Zach started awake, startled by the sound of someone clapping their hands loudly. He blinked bleary-eyed, looking around until he found Eve standing in the doorway. She was already dressed, her black hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a plaid shirt with blue jeans and old light-brown leather boots.

  Thankfully, he was still under the effects of just waking up; her eyes didn’t bother him too much. Not even when she said, “Your father’s almost done. You need to get up. I already made you hot water to wash, and I got your breakfast. It’s on the counter. Hurry up.”

  Without another word, she went back into the apartment.

  Zach dropped his head back on the pillow, stretching as he lay. Wait. He lifted his left hand up and found that it was newly bandaged. His mind raced, his heart beating out his panic. What the...

  He remembered that Eve served with the Medical Function. She’d come in during the night. That stupid tracking must’ve really done a number on him if he couldn’t even feel someone working on his hand. That seemed dangerous.

  It just hit him that it meant she’d seen his hand without the bandage. She’d seen the absence of a wound. But if that was the case, why hadn’t she brought it up?

  “Oh, things just keep getting worse,” he muttered under his breath.

  But he resolved that if she didn’t mention it, he wouldn’t either. But not knowing how she felt about it was really bothersome. What about—

  How could he have forgotten the book?

  He jumped off the bed, his groggy state instantly wiped away in the face of what he might discover. He glanced at the door. If the book was something Oliver shouldn’t have, he couldn’t very well risk them finding it in his room.

  He walked over to the door, and just as he was about to close it, he found Eve and John sitting at the counter, eating their breakfast. They both glanced at him, John looking him over.

  “Oliver, I have to drop you off at the base and make my way back to Mark’s Street. You need to hurry up. Five minutes max, or you’re going like that. Okay?”

  “I’ll be out now,” Zach said, taking care to hide his frustration.

  When he closed the door, he spun and studied the room. The bed sat on this side of the room, and the bucket of hot water sat by the table on the other side. The room was decent-sized, but today, at that moment, he felt like he could fit an entire ocean between both points.

  If he went for the book now, he wouldn’t have the time to read it, not if in five minutes they would come knocking on the door, wanting to see how far he was. They don’t knock in this world, Oliver’s memory corrected. Not since the sound took on a new meaning. Still, he let out a small growl as he went for the water.

  His washcloth sat ready on the bucket. He dipped it in the water, finding the warmth refreshing, though he could remember personally preferring to wash with cool water in the mornings, as it did a better job of waking him up. Oliver, on the other hand, must’ve preferred hot water.

  He washed his face, underarms, groin, and feet. When he was changing into one of the new T-shirts hanging in the wardrobe, he realized he needed to use the toilet.

  Recalling the buckets he’d seen yesterday waiting outside the buildings, he did not relish relieving himself. That his need involved more than just urinating only made the feeling that much worse.

  He found himself glancing at the bed. He didn’t have time to read the thing, but maybe if he just looked? John had said they’d be going to the shooting range today. If he was going to handle a gun, he couldn’t do it with this weighing on his mind.

  Just a look.

  He went to the bed and lifted the mattress. Nothing. He couldn’t articulate the level of disappointment and anger that flooded through him at that moment. He’d been so sure. The feeling that had come to him as he held that black book in Severity had been so real. So intense.

  He frowned.

  He dropped the mattress and fell to his knees. There was nothing under the bed as well. He winced as a headache bloomed behind his eyes. Suddenly, his hand moved in tandem with a vague feeling. He reached under the base and found a loose flap pinned to the base with two nails, where part of the fabric had been torn.

  Removing the nails was an easy thing, and when the flap came loose, he felt around inside and found the book. His stomach tightened in anticipation.

  The book was leather-bound. When he brought it out into the light, he saw that the faded and cracked leather had no title. It was bound with a leather cord tied like a shoestring. Somewhat thick, the pages were stained yellow, a testament to its age.

  “You almost done?” John’s voice came through the door.

  “Yes!” he shouted.

  With a sigh, he put the journal back in the flap, pressing the nails in until the flap stayed in its position. The nails were there to make it look as though Oliver had simply tried to fix the torn material.

  Emily’s letter had mentioned someone looking for Oliver’s journal.

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  Had they been looking in this room? As clever as this hiding spot was, he doubted someone would’ve missed looking in the torn flap in the base of a bed. Unless they were in a rush, knowing Emily was coming for them.

  He shook his head, standing back up. It sucked that he couldn’t read it now, but at least he knew it was there. Why would Oliver have felt the need to hide his journal? Could he have known someone was trying to look through his pages? If Emily had known, he...

  His thoughts drifted away as his eyes found the bucket sitting in the corner, an old cloth folded over its rim. He expressed his hate for Oliver one more time, bringing him to a world where plumbing had regressed to buckets and cloths!

  But he had to go.

  He dimmed the entire process from his mind, everything happening as if from afar. When he finally came to his senses, they were standing outside of the building—him, John, and Eve. They’d placed their waste buckets with the others standing beside the street. Zach refused to even glance at the damn things.

  “Promise me,” John said, gently taking Eve by her shoulders. “No work. You’re just observing.”

  Eve took a deep breath before she finally nodded her head. “I’ll be following Ava the whole time. She’ll make sure I don’t touch anything I’m not supposed to.” The last part sounded full of vexation.

