“How did you get a glider?” Through the dark tinted window, I saw nothing but the ocean. “Wait. I’ll answer for you. It’s none of my concern.”

“If I could get paid for the number of questions you’ve asked, I’d be rich.” Reyna batted her eyelashes, half mocking and half teasing.

I caught her reflection through the tinted window and scowled. Bitch. I wanted to bite back, but I didn’t want to twist around in my seat. Sitting in the front was a disadvantage when it came to giving the evil eye.

“That’s enough, Reyna.”

Surprisingly, Rhett took my side.

“You don’t treat your best friend like shit no matter how angry you are at her.”

“Best friend?” Baffled, I frowned at the thought.

She didn’t show any sign of caring at all. And if this was all a setup, she sucked at acting. I had no memories of us sharing laughter, or stories, or even a sisterly bond. Rhett said we could lose memories, but not our emotions. Brooke was the only friend that felt like a sister to me. I missed her.

Why was ISAN taking so freakin’ long to find me?

“Leave Ava alone,” Ozzie said.

I hid my smile. My attempt to manipulate Ozzie to be on my side seemed successful so far.

Reyna mumbled something under her breath.

Tense silence filled the space inside the glider. I stole a few glances at Rhett. His hands moved about the control panel, checking the pressure, checking the distance. The steering looked simple enough, but the knobs and flashing colored lights confused me.

I thought about knocking everyone out and flying the glider back to ISAN myself; however, I’d never flown one before, and I had no idea where ISAN was located, so I scratched my escape idea.

At times Rhett glanced my way, and occasionally, my eyes would meet his. Then he pretended to check the screen. In every glider I’d seen, once you input your destination, you could take a nap. So why the fidgeting?

Rhett parked the glider inside an abandoned building. I’d heard about abandoned cities, never knowing if they were real. I wondered if this was one. My stomach fluttered excitedly at the possibility.

“Where are we?” I climbed out of the glider.

The cool, dank building had me shivering.

A large chunk of the building had been torn off, and the asphalt streets had been lifted and tossed about in twisted sections. Weeds as tall as me grew throughout where once trees and bushes rooted. Debris—plaster, street lamps, street signs, glass, metal, tires, and car parts—scattered everywhere and seemed impossible to pass. No animal life inhabited it as far as I could tell. Even the air smelled stale and dead.

Rhett hesitantly handed me a Taser and then a jacket. “Just in case. Make sure not to point it at us.” He emphasized the word us. “We’re in the restricted area and might run into drifters or the council’s security. You should put the jacket on. It gets cold.”

“What are drifters?” I shoved the Taser in the back of my pants and put the jacket on, silently thanking him for it. In ISAN, I never had to wear one in the perfect temperature setting.

When Rhett swung a backpack over his shoulder, I locked my eyes on the hole in the side of his backpack. A bullet hole? I didn’t bother to ask.

“Drifters choose to be here.” Rhett adjusted his backpack strap and tapped about his waist for his weapons, ensuring they were secure. “They don’t want to have anything to do with the society. They prefer to live alongside Mother Nature.”

“What happens when you run into them?” I stepped over upturned cement and almost lost my balance when my foot caught in a crack.

“They’ll try to steal your things,” Ozzie said.

Reyna hadn’t spoken a word since Rhett had called her my best friend. She took long strides to Rhett. Their voices sounded muffled, but I had a hunch they were talking about me.

My focus went back to Ozzie. “They do?”

“Don’t worry. We have Tasers. The first time we were here, they were all over us until we stunned one of them. They don’t bother us anymore. They’re mostly men, but a few are women.”

“What do they look like?”

“Like zombies.” Ozzie snorted.

“Really?”

“Yes, really. They have dark circles under their eyes and sallow, ashen skin, like they’re malnourished. Or dead. They smell like they haven’t washed in months. Does that describe a zombie?”

I nodded.

Then Ozzie’s hand on my arm stopped me from bumping into Rhett. My jaw dropped at the antique vehicle in front of us.

“Is this real?” It was the dumbest thing I could’ve said, but I almost didn’t care, the thing was so cool.

“Are you asking if it’s a car?” Reyna snickered.

Reyna wasn’t as bad as Justine, but I swear if she got on my nerves again I was going to punch her. Ignoring her patronizing tone, I gave her one right back.

“It’s actually called a truck.”

Rhett tried to hide it, but he lifted an amused grin. Reyna hissed and got in the back with Ozzie.

Opening the door for me, Rhett said, “Get in and put on your seatbelt.”

“So bossy.”

Rhett closed the door without reacting, and went around to the driver’s side. He tangled a couple of wires together. The engine roaring to life gave me goosebumps. I wondered where we were headed. I’d thought we’d go out to the street I’d seen earlier, but instead, we went toward the back of the building.

Driving down an empty narrow street where the sun didn’t shine made my stomach recoil in dread. Damaged structures loomed all around us, and polluted air hung over us like a heavy blanket. Steel and cement peeked through weedy undergrowth. Not one building stood untouched.

