“He probably just walked up when you woke up.” Ahh, Tawni who sees the best in people. I can’t fault her for it. She saw the best in me even when I could not.

“You’re probably right. I’ll try to be more civil.” I don’t promise because I know I can’t keep it.

I scoop a folded tunic off the floor under Tawni’s bed and hand it to her. Her lips curl into a smile, as if she can’t stay mad at me. Not after everything we’ve been through together. I retrieve my own change of clothes and hurriedly remove my sweat-stained tunic, catching a whiff of its Flu-stained scent. I make a face, toss it on the floor, and replace it with the new one. Tawni does the same and we’re ready to go.

Across the room, the door thuds open, sending echoes bouncing off the walls, unlike before when Trevor managed to sneak in and to the foot of my bed. The previously dead bodies stir, producing a cacophony of wake-up sounds. Groans, stretches, and yawns create a symphony of exhaustion.

Trevor stands between the door jambs. “Let’s go,” he says.

Cutting a path through the beds, I try to avoid looking at the faces of those we pass, but I can’t help it. It’s like the more you try not to look at something, the more your subconscious forces you to. I spot a woman with red pustules all over her face. Her eyes are an unnatural white, all color wiped from them by whatever disease assails her. She stares unseeing. Another man twitches again and again, wrought with seizures. I find it odd that we haven’t seen any nurses yet. Perhaps this is the place where they leave people to die. But not us. They helped us. Why? I do not know.

Without acknowledging either of us, Trevor leads us from the room, which leads directly to the outside, to the cavern that is subchapter 30 of the Star Realm. You can hardly call it a cavern. Compared to our massive caverns in the Moon Realm, this subchapter is set in a cave that’s more like a shoebox, the roof rising a mere fifty feet above our heads. The Sun Realm must have deemed the cost of further excavation not worth the benefits.

We pass through a cracking, crumbling courtyard surrounded by cracking, crumbling stone buildings. A statue of President Nailin stands pristine in the center. It is the only thing I see that is well maintained.

From the courtyard we enter an alley barely wide enough for three people to walk astride. Well, not an alley, apparently. Various similar-sized streets shoot off on either side. Evidently these are the standard roads in this subchapter. The buildings on either side rise up only three or four stories before connecting with the rocky cavern ceiling, almost like the buildings grew from the stone, like roots. There are no good views in this town.

At first Tawni and I walk side by side in Trevor’s wake, but are soon forced into single file as we pass beggars camped out with their backs to the buildings. They raise their jars and try to grab the bottoms of our tunics while muttering incoherently. I feel sick as I step over and around their legs, scraping past their outstretched fingers. They are gaunt, pale, dying. Things are bad in the Moon Realm, but nothing like this. I never realized.

I never realized.

Now I see that the gap between the moon and star dwellers is as big as the gaping crevice between the sun and moon dwellers. If the gap between the Sun and Moon Realms is a mile, then the gap between the Moon and Star Realms is more like two miles. Life seems to be hard enough as a star dweller without having to conduct a full-scale rebellion against the Moon Realm. I mean, if they barely have resources to keep their people alive, how can they afford to fight a war? Where are they getting the money for bombs and weapons and supplies? Based on the poverty around me, it seems impossible. Even the medicine required to cure us of our Bat Flu would’ve cost a fortune. A fortune that these people don’t have. Trevor must know the answers to these questions and more. Instead, I ask something else.

“Why is the General here and not fighting in the Moon Realm?” I blurt out.

Trevor stops and turns around slowly, his lips curling slightly as he looks me in the eyes. “Feeling chatty all of a sudden?” he says.

“Look—cut the crap. We appreciate your help and all, but we need answers. Something bigger than all of us is happening here.”

“You think?” Trevor says.

He turns around and keeps walking and we’re forced to follow. I don’t think he’s going to answer my question until he says, “Not that it’s any of your business, but the General has just returned from a successful campaign in two moon dweller subchapters.”

“Which ones?” I ask, pushing my luck.

“Fourteen and twenty-six.”

My breath catches and I glance back at Tawni. Her wide, blue eyes tell me that she realizes, too. The General happened to be in the same subchapters that we were during the bombings. A coincidence? I don’t believe in them.

I nearly trip on another beggar who’s squirmed his way into the center of the thin laneway. “A Nailin for the poor,” he croaks. Feeling bad as I do it, I tiptoe around him. We still have money left from Tawni’s little prison trust fund set up by her parents, but we can’t afford to use any of it frivolously.

“Did you say fourteen and twenty-six?” I ask.

“Yeah, so what?” Trevor says without looking at me. “Ah, we’re here,” he adds as the alley empties out into another circular courtyard. There doesn’t seem to be any rhyme or reason to the layout of the subchapter. Another perfectly manicured statue of President Nailin rises majestically in the center. He has his leg raised and set on a stone block, like he’s looking out upon his kingdom. I don’t understand why these people would have so many monuments to the dictator that rules them.

Before I have a chance to calculate the odds of being in the same two subchapters as the general we’re about to meet, especially because they’re separated by hundreds of miles, Trevor ducks into a stone entryway, motioning with one hand to follow him.

I glance up at the building before I enter. It’s a monstrosity—not beautiful by any reckoning, but sturdy, fortress-like, with heavy stone columns supporting a cement overhang. The walls are huge, undecorated stone blocks, straightforward in their utility.

Like everywhere in this town, it’s dimly lit inside. We pass through a thin passageway and then follow Trevor up a flight of stairs. An empty foyer welcomes us with more of the same stark stone solidity. From the foyer, Trevor moves without hesitation to the far side of the room. A heavy stone door bars our way.

“You’re expected,” Trevor says with a wink, like we should be impressed.

I roll my eyes at Tawni while Trevor drags open the door. We enter and I crane my neck to see past the chestnut waves on Trevor’s scalp.

The General is sitting behind a desk.

My heart flutters and a shiver rolls down my spine as pure elation fills my soul.

The General is her. The General is my mom.

Chapter Eight

Tristan

“Uhhh!” I groan as my back slams into the rock wall.

“Let go of him!” Roc yells, rushing at Ram. With a lazy swipe of his big left hand, Ram backhands Roc in the face, knocking him back a dozen feet while holding me in the air with his right. He’s even stronger than I expected.

His face is red again, seething with fury. His words are laced with venom and spit as he says, “You may have fooled the rest of them, but not me. I’ll be watching your every move, while you eat, while you sleep, while you piss—”

“That’s gross,” I say, choosing the wrong time for sarcasm.

Ram punches me in the stomach and I feel all the air go out of my lungs. “Shut it!” he roars as I suck at the air, wheezing through my throat. “One false move and you’ll wish you had never been born.” He throws me to the ground and stomps away.