As Andrew regained consciousness, he became aware of a soft lap below his head. Danielle. Or an angel. He laid still another moment, and then cracked open one eye. Dark brown orbs, framed by silky black hair, stared into his own. The sunlight haloing the girl's face felt gritty. Definitely not Danielle.

The girl slapped his face. Definitely not an angel.

"Stop slapping me." His voice came out in a hoarse rasp.

She stopped to look closer into his eyes. Andrew felt a tug seeing she had the same light and dark flecks stretching away from her pupils as Danielle. His heart skipped a beat.

"Oh, thank God!"

Andrew's world went dark when the girl hugged his head tightly. Baby powder and vanilla. And dust.

"I don't think he can breathe," a distant, muffled voice said.

His head dropped back into the girl's lap, one soft place exchanged for another, and he opened his eyes again.

"Oops, sorry," she said. Worry furrowed her forehead.

A boy stepped over him and shielded the sun. "Who are you?"

"Andrew," he croaked, without looking. The eyes. He wanted the eyes to come back.

"I'm Jinho," the boy replied, and Andrew sighed inside. The boy squatted down to keep Andrew in his shadow and nodded toward the girl. "Jordan."

"Hi," he whispered. "Water?"

Jordan shook her head and lifted him by his shoulders so he could sit up. "We need to get you out of here."

"Wait. I've been–"

"Sh!" Jordan held a finger to her lips and looked up. "The helicopter."

Spurred to action, Jinho pulled Andrew off Jordan's lap. "Over here!"

He stumbled. A shock of pain roared up his leg when Jinho pushed him to the larger rocks at the side of the dome. He fell into the shadow of a boulder and massaged his ankle as they stepped back to the patch of dirt between the crops and the dome. A moment later, a reflection of the helicopter appeared in the glass of the dome. It flew over the valley and hovered in the air.

Jordan and Jinho shielded their faces with their arms while dust and bits of dried cornstalks swirled around them. Andrew covered his mouth and nose when the dust rushed up to the dome and billowed back into his face. His eyes watered from the grit.

Jordan smiled and waved at the helicopter until it lifted and flew out of sight. She was picking dirt from her teeth when she and Jinho returned to Andrew's side. She pulled him toward the canyon wall away from the dome. "We need to go. Now."

"I need water," he repeated hoarsely. "And I've been–"

"Later. You can't be here," Jordan said to him.

"What? Why?" Andrew winced in pain as he stood up. Seeing he was struggling to walk, Jordan came in under his arm. When her hip smashed into the bullet wounds, Andrew gasped. He reached down to thrust her hip away, and her eyes grew large when his hand came back with a fresh smear of blood.

Jordan caught his wrist. "What happened?"

"I was shot."

"What?" she exclaimed.

"I've been trying to tell you. I got shot by a soldier. That helicopter picked him up when he crashed."

"Pierce shot you?" Jordan stood staring at Andrew with her mouth open.

"Pierce?"

"He's in charge of security at–" Jinho replied.

"He crashed?" Jordan interrupted.

"It looked like he was dead too."

"What?" Jordan edged closer to Andrew. "Why would you think that?"

"Soldiers from the helicopter took his body out on a board."

"Jordan, we need to get him out of here." Jinho was pulling at Andrew to lead him away from the dome. "Before we get caught."

Jordan tenderly slid back under Andrew's arm. "Any other injuries we should know about?"

"I twisted my ankle. Tell me there's a shortcut out of here." He craned his neck to look back at the dome. Two dispassionate doors stared back.

Jordan shook her head. "We can't take you into the dome."

"Helidrome," Jinho said from the other side.

"How bad do you think it is?"

"Bad enough."

Jinho moved away, but then came back and helped on Andrew's other side. Together they trekked to the wall at the back of the valley.

"My pack." Andrew pointed at a bush and Jordan yanked it free. She threw it over her shoulder and bent under the weight.

"What have you got in here?" she grunted.

Andrew shrugged. "Normal hiking stuff."

At the wall, Jinho announced, "I will go up first. You tie him and I'll pull him up."

"You're going to pull him up? You? I'll go up." She picked up the end of the rope and slipped it around her waist.

"My–"

"Jordan, this isn't the time to play tough guy. We both know I am stronger than you." Jinho took the rope from her.

"But I have better endurance. I can climb and still have energy to pull once I'm there."

Andrew stared back and forth at them in amazement. "We can–"

Jinho abruptly settled the argument when he let go of Andrew to tie the rope. Andrew fell into Jordan, and her legs buckled under the combined weight of him and his pack. Andrew found himself on top of her squirming arms and legs.

"Point taken," she mumbled, wriggling to free herself from his bag so she could clamber from beneath him. Her cheeks had taken on a hue the same shade as the pinks that brushed early morning clouds during sunrise.

Jinho was helping Jordan up when Evan slid down the rope behind them. When his feet hit the dirt with a thump, both jumped and spun around.

"Who the hell are you?"

Evan brushed passed her and helped Andrew up. "Evan. Who the hell are you? You always greet your guests this way?"

