As we resumed our trek through the Range, I felt better knowing we had a spirit friend and a magical sword at our disposal.  Plus, it occurred to me that those six demons would have had a real difficult time reforming when dispersed among the stomachs of a thousand evil grasshoppers.

Things were looking up.

"What's that?" asked Fudge.  "That you're whistling?"

I paused, realizing the old river lullaby had slipped through my lips during our hike. I swallowed, embarrassed. "It's just something my mother used to sing."

The boys faltered in their movements, slowing to a halt like a glitching machine. I suspected they'd heard the rumors about her death years ago. It would surprise me if they hadn't.

Fudge's eyes wilted slightly.  "I've heard about her from my parents.  She earned twelve stars at the Institute—everyone thought she was going to take Gilmore's job.  Thought she'd be the first woman on the Council.  Then she left the inner city to marry your father, right?" At my rigid nod, he grinned. "What was she like?"

Will met my gaze in a hard flash of empathy, confirming my suspicions.

He'd lost his mother too. 

I'd gathered as much, seeing as he'd lived alone with his father.  But now I knew he'd seen it, that he'd witnessed whatever happened. He'd known her and lost her.

And he knew how painful it was to remember.

I tried to mask the sadness in my voice.  "She was amazing. Always kind and gentle. But intelligent too. And independent." I thought of her beautiful olive skin and deep-set eyes. Her thick hair, lashes, and eyebrows—dark and shapely—as if she'd been drawn in ink. "She smelled like apple blossoms, and her hands were always covered in soil. Not a day went by without her getting dirt in her nails.  And she loved people.  She really loved people." I turned my head to the sky, mostly to keep the tears from pooling.

I didn't talk about her often; it hurt too much to vocalize. Plus, it was hard to sum up someone so important in just a couple sentences.

"I don't have a lot of memories of her anymore, but I do remember that she could make anyone feel better, just by the way she spoke.  Her voice was special, you know? Not just a mother's voice.  Hearing it gave me strength.  Footing."  

They had their heads down, eyes on the ground.  Even Styx looked moved, somehow. 

Fudge glanced up first, smiling softly.  "Must run in the family."

My chest tightened, and I opened my mouth to protest, but something rattled in the bushes, and my lips clamped shut.  Alert, we grasped for swords and knives and flashlights, facing the threat together.

The leaves quivered, harboring our next enemy, but the vegetation was too thick to make out any details. 

Great. What now?  What else could possibly want to kill us? 

But I didn't have time to prepare myself. The beast suddenly lunged from the bush, crashing into my chest, and I fell back with a startled scream.

I crashed into the soil with a painful thud, ready for the sharp kiss of steel or the yellow canines of a mountain lion. I did not, however, anticipate a slobbery tongue on my cheek and the stench of wet, muddy fur. A stench I knew all too well.

Richard had found me.

The mutt licked my face elatedly, paws keeping me flat on my back, wagging his tail and whining.  I hugged him to me—happy, relieved, and highly entertained by the shocked faces of my company.

"Okay...that was the last thing I expected," Fudge admitted, crouching to pet him.  Richard nuzzled into the human contact, falling onto his back and sticking out his tongue. The boy chuckled at the dog's antics and granted him a glorious belly rub.

The mutt looked great for traveling so many miles on his own, especially for such an old dog. His journey warmed my heart.

It also gave me hope. If my dog had made it out, maybe my father and the other residents had too.

"This is Richard," I announced, standing up and brushing the forest floor off my pants.

Mason gave the mongrel one dainty pat on the head—wary of flees, probably. "Who names their dog Richard?"

The mutt made his way over to Will, who stared at the dog with mild interest.

Richard sniffed his shoes curiously. Then he sat down and immediately began gnawing on the leather soles and pulling out the laces. 

Will merely sighed, like he'd finally reached rock bottom.  "I don't know," he muttered. "I think Dick is fitting."

I sat by the fire, chuckling as Richard stole yet another twig from Styx's body.  The spirit slumped, resigned, but she still accepted the stick and threw it into the woods for the billionth time that night.  

With Nova's set of matches and the confidence of four youth, we'd lit a campfire large enough to cook Mason's kill and two dozen hawk's wings. They were my father's favorite mushrooms to harvest as a kid, back when the Gates were open, and lucky for me, they were easy to identify with no toxic lookalikes. Mason didn't trust my botany knowledge, though, hence the gray squirrels turning on a spit.

