Something cold and wet splashed my face. I blinked the sleep from my eyes and grabbed the dashboard, trying to catch my bearings. I didn’t remember falling asleep. The velvety blackness of the sky stretched endlessly in all directions, with the light from the UTV’s headlights fading only a few feet ahead. Fat raindrops splattered against the windshield. I shivered―the night had grown colder.

I instinctively sought out Nico. He was in the same position as before, with one hand on the steering wheel. He spoke without looking at me. “We got lucky. The rain will hide our tracks.”

I looked through the back window at the trail, where the water had already created rivers of sediment, ruining our tracks fast. “What time do you think it is?”

“Maybe two a.m., but it could be later,” he said. The storm was worsening, and the sound of the rain nearly masked his voice. A few moments later, we could barely see the road ahead.

Nico braked and then switched off the ignition. I found our bags and pulled them inside to dry, then set the empty bottles on the back to collect rainwater. “We might as well rest,” Nico said. “They won’t be able to navigate the trail in this weather.” He lowered his chair and stuffed his backpack behind his head as a pillow. His suddenness surprised me. Rain pelted the windshield, and wind tore at the sides of the UTV, blowing the water into the cab and drenching our clothes.

I rested my head against the dashboard and closed my eyes, but sleep would not come. Inexplicably, I found myself thinking about the Fortress robbery, when the Ingraining Room had rained smoke and ashes down upon us. I could almost feel the grey powder shifting under my palms and clogging my throat.

“Nico,” I ventured, “are you awake?”

“Mhm.”

“I can’t sleep.” Nico turned his head to face me. Lightning cracked outside, illuminating his features. He raised his voice above the rain, humoring me. “What are you thinking about?”

I hesitated. “The night of the Fortress attack.”

“Tell me about it.”

I considered it. “Okay,” I said. “I haven’t told anyone before, but… I’ll try.” I took a deep breath and began to recount what had happened, beginning with the meeting at Daichi’s house. Although he had already heard the bulk of the story back in Karakul, he listened quietly with his eyes fixed on my face. As I got deeper into the retelling, I felt tears welling in my eyes. When I began to describe the explosion and the massacre in the ballroom, I choked on my own words. “That’s when I lost my best friend,” I said, “and Peter, who was like my father. The Resistance was devastated… everyone was dead.”

Nico’s expression darkened. “But Owen survived. Would he give you up?”

I didn’t hesitate. “No, never.”

“Even under the pressure of torture?”

“They killed his father. I don’t think he would reveal anything.”

Nico seemed to relax. “You’ve withstood a lot of pain. I know how this must haunt you.” I nodded, with tears still leaving rivulets of water down my cheeks. I was relieved that he had not offered his condolences, which would have paled in the face of my suffering. I could feel my heart beating with the pounding of the rain. It was impossible to explain everything that I had experienced that night―confusion, horror, and despair. Still, I realized, a weight has left my shoulders. Somehow, I know Nico understands.

“Nico,” I asked, “do you have family?”

He paused. “No. Not anymore.” I waited for him to elaborate, but nothing came. I recalled how even two years ago, he had guarded his secrets closely. I closed my eyes and leaned back, assuming the conversation was over.

“Do you see these scars?” Nico asked suddenly, pointing below his left eye and spreading his fingers. In the darkness, the thin scars seemed to shine. He reached out his left hand. “May I?”

I nodded, and he took my hand in his own. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks―he was warm, and his fingers were calloused and nimble. With his eyes averted, he ran my fingertips over each scar. They were smooth and hard like newly treated leather. When he dropped my hand I stole a glance at his face, but his expression was unreadable.

“When I was younger,” he said, “my parents expected me to become somebody important. A leader. They put me through grueling drills until I was too exhausted to stand. The day I got these scars, I was climbing a barbed wire fence and slipped.”

My heart clenched. “That’s awful. My parents were distant, but they weren’t abusive. And growing up, I was lucky enough to have friends my age. Even when things were ugly, I was never alone.”

Nico looked at something in the distance. “The less lonely you are, the more you have to lose.”

He’s right. I turned my head slightly, just enough to hide my tears. I lost myself in the downpour outside, watching as the water turned the clay by my feet into a dark red slurry.

I realized I had been silent for too long. “Nico. I-”

I blinked. His head had slumped against the back of the seat; he was dead asleep, with his brow furrowed with pain. Worry welled up in my stomach. His injury must’ve drained him. For a few minutes, I watched the gentle rise and fall of his chest. Not for the first time, I wondered about his past.

The patter of the rain was oddly calming, and the exertion of the day had finally caught up with me. I let myself settle into the seat, succumbing to sleep.

***

The following days melded together as we traveled. The storm had moved north, but not before it erased any sign of our tracks. Nico took care to vary his path, but it was only a precaution–if pursuers had indeed been on our trail after the crash, we had long since left them in the dust.

The gas in the tank decreased steadily, until we were on our last refill, and our food and water supplies fared no better. For hundreds of miles, we encountered nothing and no one. It grew hotter, and we started to drive at night at rest during the daylight hours. Sometimes, around dawn and dusk, we caught sight of large, horned animals foraging among the native plants.

Since the night in the storm, Nico and I had grown closer, and we often talked while driving along the trail. On the third day since the crash, Nico turned to me while driving with his good hand. It was late in the afternoon, and the dying sun caught his scars just right. “We are not far from the border. Soon, we will pass through no man’s land.”

“No man’s land?”

“You’ll see.”

I leaned back in my seat. Around me, the heat was rising, and I could feel my skin beginning to burn even though it was late in the day. We rose onto a plateau, and I nearly gasped: the land was black. Even the distant hills were charred like coals from a leftover fire. The ground was thick with ash, and it clogged the air as the UTV’s wheels churned the earth. Nico tied an extra shirt over his mouth and nose, protecting his lungs from the sediment, and I followed his lead.

The particles made my eyes water, but I couldn’t help but stare outside. The destruction was total–everything was dead. Broken and burnt trees, stripped of their leaves, reached into the sky like forgotten sentries, and the stark white bones of some large mammal poked through the blackness.

“What the hell…” I breathed.

“Almost,” Nico said. “These are the Wastelands.”

“What caused this?”

“I don’t know for sure, but the local lore is that Keon did chemical testing here. If rumor is to be trusted, he released dimethyl cadmium, and this area became uninhabitable for anything living.”

I wiped a hand on my pants, smearing the black dust that had already begun to settle over us. It had a haunting quality that hinted of death, like the smog released from the Ingraining Chamber.

The Wastelands were many miles wide. Crossing through them took hours, and the devastation was so depressing, I was soon convinced that we would never leave. Finally, as the UTV chugged steadily up another hill, I caught sight of a few, scraggly trees. From then on, the lands began to recover.

Not long after, a small village materialized in the distance. I pointed. “That’s Chibron,” Nico said. “We’re on the southern border now.”

“Is it safe?”

Nico smiled. “It’s probably the safest town in Amberasta. Keon doesn’t know it exists.”