It's tough knowing that with each passing day, I inch closer to war. I've had nightmares about it nearly every night for the past week. In the dreams, the Deathless and I are fighting off Prowlers in the fields outside my house, but the machines are much more massive than in reality. Every time they stomp, the ground shakes and trees fall, and with each step, I watch my house crumble all over again. The grass and fields start to open, and all of us fighting with the Deathless get trapped in the open earth, like quicksand. That's usually when I try to reach for my slingshot, but it's never anywhere to be found, and no one is ever there to help me. And I can never help myself, I just sink deeper. When I wake up, I tell myself I'm strong, but when I think about actually fighting, I feel sick with terror.

The only thought that keeps me strong is that Daniel, Dad, and the Crowleys may still be alive. But even that's not guaranteed. What if I find out that Daniel was killed for sending that transmission? What will I do then?

I try to focus on my work—Declan is testing different samples from our knock out compound for toxicity and potency while I type his findings into the computer log—but my weariness manifests in numerous typos. Days on the Immortal are taxing. I'm constantly studying and working and training, especially now that I've been promoted to the rescue team. Phoebe said she wanted to see how well I work in the field before she sent me into the bunker. Great, I thought, another stressor to worry about.

I barely have time to spend with Mom or Declan, who has become a close friend, and even though Nate claimed to only want to be friends, I catch him staring at me nearly every time we're both in the lab, and our combat training has been nearly speechless. But yesterday, while Phoebe was away to check on a project, Nate pulled my arm into a chickenwing hold, and he paused before flipping me onto my back.

"Are we fighting?" he asked.

"No," I said, tearing his arm away from its hold around my neck, and turning myself to face him. "I'm just focusing on my project with Declan."

"Oh. Because you've been avoiding me since I tried to apologize to you, and it feels like we're fighting," he said. I crouched down, ready to pounce or fend off a strike, but he straightened his posture and relaxed his body. He smiled a coy, crooked smile. "I don't want to fight with you." His eyes lingered on mine for just a second too long and his gaze fell to my lips.

I knew then that I was right to ignore him. I kicked him in the groin, and then made up some emergency I had to get to.

Nate can't be my friend, and I can't distract myself from work, from Daniel, from the war. From anything, really. And that's all he is. A distraction.

I look up from the computer where I'm logging Declan's findings, and I catch Nate looking at me now. I dart my eyes away and return to the work in front of me, clacking the keys beneath my fingertips.

I want to focus—I need to focus—but all I can think about is how Nate is probably still staring at me, and the thought makes my fingers shake. I ball them into a fist and loosen them at my sides. "Declan?" I start, looking for anything else to think about.

"Yeah?" he responds without lifting an eye from his tests.

Focus on what's important, I tell myself. "You know how Daniel and I have known each other forever?"

Still, he doesn't look up from the tests. "Yeah?"

"Did you ever have anyone like that? Any ladies before the world ended?" I ask.

"Toxicity levels for sample 2 are normal," he says, and I type that into our log.

He sets down his instruments and looks at me. He's still wearing his protective goggles, and the band pushes his already wild hair up around his head in funny angles. He moves the goggles to his forehead and puts on his normal glasses before answering me.

"No ladies for me, but I did have a person."

"A person? A male person?" He nods his head, and I hit him playfully on the arm. "Why didn't you tell me?"

He gestures for me to lower my voice, and says, "Not a lot of people know, and I want to keep it that way. They don't need to know any personal details about me."

"But we're friends. Friends share stories, remember? Who was he?" I whisper.

He takes a deep breath. "You know how I said Hugh Quail, Gunther's brother, was my roommate?" I nod. "He and I were living together. We started dating in undergrad, and by the time I was getting my PhD, we were serious. We were going to start a life together."

My heart sinks. "But... oh gosh, he didn't make it."

He shakes his head slowly. "If the world hadn't ended, we would be in our fifties now. We would be celebrating something like our thirtieth anniversary, maybe even our twenty-something-th wedding anniversary." He takes a breath, looking to Victor. "That little monkey is all I have left of Hugh. Everything that's good about Victor was Hugh's doing. He was that type of person. So much different than his brother. Gunther never cared about anything but himself, which I learned shortly after becoming his TA, but I wanted to be in good with Hugh's family, so... I didn't say anything. Not until about a week before the world ended, when I told Hugh I needed to get away from DC for a while. But he couldn't leave. Gunther had been trying for years to find a cure or something for Hugh's cystic fibrosis, and he kept leading Hugh on, telling him he was close. I was the guy's assistant, though. I knew he wasn't close to anything, and I couldn't take the lies and the narcissism anymore. I explained to Hugh that I couldn't continue to work with his brother, and he understood. I was dropping off my letter of resignation when we were all pulled into the bunker, and by the time I was defrosted, I thought, what else is there to live for? I threw myself back into work and pretended like I never wrote the letter and like I never loved anyone. It was easier that way."

