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settling into a grin, and he laughs at himself.
    “Right. I knew that.”
    I shake my head. “It’s a good thing you made me your navigator.”
    Eli winks at me as he walks by. “Birds are the best navigators,” he says. “Especially if you navigate us to a river so we won’t have to smell those oafs anymore.”
    I lean in, wrinkling my nose and fan the air.
    “Better not exclude yourself.”
    Eli chuckles, cinches his pack tighter, and we set off.
    After several hours, Soren, Eli, Bear and I stop for a few minutes to rest and allow Miah to catch up to us. We haven’t seen him in about twenty minutes. He always falls behind—he’s had trouble keeping up with us since the beginning. Back at the safe house, it made sense. He was going through withdrawal. Anyone who’s been raised on Sector MealPaks will get sick if they’re suddenly taken away. It’s a rite of passage for Resistance members. A cleanse. As the body adjusts to the new, untreated food, it experiences sudden withdrawal from myriad medicines, targeted cellular enhancers, antioxidant supplements, phytochemicals and who-knows-what-else. Fever, vomiting, inflammation, exhaustion, muddled thinking: any and all are possible. Everyone goes through it differently. With Miah, it seemed like it was everything at once. It was brutal. The strangest thing was that Vale was fine. No withdrawal, nothing. Not even forgetfulness, mild confusion, or dizziness, the most common symptoms of all. We pestered him about it enough, no one more than Miah, but Vale insisted he had no answers.
    Even now, weeks later, Miah still struggles. As an engineer in the Sector, he never received the same type of physical training as the rest of us. As members of the Resistance, we’ve been training more or less every day for almost three years. As a soldier, Vale’s physical training, sleep, and diet regimen would have been optimized to create the perfect leader for the Okarian Sector’s Seed Bank Protection Project—intelligent, sharp, creative, not to mention in peak physical condition. A formidable foe. Even Bear is in excellent shape from all the physical labor on the Farms. But Miah didn’t go through any of that. Although Eli is adamant we stick together, he often walks too fast for Miah to keep up, so we end up stopping to wait for him. We get to rest, but not Miah. As soon as he catches up, Eli’s ready to go again.
    Minutes tick by, but Miah doesn’t show. As it becomes more and more clear that Miah’s far behind, I take off my boots. My feet feel like they’ve been pounded by hammers. But the panic buds inside me as I imagine the worst. What if he collapsed or wandered off the trail? Or worse, was captured, killed?
    “I’m going back.” I say quickly, tying up the laces on my boots and standing up.
    “No, I’ll go,” Soren says at once, looking at me, but his words are quicker than his feet. He makes no move to stand. “I’m sure he’s fine. Can’t be too far behind.”
    “Why hasn’t he shown, then? We’ve been waiting fifteen minutes.”
    “Remy’s right,” Eli says. “We can’t afford to lose someone.”
    So we stand, reluctantly, and turn back the way we came. As we walk, Eli uses our signal, the horned owl’s call, and we all strain our ears for a response.
    “Wait. I think I hear him. That way, off-trail.” Soren says, pointing through the woods at a side path. Eli makes the call again and we all stand still, waiting for the response. When it comes, I heave a sigh of relief. We were stupid, losing track of him. Any one of us could have been in his place. These woods aren’t exactly welcoming. He must have mistaken this path for the main one. We push our way through the branches, bushes, and trees, making the owl’s call again and waiting for Miah’s echo, louder now. He’s close.
    We find him lying on his back, staring up at the clouds, looking pale even as his silken black, quite hefty beard threatens to overtake his face. He pushes