I rubbed my aching forearm. Will had told me the muscle would build quickly if I kept practicing with the demon's blade, but when I gave him a dry look, he said I could always go stick my arm in the icy river water. Honestly, I wasn't even sure if he was joking.

Ever since Nova's, our taciturn leader had crawled into his shell again.  He was back to business, speaking only to hasten our water breaks or to warn us of loose soil as we hiked. Worst of all, he was anxious, and his unease was contagious.

If Will was worried, all of us should have been worried. 

Fudge sat beside me on the fallen tree, offering a piece of charred squirrel, and I graciously accepted. "I can't believe we went a whole day without something trying to kill us," he marveled.

"Easy.  The day's not over yet."

He hummed, and we ate in the quiet, listening to the rustling forest and Richard's incessant whining.

"Can I ask you something?" he asked, and I gestured for him to continue. "What do you plan to do when we reach the Command?"

My lips parted with what I thought was an obvious answer, but I closed them again, thinking it over. My only objective so far had been surviving long enough to deliver a message.  Any plans beyond that were still blueprints and fantasies.

"I don't know.  I guess...I'll try to enlist."

The fire popped loudly, and the three boys turned to stare at me.  Even Styx looked skeptical, and she didn't have a face.

"I know it's illegal," I said, glancing away.  "But we're being invaded by demons.  Ells will need all the fighters it can get."

Mason frowned. "They haven't allowed a woman in combat since the Crash.  Since a woman caused the Crash.  You think they'll suddenly make an exception for you?"

I'd read countless stories about the terrorist who'd brought the Ancient's last civilized country to ruin. The Mad Commander, they'd called her. She'd launched the rebellion amidst the Water Wars, and her following had sabotaged the largest reservoirs before slaughtering everyone in power. Chaos ensued, and with it, nuclear warfare.

One woman had climbed the ranks, achieved power, and annihilated 70 percent of the human population in the northern hemisphere.

Her legacy became the Court's underlying motive for the Gender Clause—the law that prohibited female service.  It was her example, compounded by the deep-rooted sexism and misogyny of our central government, which prevented me from participating in this war.

And yet...                     

"She might have destroyed civilization. But she did cripple the strongest military in the world," I said. "The Command can't ignore what woman are capable of just because they don't like the implications."

Mason rolled his eyes.  "Figures.  I should have known you'd idolize a sociopath."

With poetic timing, Richard swept in and stole Mason's meat right out of his hand, running off with the speed of a practiced thief.  Mason called after him indignantly, and when he turned on me, livid, I simply mouthed Karma.

"It's no question that you're capable of fighting," Fudge agreed, "but if you show up in Holly and declare your right to serve in the military..."

"It's dangerous," Will concluded, and I looked at him, sinking.

"If I tell them what I've done, what we've done—"

"Stories won't buy you a ticket into the army," he said.  "Especially not stories that can only be validated by three other teens."

I puffed my cheeks. What, should I have dragged Stretch's body behind me as proof?  Tallied my kills?

"I placed in the Tournament," I insisted, "there were thousands of witnesses."

"You can't admit that openly.  They'll imprison you for competing and ignore your merit."

"Why are you being so pessimistic?" I snapped.

Irritation flared in Will's eyes. "I'm being realistic."

"Realistic?  When the demons storm Holly, the Command won't get to be choosy about who mans the gate," I argued.  "We fight, or we die."

"Fine. But going to the Command now and asking for a uniform is a death wish."

I glared at him, and he glared back with equal intensity. Styx looked between us timidly, her light dimming a few hundred lumens.

"Then what would you have me do, Will?" I said. "Hide?  Wait around for the next attack?"

He clenched his jaw and said nothing.

I threw his gaze away. That's what I thought.

"Hey."  Fudge touched my arm gingerly. "I'm just worried about you...about where you'll end up if the three of us are sent back to Belgate or the Rim.  I wanted to know if you had a backup plan."

My gaze softened at the genuine concern in his eyes.

No. I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't even have a plan.  I'd assumed I could keep advancing, that I could assimilate myself into this war behind the scenes. But it was like the Tournament all over again; I'd gotten so caught up in the excitement, I hadn't sat back to evaluate where the road actually led.

"Don't worry about me," I said, slipping Fudge an easy smile.  "I'll find a way in. I have a talent for wormingmy way into male-dominated spaces."

He smirked at me, shaking his head fondly.  But when I glanced back at Will, he was watching me with that cold, unimpressed expression.  And maybe, with just a little fear.