"And that's why you don't talk about it."

"Exactly," Declan says, but the look on his face isn't sadness. It's concern, and it's directed at me. He sighs. "Are you feeling okay? You've seemed really distracted the past couple of days. You can talk to me if something's up. I've obviously been through some pretty tough stuff too, you know?"

"I'm fine," I lie.

"You sure?"

I nod. He puts his safety goggles back on and finishes testing the last sample, so I continue logging his findings into the computer. Once he has completed the tests, he holds the last vial of the compound between his fingers and examines it through the overhead lights.

"We should call it 'knock out' or something cool like that," he says, trying to pretend like he hasn't been thinking up that name since we asked the chem department to create it.

I grin. "Yes, it's a good name, very cool. So what's our next move?"

"We'll test it on Misty, as planned, but we'll eventually want to—"

"Attention," Alexander interrupts over the loudspeaker. "All search and rescue personnel report to the patio. I repeat, all search and rescue personnel report to the patio."

This is it, I think, this rescue will be my test. I abandon the computer with a quick goodbye to Declan, and race out of the lab. The rest is a whirlwind of adrenaline.

As soon as I reach the patio, Winston instructs me to step into a harness, which I do before pulling it up to my waist. He secures the loops tightly around my thighs and straps me with a chord he has knotted into some crazy shape around the railing. I suppose this is sufficient, because now everyone is climbing over the sides, and beginning to rappel down the face of the tank.

Winston leaves me to get his own harness ready, and I see that Nate has taken his place. He gives me black leather gloves and hurriedly says something about using them to keep my hands from burning up against the rope.

"Go," Nate instructs me, and I don't argue. My adrenaline carries me over the side of the railing, and before I can catch my breath, I am rappelling down the side of the tank with Winston beside me.

He laughs like a maniac. "I love this part," he yells over the whooshing wind.

I hate this part. Despite the gloves, the rope is still digging into my palms, which I swear are on fire. I'm almost certain that my mouth is stuck open in a permanently silent scream as I rappel way faster than is probably safe.

I'm going to die, I think. I'm just going to splat on the ground and that will be the end of me. But the rope catches just before I hit the ground, and I look up to see Nate securing it into place. I want to thank him with a yell or a wave or something, but I'm still stuck in my silly position, with my mouth open and my knees bent like cricket legs, until Winston runs over and unhooks the rope.

Apparently the harnesses have holsters, because he reveals an extra gun for me. "Follow me," he says, so I do. This is part of my test. I have to be strong, even though I hear the familiar mechanic wails of a Prowler. I am charging the machine, and I'm supposed to fight it off with a gun I've never used and don't want to use. Great.

The other members of the team circle around the Prowler, and I see it has a woman in its claws, just like the Prowler back home held Mom. Only this woman isn't being squeezed like Mom was and there are no streams of blood running down her body.

I join the circle and aim my gun at the machine like everyone else is doing. Winston yells, "Load!"

Everyone presses the orange button on the top of their guns, with the word "Load" written around it. A hum of electricity fills the air. These aren't regular guns. These are electric pulse guns. I press my orange button.

Then Winston calls out, "Alexander, disable the arm!"

Alexander steps into the circle, kneels down, and aims his pulse at the hinge between the machine's arm and its body. As it hits, the machine screeches in malfunction, and the claws open to release the woman. Phoebe rushes to her side and pulls her out of the line of fire, narrowly missing a swat from the machine's shoveling arm.

As soon as they clear the area, Winston yells, "Fire!"

I pull my trigger and a blue light of electricity shoots out from the end of my gun, joining the other strands of light as they hit the machine's body. The Prowler stumbles a bit, but has not been conquered.

"Reload," Winston orders, and once the humming begins beneath the sounds of screeching metal, he shouts, "Fire!"

