She pinches one by the tail and dangles it. It exudes a whiff of rot, and her eyes pore over the brownish-gray rodent. Although there’s no blood, she spies something she didn’t notice before: the belly puckers unnaturally, as though the two seams of skin don’t quite match up. She lowers the mouse to the table and pokes at it, revealing a razor-thin gash that runs from head to tail. An eviscerating slice like from a sharpened knife.
Or a wolf’s claw.
She examines the other mouse and finds the same. Another slit that runs the length of the tiny animal’s belly.
Okay. So a wolf killed these mice. But why go to that trouble and then not eat them?
Hope has heard the wolves at night, gobbling up the avalanche victims. If they’re as famished as the LTs and Sisters, why leave two mice to fester and rot?
Unless …
The hair rises at the back of Hope’s neck as she comes to a sudden realization. A moment later, she rushes out of the tent.
GROWING UP IN CAMP Liberty, we never celebrated birthdays. The only exception was when we turned seventeen, because that was the day we went through the Rite. There was a big ceremony on the parade ground, and following that, the birthday boys—the graduates—were shipped off to become the new lieutenants of the Western Federation Territory.
Or so we were told.
The truth was that the Less Thans were sold off to Hunters to be tracked down and slaughtered like prey. A very different future than what was promised us.
But now that we were free of Camp Liberty and there were a number of us who had turned or were about to turn seventeen, we decided to throw a proper birthday party. This was going to be a genuine celebration.
A couple of the guys even made decorations out of paper they’d found blowing around in camp. Personally, I enjoyed the irony of it. I doubt that anyone ever dreamed that the official Republic of the True America stationery would be turned into party hats and paper chains.
Some of the LTs had created a stage at one end of the mess hall and were performing skits. At the moment, two guys were prancing around in an improvised horse costume, and that was getting huge laughs, especially when the rear of the horse got separated from the front.
I found Flush and Twitch sitting at a table in the very back of the mess hall, poring over sheets of paper.
“You’re missing the fun,” I said.
“Some of us are preoccupied,” Flush said, cocking his head toward Twitch.
“I can still hear, you know,” said Twitch. “I know you’re talking about me. And I bet you’re cocking your head in my direction.”
Flush’s face turned bright red, and Twitch pointed at the paper.
“Look at this,” he said. “We’ve started working out some combinations.”
I bent down and inspected the paper. An elaborate chart showed numbers along the side and letters across the top.
“If we choose the column where ‘four’ is ‘n,’” Twitch went on, “then that means that ‘five’ is ‘o,’ ‘six’ is ‘p’ and so on. So then we get something like—well, read it, Flush.”
Flush picked up the paper and tried to pronounce what they’d come up with. “Nomsllkk-mskn,” he said.
Nomsllkk-mskn. If it was a word, it wasn’t an obvious one.
“I admit,” Twitch said, “it’s nothing definite yet, but if we added some more vowels in there, who knows?”
“You might be onto something,” I said, patting him on the shoulder. “Keep at it.”
Flush rolled his eyes. “Now we’ll never enjoy the party,” he moaned good-naturedly.
“When we get to the Heartland,” I said “the first thing we’ll do is throw a real party. And we’ll have those foods we’ve always read about.”
“You mean like cake and ice cream?”
“And cookies and brownies and everything else we can think of.”
Flush turned back to Twitch. “What’re you waiting for? Let’s crack this code so we can get out of here and celebrate.”
I turned back to the stage. The rear of the horse was chasing the front, trying to catch up. It had been a long time since I’d heard my friends laugh so much.
The one actor had just about caught up with the other when a voice interrupted them.
“We need to leave.”
I knew that voice. Had dreamed about that voice.
The actors hesitated, unsure if they should go on or not.
“We need to leave,” the voice said again, and the audience laughter came to an abrupt halt.
Heads turned. Standing by the back door, concealed in shadows with a hoodie drawn tight around her face, was Hope. It had been forever since I’d seen her, and I could feel the butterflies in my stomach.
“We know that, Hope,” Flush said, stepping toward her. “That’s what we’ve been talking about in our meetings.”
“I mean soon.”
“Exactly. Once the snow melts—”
“Tomorrow. The next day at the latest.”
Jaws hung open. Eyes widened. We’d just lived through the most dangerous year of our lives … and she was proposing something to top even that.
“You’re kidding, right?” asked Flush.
“I’m not.”
“But we’ve got three Less Thans who can barely get out of bed. It’s the middle of winter, the snow’s practically to our knees, and we don’t have nearly enough food to take with us on a trip.”
Others began chiming in; everyone had an opinion and wanted to voice it.
Hope listened to it all, calmly nodded, then walked down the aisle toward the front of the mess hall. She tossed two objects onto the stage, where they landed with a muffled thud. The two actors backed up and everyone grew quiet.
“What are those?” Flush asked.
“Mice,” she said.
“So?”
“The wolves killed them.”
He shrugged. “Wolves kill mice all the time.”
“They didn’t eat them.”
It slowly sank in what she was getting at.
“They’ve developed a taste for humans,” she went on, her voice eerily calm. “They’re no longer interested in other animals. It’s people or nothing.”
Her words were followed by a silence louder than the avalanche.
“That may be true,” Flush said, “but that doesn’t mean—”
“We leave tomorrow,” she insisted. “We rejoin the Sisters we left behind at the lake and go from there.”
An LT named Sunshine let loose a high-pitched laugh. “Now you’re dreaming. Like we’re gonna be able to make it all that way—especially with them.” He pointed in the direction of the infirmary, housing those