In history class, I’d seen pictures of the natural disaster aftermath. After the meteors, came hurricanes, floods, famine, and destabilized government. It seemed to me, Mother Nature punished us for abusing our resources.

We drove over what debris the truck could handle but often had to swerve around bigger obstacles, like street lamps, flipped over cars, and large blocks of collapsed buildings. My generation and my parents’ were the lucky ones. People of my grandparents’ era had experienced a horrendous disaster. Their cities crumbled to nothing around them. Everything they’d worked for their entire existence had been wasted and destroyed. The loss of lives had scarred an entire generation.

Ozzie looked out the window. “The Remnant Councils don’t care about this side of the world. Which is a good and bad thing. They could make this a workable city. It’s far from the main cities, but I don’t see why they couldn’t.”

Reyna kept her eyes on the road. “It would cost too much to supply clean water, electricity, and rebuild homes.”

We drove in silence for several miles. My skin crawled when Rhett parked under a half-collapsed building. I had no choice but to trust him. When he got out of the car, I did the same.

“Where are we?”

“This was their main hospital. This is where we get our medical supplies,” Rhett said.

“Don’t you have enough?” I brought my Taser to the front. Ozzie’s description of drifters as zombies didn’t inspire comfort, especially when I’d read about zombies not too long before.

Rhett took a couple of steps up the stairs, opened the door, and stopped. “Every time we go hunting, we get what we can. One day, the councils might decide to tear this city down for good. From the information we’ve gathered, there’s a war coming. This time, it won’t be from Mother Nature. It will be our own doing. It’s the way we are. Anyone with power will take over what they can. A perfect example is ISAN. How many more secret agencies are out there? They might be called something else, but I’m pretty sure they’re out there and organized the same way. We’re preparing for the worst.”

Rhett sprung up the stairs, his footsteps echoing loudly. He slowed when the stairs became uneven, jumping from one to another, avoiding protruding metal rods.

The higher I climbed, the more my muscles wouldn’t cooperate. I dared not look down, or it would be the end of my climbing. As I sneezed, I almost slipped on the dusty cement particles. I bent low and grabbed one of the rods to stop my fall.

“This way. Be careful.” Rhett leaped to the tilting stairs, then helped his friends and told them to go on ahead.

“Ava, don’t look down.”

Too late. I already had when I waited for Ozzie to jump to Rhett. The fact that he’d said, “don’t look down” meant I would’ve done it anyway. My curiosity always won. My heart raced a mile a minute when I ascended higher, until it palpitated out of control.

“Ava. Look at me.”

Rhett’s stern voice grounded me.

“I’m right here. I won’t let you fall. You saw Ozzie and Reyna jump with ease. Not a problem, okay?”

My knees buckled and my muscles locked. I couldn’t even get my body to move back down.

“That’s easy for you to say. You’ve done this many times.”

“I know you’re afraid of heights, but you were getting over it because you trusted me. I won’t let you fall.”

His words, his tone, his eyes, all told me he spoke the truth. The tension eased from my muscles enough to allow movement. Taking tiny scoots to the edge, I focused on my mental mission.

I am stronger than my fear. I don’t need Helix. It’s all in my head. I can do this.

Rhett leaned as far as he could, anchoring his leg on a broken piece of structure to his left. “That’s it, Ava. Keep your eyes on mine. Come to me, Ava. I’ve got you.”

I took a step back, held my breath, and pushed off as hard as I could. One of my feet landed on solid ground, and Rhett grabbed my arm. When Rhett pulled me up, my stomach dropped from my rib cage, but my heart continued to thunder.

“I knew you could do it. That was nothing,” he said when I balanced solidly on both feet.

Then his smirk turned to alarm.

“Rhett!”

He’d slipped on a small pile of debris and started to fall backward after he swung me around. Anchoring my leg as he had, I twisted my hands in his shirt, heaved him forward, and slammed his back against the wall with all my weight pressed against him. My fast thinking and the training from ISAN had saved him, but I had no idea where the strength had come from.

“I believe ... I’ve got you.” I panted, my heart racing. Blood drained to my toes, trembling from the near-fall. My fear had almost cost him his life.

“I believe you have.” Rhett’s amber eyes darkened and heated, inches from mine.

His warm breath met mine halfway, colliding and exchanging. My fists still wrung his shirt, rising and falling on his chest, in rhythm with my heart drumming. I realized my body pressed against his in an intimate way when his hand idly caressed the small of my back. What was he doing to me?

I stood there in silence. Staring. Searching. Connecting with Rhett. Like I’d done that before. The blazing fire of desire inside me—I felt it before in my dreams.

Emotions are the one thing you can’t forget. Rhett’s voice rang inside my head. For a moment, I forgot I’d been kidnapped.

“What’s taking you two so long?” Ozzie’s voice echoed from down the hall, breaking the moment.

Rhett closed his eyes, his face contorting as if in pain, and then opened them to focus on the ruined wall behind me.

As he slowly released his hold on me, seemingly not wanting to let go, he murmured, “You first. Go straight and curve right at the dead end. I’m right behind you. I just need a minute.”