The apocalypse only sucks if you let it.

"Teenage Wasteland" blasted out the speakers of the mall, shaking the ceiling so hard dust fell free. Late afternoon sun shone through the shattered skylights as I tilted my head back and laughed, then screamed for the hell of it.

I did it. Holy shit, I did it.

Real music shook the world for the first time in four years.

It was like the moment I'd kissed Cecelia Rose in fifth grade: the rush, the racing high, the world infinite. Like the last few years were over and the old world was back—teenage wasteland and all.

Instead of white-eyed, vicious, plague-infected animals roaming the halls below, there were small yappy dogs held by women with disapproving glares. In place of the gaggle of geese down in the food court, there was a group of teenage girls—giggling, eating fries, and laughing over some shared video on their phones. The floors were shiny white once again, freshly waxed, reflecting faces too busy to stop and admire them. My biggest concern wasn't if I could survive the winter, or if I'd have to kill the next person I saw. It was if I could muster up the courage to talk to a girl.

The music pounded, and the geese below finally decided they'd had enough, shattering the illusion when they flew by my small window overlooking the longest stretch of the mall. The birds were fat after a long summer—they'd be two days' worth of food, easy—but even with the perfect shot, I didn't reach for my bow. Instead, the ancient leather seat squeaked as I leaned back, placed both my feet atop the mountain of manuals, and sang along.

Four weeks of tinkering and scavenging parts. One expedition up to the solar panels on the roof, where I'd nearly fallen and broken my neck. Countless hours repairing wires, but now it was all worth it. I'd brought music back to our world.

I was musical Gandhi. Or rock 'n' roll Jesus.

My brother, Kaden, would have told me I was wasting time. Ara would have teased me—or told me the song was actually called "Baba O'Riley," as if that mattered anymore. Gabriel would have gone off on some rant about how we needed to prepare for winter and reassigned me to something more "productive." But there were no more clan rules.

Just Sam, the man with the plan.

If I wanted to spend the summer reconnecting the power supply to the music system in the mall, then I damn well would.

An outdated stereo system sat behind me in the small booth-like room. Before me lay a glass window with an impressive view of the mall below. I imagined before the plague a security guard must have reclined here with a cup of coffee in one hand, donut in the other, and watched the crowds below. Now the only crowds were the occasional herds of deer and the thirty-four mannequins someone had moved out of stores and into the empty hallways. I wasn't sure how it had happened; one night I'd left and the next they'd all been standing there. Still, the company was nice. I'd even named one Colborn, and used him for target practice before I wondered if naming mannequins was the first sign of losing it.

There'd been no sign of Kaden or Ara since I'd woken up three months ago in an underground bunker, barely remembering my own name, only to walk into a lawless city where the central beacon for hope, the Castellano clan, had burned to the ground. Summer was fading away, winter approaching. I'd only had Kaden's leftovers stores, most of which we'd hidden in this mall, to get me through it.

Which was why I'd a) located Kaden's favorite CD in Barnes & Noble b) decided on a new hideout, considering the smoldering state of the clan, and c) spent half the summer repairing cords chewed through by rodents, in order to d) finally hear glorious music pounding out of the mall speakers. Only someone truly awesome would hear this song and risk lawless men, infected animals, and warring clans to come to it. The music was a siren call for awesomeness, and I was the herald. Waiting. Listening. Rocking.

I leaned forward, singing the lyrics—music was probably one of the worst casualties of the apocalypse, besides, you know, women—when something moved far below.

My lips froze as I reached for my bow, when the figure crept forward. He was small, maybe even younger than my almost fifteen years. He moved from the shadows of the JC Penney and crossed to another, smaller store. He wore a dark hoodie with the hood thrown up, a small backpack, and held a long, thin object. A shotgun, maybe.

Before the plague I would have freaked over a hooded figure sneaking around the mall holding a gun. Now I thought: A loner. Perfect.

Kaden always seemed to inspire people to follow him, but so far no one wanted to join me, the "skinny ginger prick." That changed today.

I spun out of the chair, pausing before the cracked mirror that hung on the back of the door. The boy reflected there wasn't the one Kaden knew—taller, wider shoulders, hair shaved close to his head. When Kaden came back, not only would he not recognize me, but he'd be impressed by the new, epic crew I'd gathered. Starting with the boy down below.

The dust that swallowed all sound now pulsed with the pounding music. Deliberately shattering the silence felt both terrifying and freeing. Like flipping off the world and daring it to come for me.

But now, finally, things are going my way. If the boy held his current course, he'd come out just past the fountain, and I could approach him from behind. I'd need to be careful; he was holding a gun and me a bow, but hardly anyone had ammunition left these days. A bow with arrows beat a gun without bullets—not that I was hoping for a confrontation. Kaden always talked people into following him. So would I. Eventually I hoped to be able to talk over the mall intercom, hype all the perks of being a part of my crew before I even met the person. But one step at a time.

A sliver of light lanced through the final door that opened into the lower level of the mall, lighting swirls of dust, the final chords of the song diminishing. I paused, waiting for the next track to play, but it didn't come. One more thing to fix later.

