I'm borderline obsessed with tiny houses/RVing full-time so much of this chapter was guilty pleasure, please and thank you.
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She was in the woods when she asked herself what she was doing.

She had no idea where she was or how much time had passed. The air had grown chill and the sky was slightly dusky, and she pulled her jacket out of her backpack, opening all the compartments to take inventory. Two knives with gears (extremely illegal in school), black mechanical tape, camouflage duct tape, her first aid kit, extra socks, twine, nails, an emergency heat blanket (unopened), rope, a whistle, her pocket-sized flashlight, batteries, a lighter, the sunglasses she received for her birthday, the sheathed military-grade knife leftover from the war and purchased from the black market (even more illegal at school), various pencils and crushed-up papers from work, her money and photo ID, a yo-yo, leftover pain medicine from when she sprained her ankle last summer, trail mix, and candy. And her lunchbox—bread with Anna's homemade nut butter, jerky, and half an apple from the market. Her thermos of water was in the classroom, however far away that was.

She sat and ate the entire contents of her lunchbox and half the trail mix, not trying to conserve. Her brain was dead. She vaguely remembered being told to walk until she felt better, and wondered if she felt any better.

Patch dripping blood, the blood Ren spilled.

The memory flashed across her brain like a rocket strike and she knocked it away. She was thirsty, the nut butter sticking to her teeth. She didn't dare sip from the river, which was full of decomposed bodies and dragon-ash and Brim knew what else. She wasn't going to think about Patch or his blood or his broken nose or the look in his eyes as they locked with hers. But she had to think about water.

She was moving east; she knew by the low sun at her back. She kept walking. She walked until the sky was orange and she saw something sitting in the middle of the woods.

It was a car. But also a house. It was a rectangle house on wheels, an overturned crate serving as a step-stool at the door.

Ren drew closer and waited. The only sound was a dropping pinecone. She tried the door with her palm and it swung inward.

The front of the contraption was an actual car, with upholstered seats and a steering wheel and mirrors. The second half was a living area. A table folded out from the wall with bolted-down stools and a cushioned bench. There was a bookshelf made of crates nailed to the wall, and hanging baskets overflowed with the junk of ordinary life. Across from this was a stove with two burners, a small oven, a sink stacked with dirty dishes, a drying rack overflowing. There was even a refrigerator and freezer. Ren pulled open both doors and felt the cold air.

The back of the vehicle contained a set of deep and narrow bunks in the wall: the top one a bare mattress, the bottom a cozy mess of pillows and tangled blankets. A lamp snaked out of the wall to provide light. Next to the bunks was a door, which Ren opened to find an entire bathroom, a drain in the floor, a skylight in the roof giving a view of the tree limbs sweeping the sky. 

Ren had never seen anything remotely like this. It was so intriguing to her, she kept finding new details. Photographs taped to the wall, though she did not get close enough to see who was in them. Potter flowers and a tiny tomato plant somehow flourishing on the windowsill above the kitchen sink. She kicked open a trunk behind the driver's seat and found it full of clothes, with several pairs of shoes wedged on the side. 

"Ren?" 
The trunk slammed as Ren whirled around. Then she caught herself and stared. 

"What are you doing here?" asked Elowyn. 

Elowyn was dressed darkly and simply, her hair pulled up in her messy way, the freckles popping out on her nose as her gray eyes swept Ren. Then she broke into a huge smile. "What are you doing here?" 

She took two steps and made as if to give Ren a hug, then thought better. She was incredibly cheery to have just discovered an old friend digging through her underwear. "Is your whole family here? Please tell me they are. I want to see them. I hate I never make it your way anymore! My jurisdiction changed. Bloody head-warden doesn't listen to a word you say. You know, I walked in here and somehow knew it was you. You grew your hair out again." She touched Ren's head. 

The contact brought Ren's voice back. "What is this?" 

"This? A recreational vehicle." Elowyn shook a strand of hair out of her eyes, smile never lessening. "That's if you want to be snooty. A camper, otherwise. They're from Maccabee. Some kind of micro-living trend over there. Catching on with wardens and rangers. Of course, we've all been living small since the war and had no idea it was anything special. Do you like it?" 

"Yes," said Ren, meaning it. 

"Bit cozy, I guess, but it's only me." 

"You're alone? Why don't you get a pet?" Then Ren thought of a better question. "How do your dishes not smash when you drive? You drive it, right?" 

"I drive it cross-country. Dishes are plastic." Elowyn grinned, breathless, and held eye contact for a moment. "Hi, Ren." 

Ren was out of questions, and there was nothing to do with her hands, nothing to divert her attention. "Hi," she said, and accidentally let her gaze fall. 

Elowyn's smile faded a little. Her eyes gradually changed. 

"Are you alone?" she asked. 

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Over dinner, Ren told her everything, or at least tried to tell her, but the words stuck all over her throat and left an enormous lump. It was almost too terrible to think about. Elowyn cut open a can of fruit and a tin of fish and pulled a box of crackers out of a cupboard in the wall, her eyes never leaving Ren, and she seemed to understand. They sat at the table against the window, the pane becoming a mirror as the sky turned dark, and ate their cold dinner together, Elowyn not uttering a sound until Ren ran out of words. 

"What are you going to do?" Elowyn asked at the end. 

"There's nothing I can do." 

"But you've got to do something." 

"I can't go back there. So I don't know what I'm going to do," said Ren, horribly ashamed of the burn in her eyes, and then, "I've got nowhere to go." 

Elowyn sucked in her bottom lip. "You do, too, have someplace to go." She reached across the table and gripped Ren's hand, which still held a fork. 

Ren went to sleep on the top bunk in clean bedding produced when Elowyn flipped up the seat of the bench to reveal a storage compartment. The practicalities of this strange vehicle kept on delighting Ren. An orange bulb glowed dimly in the bathroom, the light spilling beneath the door. Moonlight freckled Ren's arm through the window. 

"Doesn't it take a lot of electricity?" she asked, listening to the hum of the refrigerator. "More than the country's got?" 

"It drives on electricity. The rest is solar." Elowyn turned over in her bunk, sheets rustling. "I've got panels on the roof. I can even crank on air-conditioning when it gets uncomfortable." 

Ren nodded before she remembered Elowyn could not see her. "Oh." 

She heard Elowyn exhale. 

"Ren, do you want to see my mother? Would you like to go visit her?" 

An easy truth. "Yes." 

"There you go, then. Now you know what you're going to do. And after we do that, we'll plan the next thing." There was another noisy turning of bed covers. "Good night, Ren."