Chris is sitting next to me. He hasn’t put his arm around me or offered a comforting touch since Dad showed up. I’m guessing he’s waiting for me to break the ice and tell Dad about us before he makes a move.

Smart boy.

It’s dark now. We have no campfire. Heat comes from portable camping stoves and the warmth we siphon off from hugging thermoses of steaming coffee. We’ve taken a few moments to rest, having started our journey towards the Rangers’ basecamp immediately.

Sophia sits next to me.

“Hey,” she says.

“Hey.”

Silence. We suddenly hug each other.

“We’re still alive,” she says. “Can you believe it?”

“No. We should be dead.”

“I know. But we’re not.” She shrugs. “Sorry, Mr. Hart. Please go on.”

He takes a drink.

“I knew what had happened the second my cellphone stopped working,” he says. “I didn’t even try to find my car. The first airplane hit less than a mile away from where I was. I’ve never seen such a level of hysteria.” He drains the last of the coffee from his cup, leaning forward. “It took me three days to get back to the house. Rioters were going berserk throughout the city. There were massive fires, vandalism. Crime everywhere.”

“It didn’t take long for people to go crazy, did it?” I remark grimly.

“Unfortunately, no. When I got back to the house, the Mustang was missing. I knew exactly where you’d taken it, Cassidy. To the cabin.” He smiles proudly. “You took the supplies you would need, and I took mine. I had to get out of the city on foot. It took me days to get through the chaos. And you know what was strange?”

I shrug.

“Not a trace of Omega anywhere,” he continues. “Omega started setting up relief camps about two days after the pulse hit, right? They rolled in right away. They were prepared and ready to go. But in Los Angeles? Nothing.”

“That makes perfect sense,” Sophia mutters.

“Why?” I say.

“Do you remember when we were in Kamaneva’s labor camp?”

“How could I forget?”

“There were the rumors that all the big cities like L.A. and New York had either been nuked or attacked with a chemical weapon.” She outlines her initials in the dirt with the toe of her shoe. “Why would Omega bother sending their forces into a city where they were going to kill everybody with a big weapon?”

A lead weight settles in the pit of my stomach.

“God,” I breathe. “You’re right.”

“I figured about as much,” Dad says. “It took me weeks to get up to the cabin, and when I finally arrived, you weren’t there. That was the worst. I didn’t know if you had been there and left or if you never made it.” He shakes his head. “I guess it doesn’t matter now. I looked for you around the mountain communities. It was a mistake.”

“Why?”

“A woman turned over my name to Omega officials,” he answers. “It’s a long story, but I guess my name and what I did for a living didn’t sit well with Omega. They came and tried to pick me up. They didn’t get me. I left the cabin and didn’t come back. I couldn’t. They would have just waited for me there.”

“I found your backpack on the floor,” I say, frowning. “We probably just missed each other.”

“So you did make it up to the cabin at some point.”

“Yes. But that’s another story. Finish yours first.”

“Right.” He lets his shoulders fall, relaxing against the back of a fallen log. “I wandered around the hills for a few days, trying to throw them off the trail. For the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why Omega cared about capturing me. All I was doing was staying off the radar.”

“That makes you an instant target,” I say. “We found that out the hard way, didn’t we?”

Chris nods.

“Yeah, I figured that out, too,” Dad continues. “I ran across a group of capable men living up in the higher mountains and we combined forces. Started doing everything we could to disrupt Omega’s supply chains and transportation routes through the mountains. Our militia kept growing, and well… you know the rest.”

“I can’t believe we’ve been so close to each other all this time,” I say.

“It happens,” Dad sighs. “I didn’t believe you were dead, Cassie. You had to be alive somewhere, and I figured you’d find a way to fight back. You never did like being told what to do.”

I crack a grin. “Omega was asking for it.”

Chris stirs, sitting upright, his leg brushing my knee.

“How many men do you have all together?” he asks.

“About a hundred.”

“Where exactly is your basecamp?”

“Like I said, four days from here on foot. There are other survivors there. A lot of military protection.”

“Whoa. Did you say military?” I interject. “As in, the United States military?”

“Yes. Former military. Other militias like us.”

“I thought our military was on the East Coast somewhere.”

“What’s left of our forces are gearing up for something a hell of a lot bigger than Omega’s push on the Eastern Seaboard,” Dad replies, grim. “Most of our military is staked out on the West Coast, from Washington to the bottom of California.”

“What’s coming?” Sophia whispers.

I glance at Isabel. She’s gone completely silent.

“Backup,” Dad says. “The next wave of the invasion is on its way.”

Chapter Three

I’d always figured that Omega was waiting for backup. When I was imprisoned in a labor camp with Sophia, we were forced to harvest food for a massive amount of troops…a number so large that there was no way it was for the Omega forces already here. We theorized that backup was coming.

Omega, we figured, was a combination of rogue elements from North Korea, China, and Russia. Who knows who else was involved? At this point we don’t even know if the United States was the sole country affected by the EMP. For all we know, the entire world could be dark.

“China,” I state.

Dad blinks.

“China has to be sending the backup,” I clarify. “Right now Omega’s got mercenaries and international troops crawling all over the states, but there really aren’t that many. Think about it. Not enough to take over every nook and cranny of the nation. So what country do you know of that has a population big enough to supply enough troops to invade the United States on foot?”

“China,” Chris agrees. “Absolutely.”

“Not a bad theory,” Dad shrugs. “And if you’re right, I don’t see how we stand a chance against an invasion like that.”

“We still have nuclear weapons, right?” I ask. “We must have some kind of government left in place. The President and Congress and all of those people…they’re still around, aren’t they? Don’t they have some sort of emergency plan for a scenario like this?”

“I have no idea, Cassie,” Dad replies, frowning. “I haven’t heard anything about our governmental structure still being in place. As for the President and everybody else, they might be dead. If the big cities really were nuked, our population has been significantly reduced, people are starving, and our borders are practically wide open for an invading force. What’s left of our military is on its own.”

“There’s nobody in charge at all?”

“Well…” Dad shifts his position. “You’ll understand once you get to Camp Freedom — that’s what we call our basecamp. It’s not gigantic, but it’s well hidden and we’ve got a good number of volunteers.”

“And you’ve got people there who have authority?” Chris asks.

“Somewhat. We’ve got a governing body. Like I said, you’ll see when you get there.” Dad looks at me. “We need to accept the fact that the United States as we know it is long gone. Right now it’s nothing but an anarchic society, and our enemies are taking advantage of our weakened state. They’re simply taking over.”

“We can’t let that happen,” I grit out, anger ripping through my veins. “This is our home. How can people be so stupid? How could they let something like this happen? Didn’t our military or government or somebody know this was coming? They had to have some kind of clue!”