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His face crumples into something ugly and fractured. “They’ll see you for who you really are,” he taunts, “a broken, weak alpha.”

My fist hits his face with a satisfying thwack, but before I can let another fly, Clay is standing between us, one hand on my chest, holding me back with shocking strength while his body hides River’s hunched form. “It’s done,” he says evenly. “Go, Ferris. You deserve to be happy.”

I take one more look at River, allow myself to feel only a single ounce of guilt for leaving him to figure this shit out alone, and nod at Clay.

“I’ve got him,” Clay whispers, only loud enough for me to hear. Good, I think, then there’s truly nothing holding me here.

I stalk away from the scene feeling like a newly awakened alpha. In some ways, I guess I am. I never had the opportunity to explore my designation under my father, and I only continued to hide from River. Raine and Dair both saw me in fragments, but after shedding the weight of my misplaced loyalty, those fragments feel less frail.

Freedom courses through my veins, and I sprint to the cabin, eager to pack so that I can go find the only two people that have ever given a shit about me.

[ 26 ]

RAINE

The Wilds

Watching the way the wind plays with the falling leaves fills me with so much peace. On my right is the sprawling lake, now a gorgeous sparkling mirror of the bright blue sky painted with splashes of autumn leaves. To the left is the forest that houses Grand Prairie, just starting to go dormant in anticipation of winter. I don’t remember the woods being this big or thick before I entered the compound ten years ago, but it is now glorious in its breadth after adapting to a new world for so long.

“What’s it like in your territory?” I ask Dair as we walk with Vale and Tore.

He adjusts his pack on his shoulders and flashes me a small smile. “The land is elevated by mountains, creating picturesque peaks and luscious valleys filled with lakes and old-growth forests that tower nearly as high as the mountains themselves. Everything is wilder there, older, and you feel so much closer to the sky. Some nights it looks like the full moon is resting on the treetops.”

“Wow,” I breathe, trying to picture it. “I’ve only traveled south of the plains, and ten years ago, when we were still nomadic, much of the land was barren.”

“A lot of the west still is,” Tore says. “Once we cross the Great River, you’ll see the Midland green slowly fade into the Wastes until we reach the Rockies. That will be the most dangerous stretch.”

I shiver thinking about being out in the open and passing through dead cities. Dair catches the movement and asks me, “Are you feeling okay?” His face is open, eyes patient.

“Yes, I’d like to keep going until we decide to camp for the night, then I’ll rest, and maybe you can tend my bite?” I ask, cheeks darkening.

Dair’s eyes heat with my suggestion. “Of course. Whatever you need.”

“So, there are other shifters in your territory?” Vale promptly changes the subject.

“Yes, there are more shifters than humans in the shifter lands. My particular clan has a higher ratio of shifters than others, though, simply because we’re further into the wilderness,” Dair explains. “Shifters tend to tolerate the higher altitude better than humans. There are even some parts of our lands that are completely uninhabitable.”

“Because there’s less oxygen?” I ask. One of the texts Soline had me read during my tenure as a junior historian was a nearly one-hundred-year-old college dissertation about the pre-Switch climate destabilization that resulted in a loss of nearly fifteen percent of life on Earth. Apparently, the rising oceans became too saturated in carbon dioxide to continue absorbing it from the atmosphere. The driving cause? Oceanic temperature rise killed a lot of the phytoplankton responsible for trapping carbon in the deep sea. The result was a global shift between atmospheric oxygen and carbon dioxide that many species didn’t survive.

Plants and animals that already evolved to live in higher altitudes withstood the changes far better, partly explaining why the far west remained lusher than the Wastes, for example. Now that over a century has passed, life is adapting. However, I imagine the highest altitudes on this planet are now probably so low in oxygen that only certain bacteria can live there.

Soline believed that the Switch offered humans some resilience to the new atmospheric levels, but I worry that isn’t the case. One time Mother took us down the Great River to the ocean, and the water was far too acidic and tempestuous to enter. It looked devoid of life and angry. I imagine that it will take many more lifetimes for the atmosphere to right itself. If it ever does.

“Yes,” Dair says. “But don’t worry too much. We’ll take it slow once we get closer to the Foothill Territory so that you can adjust to the atmosphere as we go.”

Vale chews her bottom lip. “Is it true that you’ve liberated some of the bunkers?” I wonder if she’s thinking about the rising oceans and the people she once knew trapped underground.

Tore’s eyes bore into the side of her head. “Yes, we’ve worked hard to find all the bunkers and remove anyone who wants to leave before eliminating the corrupt leaders. Four of the five have been evacuated. Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing.” She waves him off. “I was only curious.” But I know the truth. She’s thinking about the boy she left behind.

Tore doesn’t say anything, but he watches her. He’s almost always watching her.

“Alright,” Dair says, eyes on the sun. “We’ve got several good hours of sunlight ahead of us, so let’s make a push to get closer to the city, then we’ll stop early for the day so that Tore can go hunting. We all need to get lots of rest before we officially enter the city.”

We don’t run into any Biters as we move northwest, which makes me wonder if the horde that attacked Grand Prairie was made of every single Biter that had wandered into these woods. How did they organize into a single group and break through the wall? Dair agreed that it’s likely someone on the inside sabotaged the compound, but that doesn’t explain how they managed to lure them to the wall to begin with.

Just after midday, we stop for a brief lunch of rations from the compound, and some of the dried meat Dair brought from his own territory. Tore tells us about the different animals that live in the Northern Pacific, ranking them first by beauty, and then by taste. Apparently, his wolf does not discriminate about what he eats while shifted, and Tore has to bear the consequences once he shifts back.