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from the unknown.
    The door opens slowly, allowing a foreign scent to flood the room with a metallic bite that brings cool, fresh air behind it.
    “Cordite,” Tobin says. “From fresh rounds. Stay back, we don’t know—”
    “It’s not the Fade,” I say, tapping my ear. The Fade don’t wear boots like the ones marching through the hall outside.
    Our personal alarms switch from blinking red back to blue—not safe, but not danger, either—and Tobin drops his arm.
    “Looks like you were right. We’re not dead after all,” Tobin says with a tired smile.
    No one survives the Fade, but I’ve done it twice.

CHAPTER 5
    “G ET a head count,” Lt. Sykes orders one of the men who entered with him. He looks terrible, with his hair plastered to his face like sandy mud. “Make sure they’re all here.”
    That’s not as easy as it sounds. Parents rush the room, searching for their children; children run to their parents. No one stays still long enough to be counted. Those like me and Tobin hang back; we don’t have anyone to check on.
    Mr. Pace shuffles through, kicking spent shells down the ramp. His face is drawn. The butt end of his rifle hits the ground with a hollow thunk when he spots Jove, and his whole frame slumps.
    “Do I want to know what happened?” Mr. Pace asks, looking straight at me.
    He kneels beside Jove, presses a hand to his throat, then passes it over Jove’s mouth and nose to make sure he’s still breathing. He snaps his fingers, and a man and woman in rumpled fatigues come to carry Jove to the hospital.
    “It’s not as bad as you think,” Anne-Marie says. “We tried to clean him up—Marina, Toby, and me.” She makes a circular motion with her finger in our general direction. “But we didn’t have enough water and the dispenser wouldn’t give us bandages.”
    What’s left of Tobin’s shredded jacket litters the floor beyond the rust-colored spatter left behind when Jove’s taken up.
    “Don’t be mad, please.” Anne-Marie goes quiet, which tells him more than if she’d kept yammering. “He and Toby . . . it was an accident. Sort of .”
    Sure. Jove accidentally painted a bull’s-eye on his face.
    Everyone still inside the bunker listens to hear if she’ll recount the whole story. No one has to tell me they’ll gladly let me take the blame if Anne-Marie turns on me.
    “Tell me the truth, Annie.”
    “He said something about Toby’s dad,” Anne-Marie says, gnawing on the fingernails she just fixed.
    Tobin slips out from beside me, coming forward to answer for what he’s done, but doesn’t get the chance.
    “Annie!”
    Her mother runs toward her, with Trey right behind. She starts tugging at Anne-Marie’s uniform where it’s stained with Jove’s blood.
    “Mom, stop it.” Anne-Marie swats at her hands.
    Trey rescues her with a bear hug that has her off the ground and out of their mother’s reach.
    “You look awful,” he says. “What’s all this blood?”
    “It’s not mine.” Anne-Marie dissolves into tears, hugging him. “I thought I lost you.”
    “Not a chance.”
    Trey looks the perfect imitation of Mr. Pace, standing next to him with a rifle hung over his shoulder. The same posture and resolve in the set of his jaw; he’s even shaved his hair down the same way. A week ago, Trey was a kid like the rest of us; now he’s one of those determined to make sure we live long enough to call ourselves adults.
    “You should have told me.” Anne-Marie punches him in the arm as she lets go of him.
    “Are you okay?” her mother asks.
    “Can we use the showers?” Anne-Marie asks in return.
    “Honoria told us to switch over to our individual generators until noon, but the water should be warm in twenty minutes.”
    “Then I’ll be fine in twenty minutes.”
    The whole family heads off in a clump, while I’m left behind without anyone to take me home or worry if the blood on my face and hands is mine or not.
    Halfway to the door, Anne-Marie shrieks