  “Good,” John responded.

  The rattle of the wagon's wheel came echoing down the street, the cobbles already dry from the rising morning sun. Not a single hint remained of the rain that had fallen yesterday.

  When Eve turned to face Zach, she told him she’d be taking a different wagon, as this one was headed south. A special wagon, ordered by John for their trip to the military base, which was as far south as the camp allowed. They’d be the only ones riding it.

  The others stood somewhat around them, waiting for the wagon that would take them down to their respective duties for the day. They all seemed more than pleased when Zach followed after John as he got onto the old wagon.

  Eve glowered at the ease they all showed now that he was no longer standing among them. She looked a few seconds away from giving all of them a tongue lashing, but she also seemed hesitant somehow. Zach didn’t need Oliver’s memories to tell him that that expression was foreign on her.

  Before he could ask her about it, though, the driver set the horse walking again. Unlike the last few times they’d ridden the wagon, the driver drove it southward. They went down 3rd Street, following its sharp right-angle turn, then crossed over onto Dream Street before it connected with Mark’s street going westward.

  The Dreamhold stood, still guarded out front by four enforcers, silent and ominous. Even now, as he watched, they were bringing in food for the Dreamers. He supposed the fact that they were still alive, the fact that the building hadn’t been emptied out, was as big a win as he could get.

  His eyes went to the highest window, the window Noah had frequently enjoyed opening, and found it boarded up. Zach couldn’t help but wonder if he worried at all about the fact that Eve had seen him, had heard them. He hadn’t known him long, but he definitely seemed the type.

  The graveyard was off to his right as they finally passed out of the residential area. He avoided thinking about Jonathan’s jaw. Neither John nor Eve had asked him about his strength, so maybe he’d used his normal strength after all.

  I hope.

  The ride to the military base must’ve taken an hour and a half at least, if not more. On the way there, he’d expected to see a landscape filled with overgrown grass. Cracks in the road where the pavement was pushing up from the earth.

  In short, he expected to find the sort of place that would naturally occur when a group of people spent more time focusing on planting and harvesting their food. But that was his mistake. In a place as organized as Camp Twelve was, he should’ve known better.

  The pavement of the old road was cracked from being baked under the sun for days on end, but the plant life was kept neatly to the sides and cut close to the ground. Nothing could walk there unseen.

  The base itself was a large brick-red building. The wagon drew to a stop somewhere in its courtyard. An enforcer stood waiting for them to get off, his face showing a slight annoyance. Zach noticed a large sign sitting to the right of the courtyard, though all its letters had been removed, resulting in its current blank state.

  “Councilman,” the enforcer said.

  He didn’t even glance at Zach.

  “Kevin let you know I was coming?” John asked.

  “He did, councilman,” the man replied. “The code?”

  John took a deep breath before he sighed out, “I’m a piece of shit.”

  Zach blinked. He could’ve sworn the enforcer cracked the smallest smile, though he turned and headed for the entrance before Zach could be sure. He glanced at John, wondering for the first time what fueled the strained relationship between him and Kevin.

  If anything, they should’ve been brothers. John had married into the Emery family, and Kevin had effectively been adopted by the Head herself. The look on John’s face, however, quickly stopped him from asking.

  The building was cooler inside, much cooler, offering some blessed relief from the stifling heat outside. After yesterday’s rain, the ground should’ve been cooler, the air too, but the opposite was true.

  The foyer was empty, and so was the front desk. Despite the fact that seven years had passed, despite the fact that the base no longer belonged to Tettralis as a country, everything was clean. The countertop of the reception area was dust-free. The bulletproof screen around the front desk was spotless.

  More testament to the Head’s leadership and her Function heads.

  They went further in, into the secure area of the compound. As the Expedition head, Zach knows this wasn’t John’s first time walking through these halls, but the enforcer clearly insisted on being their guide.

  How did the Head manage to get control of the country’s military base?

  “You’ve already done the reports for the week?” John’s voice echoed in the otherwise quiet hallway.

  The enforcer threw him a look over his shoulder and said, “We have, and we’ve given them to Kevin.”

  The man’s tone made it clear John would not be hearing whatever that report entailed, not from his mouth at least.

  After many twists and turns, they finally came to a hall with a heavy steel vault door at the end. Three enforcers stood there, one on each side of the door, and one further down the hallway, closer to them.

  “They have codes,” their escort said to the one in front.

  The man nodded and stepped to the side, allowing them to pass.

  Their rifles made the hall more threatening than it should’ve been. That feeling was only intensified when the enforcer turned the safe’s handle wheel, and the door swung heavily out into the hall.

  Weapons as he’d never seen before filled the room beyond. Rifles, pistols, shotguns like the one the Head had on her wall, small grenades, knives, and even brass knuckles. Zach actually felt himself shiver at the sight of it all.

  All that weaponry raised the hairs on his neck and arms. Beside him, he could feel John tense. When Zach glanced at him, John had an almost accusatory glare for the room at large. Almost as though he blamed the weapons for what had happened to the world.

  “Rifle and a pistol,” John said, turning for the door. “See which one you work better with.”

  To Zach’s surprise, John left without a backward glance. The enforcer walked through the room, retrieving one rifle and one pistol.

  “To the shooting range,” he said, still not fully meeting Zach’s eye.