Jordan bristled, but Jinho stepped forward, dusted his hands against his pants and held one out. Jordan snatched it back. "Guests? So you were invited here?"

Andrew looked over his shoulder toward the dome. "Can we get–"

"Who invited you exactly? And why not come in the front door?"

"Your mom invited me."

Andrew threw his hands up and hobbled to the rope. He tugged on Jinho's shirt and motioned to him to tie it on while Jordan and Evan went at it.

"–mom has never even seen combat boots. That doesn't even make sense."

Jinho tied the rope to his waist, grasped the rope as high as he could, wrapped his foot, and started climbing.

"–you still haven't explained–"

The rope tumbled back down and Andrew tied it around his waist. He wasn't going to be able to climb it even if it was just a short climb. "A little help here?"

"–of your business–"

Without turning from his debate with Jordan, Evan put his hands together and boosted Andrew up. Andrew wrapped the rope once around his hand and hooked it around his foot and started to climb. The pain ripped through his side as he reached up. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to climb.

At the top, Jinho helped him crawl over the lip. "I begged you not to make me climb that rope again."

"What?" Jinho asked with a frown.

Andrew shook his head. Drops of sweat rolled down his face while he untied the rope. He leaned over and dropped it into the canyon. Jordan wasn't watching for it, and Andrew snorted when it hit her in the head. Evan laughed and held it out to her, and she snatched it away.

"I think that's what's called 'fit to be tied,'" Andrew told Jinho.

"I've never really seen her like this."

"Really?"

"There's nobody here to argue with but me."

Jordan's fingers flew as she tied the rope around her waist, then shrugged into the straps of Andrew's backpack. With a tug, Jinho pulled the rope taut, and Andrew watched her climb. She moved fast, finding hand and footholds, climbing as quickly as Jinho could haul the rope.

"What took so long?" she huffed when she got to the edge. The pack slid to the ground as she reached down to untie the rope from around her waist. She tossed it over the edge, aiming for Evan, but he caught it and laughed.

As Evan's head peeked up from the edge, he asked, "So, is there a plan?"

"Yes, there's a plan," Jordan snapped.

"Well, do you care to share it?" He struggled with the knot at his waist, and Jordan stepped over to help him. He slapped her hands away.

Jinho bent to untie the knot at the spike.

"Just leave it," Jordan muttered.

"We can't leave it," Andrew whispered. He squinted at her from where he still laid on the ground catching his breath. "The helicopter."

"What?" Everyone stopped and listened hard for the hum of the rotor.

"No, I mean...I meant it could come back. We can't leave evidence of where we are. Or have been." He opened his eyes to look at them. "Bring the rope. Kick dirt over the spike."

They went back to work. Evan got the rope untied from his waist before Jinho had released it from the spike.

"Wow," she muttered. She walked over and snatched the rope from Jinho and worked the knot loose. "Rookie."

"Loop the rope and use it to wipe our footprints," Andrew commanded. Another wave of pain washed over him, and he cried out before he could suppress it. Jinho grabbed him high around the waist and Evan collected their packs while Jordan swept the ground with the rope.

Jordan retrieved Andrew's pack and adjusted it so it settled squarely onto her shoulders. "The crack is going to be a problem."

"What crack?" Andrew and Evan asked in unison.

"The crack we jumped to get here. Two of them. One is a little wider than the other. We're going to have to jump back over them. The only other way is a steep climb."

"I can jump if I have to," Andrew said, but when they reached the first fissure, his eyes opened wide. "Did I really say I would jump?"

Jinho jumped first, while Jordan slipped from under Andrew's arm and stepped to the edge. She hurled Andrew's pack across to Jinho, then turned back to confront Andrew and Evan.

"I don't think I can jump it. My ankle–"

"We're going to swing you across."

"We are?" Evan was looking down the crevice. He looked at Andrew while he pointed down. "I don't see a bottom."

Andrew looked at Jordan dubiously. "You want to swing me across? You're joking, right?"

She shook her head. "I swing Jinho over bigger cracks. Evan and I can do this together."

Evan eyed the width and nodded his head at Jordan. "Okay. Yeah. We can do this, Andrew. It's like the fissure at Devil's Island. You'll make it."

Andrew put his hands on his knees and looked at Jordan. She nodded again.

"When he jumps, we're going to get our hands under his butt and push him out and over. Got it?"

Evan went through the motion of squatting and throwing. "Got it."

Andrew sighed and dropped his head down. Ignoring the pain in his ankle, he ran at them. The pain felt like the teeth of a pack of wolves were tearing into his side as he jumped and felt Jordan and Evan's hands boost him higher and farther. He crashed into Jinho on the far side, and they tumbled to the ground.

Tears rolled down his face as he watched Jordan and Evan leap together across the divide. She knelt down beside him and wiped away a tear with her dirty thumb.

"I'm sorry," she said quietly. Jinho stood up and she snatched her hand back. "Ready?"

He nodded and got to his knees.

"Please tell me that was the big jump."

Jordan laughed.

"She laughs," he said to Jinho. "Was that the big jump?"

Jinho nodded and repositioned himself under Andrew's arm.