We continue to shoot and reload until the machine finally collapses to the ground. "Check the hatch," Winston orders me as the others on the rescue team begin scavenging the area.

I don't want to move any closer to the Prowler. The last time I was this close, one of those machines was scooping me up, knocking the air from my lungs and the slingshot Dad made me from my hands. But the leaders are watching, and I need to show them I can work in the field. So I take a deep breath and run to the Prowler. I find a way over the legs and crawl onto its belly. Its metal skin is still warm from the electric pulses, but I continue forward until I reach a latch. I twist to unlock the door, but I have to stand so I can leverage my weight to lift it open.

The sun shines into the cavity, and though I was expecting to see mounds of dead things, it's empty. This is a new Prowler, which seems strange since we're still so far from DC. Unless... unless they've been programmed to only collect people now.

I call over to Winston, "There's nothing inside!" He shrugs, apparently unconcerned. He, Phoebe, Alexander, and some of the other rescue team members are too preoccupied with the woman they found. They are hugging her and smiling as if they know her. "Winston," I call, and he turns around again. "That means the programming changed. I think they're only collecting human beings now."

The group around the rescued woman turns to face me now, and the woman steps forward. Her tan skin is flushed from the adrenaline, but her black hair still hangs in perfectly spiraled curls. She stares at me in confusion.

"I don't recognize you from the bunker," she says. "Who are you?"

"This," Winston starts, "is Isla Blume, the girl we were all told to find."

"And she's familiar with the collector droid functions?" the woman asks.

"Very. When we found her, she was inside of one, and she had just disabled another."

"Without any weapons?"

"With my slingshot," I say. "And some magnets."

"Smart girl," she says, still examining me, but then a smile breaks through the confusion. "Glad to have you on our team. I'm Gabriela Rivera. Chemist, explosives expert, and recently escaped government employee turned Deathless."

She extends her hand to me, and I shake it. "Nice to meet you."

"What is happening at the bunker?" Phoebe asks. Always straight to business with her. "How did you escape?"

Gabriela takes her hand. "I will tell you all about it once I'm back with my real people," she says, and then they guide her into the Immortal.

***

Back in the Captain's dining room, a newly cleaned and fed Gabriela tells us about the bunker. She says that the President is continuing with his plan for Robert's crew's arrival, and is unaware of any of our plans. Gunther has taken on a lot of responsibility in the absence of so many scientists, and under his supervision, many others have gone missing. Gabriela asked where they had gone, and never got an answer from Gunther or anyone else for that matter. She says she packed a bag of survival supplies—iodine tablets, matches, thermal blankets, a knife—and went outside the bunker to "test the strength of explosives." That's when she left. She said she knew we wouldn't be any farther east of DC, so she ran west with the desperate hope she'd find the Immortal.

I ask her about Daniel. "I have no idea who sent the transmission, and I left shortly after the broadcast. I'm sorry, Isla. Whoever sent the transmission made President McCleary look incompetent and oblivious. I wouldn't be too hopeful about their well-being."

I can't think about anything else but the coal of nerves burning in my stomach, so much so that I don't even notice Dr. Patel, Declan, and Nate have entered the room until they're greeting Gabriela.

"Rumi, Declan. It's so good to see you again," she says, taking both Dr. Patel and Declan into her arms. She steps back and examines Nate. "Who is this young man?"

Phoebe smiles. "This is Nathan Ward. He's a survivor who is currently training with Rumi in medicine."

"Nathan, huh?" Gabriela asks coyly, stepping closer to him. His pancake face has gone white, and he looks at her as if he's never seen anyone like her before, his mouth open and his eyes wide. Didn't take him long to be fascinated by someone else, I guess.

"Hey, I'm Gabriela," she says.

"Nate," he replies. It's the first time I've heard his voice shake.

"Well," Dr. Patel says, clearing his throat, "we should get back to the lab."

"Meet you there in a few, Isla?" Declan asks. I nod, still shaken from Gabriela's lack of faith in Daniel's survival.

Once they leave, I begin to collect my thoughts. I can't believe what Gabriela said. I have to believe Daniel is alive. I imagine that this is just the second part of my test. They are waiting to see my reaction, waiting to see if I'll lose focus. But I won't. I'm still going to that bunker, and I'm still going to leave with my family and Daniel.

As I turn to go, I hear Phoebe scold Gabriela. "He's nineteen."

"That's fine," I hear Gabriela say. I close the door to the sound of their laughter.