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When the sun dipped below the horizon and darkness blanketed the sky, she could barely feel her body anymore.

Time lost all meaning as they sprinted through the deepening shadows.

When they finally reached the underpass of a bridge, they came to a sputtering halt, each of them gasping and heaving desperately for air.

Adan lurched over and vomited. Serene rushed to his side, supporting him, while he emptied his stomach.

“We rest here for a few hours,” Brock declared, wiping sweat from his forehead.

“We can’t,” Khalani protested. “Winnie doesn’t have that long.”

“And we’ll all be dead too if we don’t take a break.”

She opened her mouth to argue.

“He’s right, Kanes,” Takeshi interrupted, carefully laying Winnie down with her back resting against a car tire. “We’ll do more harm than good if we keep up this pace without stopping.”

Khalani wanted to scream her frustrations into the night sky. But she looked around at the others’ pale faces, heard their ragged breathing, and knew Takeshi was right.

Derek propped Winnie’s head on an empty backpack, and Takeshi pulled a long-sleeve black shirt from his bag, draping it over her for warmth.

“I’ll take watch,” Takeshi said firmly.

No one argued, and they set up camp under the bridge, forming a protective circle around Winnie. Before long, everyone drifted to sleep.

But Khalani couldn’t shut her eyes.

She pulled her knees to her chest, and her fingers anxiously tapped the top of her handgun. The disquiet was like a jagged knife slowly sawing through her throat.

She obsessively watched Winnie’s shallow breaths, fixating on the slow rise and fall of her chest.

She timed them—long and slightly rattled, unable to fully inhale.

Khalani’s head thudded back against the metal car. The dark parts of her wanted to bang her head harder. To lose herself in the dark corners of her twisted mind.

Winnie was the only mother she had left. And all Khalani could do was lay there and slowly watch her fade away, like everyone else who used to love her.

A lone tear slid down her face, and she furiously wiped it away.

Unable to endure the bitter silence any longer, Khalani stood and walked over the sleeping bodies, heading toward the edge of the underpass. Her eyes scanned the cars, unconsciously searching forhim, drawn like an invisible magnet.

Under the moonlight, she spotted him.

Takeshi sat with one leg stretched out and the other knee pulled up, a sharp blade resting in his palm. He leaned his back against the front bumper of a large, rusted black vehicle a few feet outside the cover of the bridge.

“Mind if I join you?”

He glanced up, his deep eyes holding a quiet strength that grounded her.

“Have a seat.”

She sat a foot away from him, leaning her shoulders against the rusted car, wrapping her arms around her legs. Her skin felt taut, like a rubber band stretched to the breaking point.

“You okay?” Takeshi asked.

Khalani opened her mouth to say yes—an automatic response—but then she realized there was no point in lying. She pursed her lips, chin trembling as she quietly shook her head.

Takeshi’s jaw tightened as he studied her face. Any moment, she expected him to tell her to quit being weak. To accept the consequences of convincing Winnie to join their perilous quest.