must have been a sprawling metro area, then another searching for a bridge that could take us across a deep canyon.
The fourth night we followed tracks to an abandoned train. Trevor forced the door open and we packed inside away from the ash and dust, which seemed to tear at us sideways sometimes due to the strong winds.
From further away, I could see the sweeping outlines of the mountains when the wind shifted. As we got closer, the ash was thick and heavy, worse than I’d ever seen it. Visibility was so poor we couldn’t see the mountains until we were in them; their jagged peaks tearing the sky above us. The dark, poisonous ash fell in heavy clumps, sticking and burning holes in our clothes. We had to help each other put out fires frequently, holding our masks tightly against our faces. Even with elixir, our progress was slow.
“Why put a compound here?” Trevor asked. “Are you sure we’re going the right way?”
I frowned at him, gesturing vaguely.
“We must be getting close. The ash is getting worse right? If we passed the source already, it would be getting lighter again. So, we must be getting closer.”
“But what are we even looking for again?”
“I don’t know. The opposite of a purification engine. We’ll know when we see it. Let’s just find Skormhead first, we should be close. Maybe someone there will know what we’re looking for.”