The following silence was achingly deep, like a held breath waiting for an exhale that would never come. A different person might have taken it as a warning—but I'd waited too long. This boy, whoever he was, would be the perfect first member of my brand-new crew.

I peeked out the crack of the door, to where the skeleton of some sort of small rodent mixed with the debris of old clothing and faded wrappers. Taking a deep breath, I sidestepped from the door, the whole of the mall rising around me.

The hallways stretched into nothingness, no movement, no life.

The fountain stood to my left, vines creeping up the railing to the second floor and reaching up for the sun—a grand and elegant ruin. The silence held memories: Kaden shooting my bow, and the others laughing when I outshot him; Issac handing me his Bible, asking me to use my "young eyes" to read him a passage; Jeb teaching me how to throw a knife and read animal tracks.

You're fine. They'll come back for you.

The apocalypse only sucks if you let it.

Fading sunlight lit the filthy ground. I inched forward along the wall, wondering if maybe the boy had turned around, or I'd miscalculated—when the cold barrel of a gun pressed against my neck.

Adrenaline pounded through me as a clear, high-pitched voice said, "Who the hell plays the Who over mall speakers during the apocalypse? I should shoot you right now for sheer stupidity."

His voice wasn't what I expected—younger and higher than I'd guessed. But I didn't care. He had a gun and tread like a ghost. He'd snuck up on me in the mall. My turf. And he knew who the Who were.

He was everything I'd been waiting for and more.

"Seems like a waste of a good bullet." My heart hammered, but my voice didn't break. I lifted my arms, about to turn around when the gun shoved me in the back and I froze again.

"Don't move," he said. "Throw your bow in front of you. Then slide your backpack to me. Leave the arrows on it."

I tossed my bow forward, where it clattered in the silence, then slowly removed my pack. "The backpack's not full of anything good." Unless you count comic books.

"I'll be the judge of that."

"Fine." I dropped the backpack and then kicked it behind me. There was a sound of shuffling, and then, the smashing of objects as everything was dumped from the bag.

"Hey!" I spun, about to tell him off when I lost the ability to speak.

A girl held a shotgun leveled between my eyes.

I should have been excited, or terrified she might be infected, or a thousand other things. Instead, all I could do was stare. Dark, nearly black hair and vivid, light-blue eyes glared at me from beneath an oversized black hoodie. Her baggy jeans and hoodie hid her form, but there was no way those eyes and lips didn't belong to a girl.

I'm getting robbed by a girl. Kaden is going to give me so much shit.

And suddenly I was hit by another memory, this one with a voice clear as a gunshot. I think there's someone following us. I'm gonna double back and check. Kaden had once known someone was following us—that's how we'd met Ara. Ara had also pointed a gun at him. A gun he'd somehow known was empty. I remembered how he'd handled it. Cocky. Suave. Confident.

"Listen." I raised my hands and gave her a knowing smile. "I know how this goes, your gun is empty and you're scared—"

A gunshot exploded over my head.

"Shit!" Chunks of the ceiling rained down on me as I collapsed to the ground. "Don't shoot! Don't shoot!" My voice rang high and panicked, hands trembling. I crouched, eyes clenched closed, dust coating me, the blast ringing in my ears. Finally I opened my eyes—yup, still a gun pointed straight at me.

"You're not gonna cry, are you?" Her voice had a sarcastic, cutting drawl to it that Ara's never had. "Because if you're gonna cry, I'll just shoot you now."

"No, I'm not going to cry," I squeaked, trying to regain a sense of dignity. Difficult to do on your knees.

"Move again and the next shot goes between your eyes."

"Not moving!"

She stepped back just enough to use the barrel of the gun to push through the contents of my bag. CDs (I mean, I needed choices for the first song to play in four years), a flashlight, a lighter, some squirrel jerky, a manual on solar panels, a Batman comic, The Hobbit, a Sports Illustrated magazine (why had I brought that today?), and a deck of cards Kaden had given me. She swung the gun back to me.

"Where's the rest of it?"

I hesitated, weighing my options before deciding I didn't have any. "It's all back in my hideout."

She sneered. "Hideout? What are you, twelve?"

"Fifteen, actually." Or close enough to it. What good was the apocalypse if you couldn't bump your age up a year?

She paused, a look of curiosity and suspicion on her face. "How'd you turn the electricity on?"

A slow smile crept over my face, along with a deep exhale. Girls might be a mystery that I would likely never solve, but electricity? That was science. "My dad was an electrician, he taught me a lot about old tech. The new tech runs on a different system—it hasn't run since the plague. But there are old tech solar power cells on top of the mall that survived. I had to repair them and a bunch of the wires, but it wasn't too hard."

Actually it was insanely hard. And it took me all summer.

Her eyes narrowed, something calculating there. "Could you get the power on somewhere else?"

Confidence. Channel Kaden. No, don't channel Kaden, that almost got you shot. I cleared my throat. "Probably."

Far in the distance, a flock of birds burst up and out of the mall. We stilled, and her gun turned, both of us quiet as we watched where the corridors disappeared into shadows and creeping plants. The few mannequins in the distance stood as still as us, dark, watchful forms.

But only cold wind swept down the hallway, the first breath of the coming winter.

Finally, she swung the gun back to me, something suspicious in her eyes. "Where's your crew?"

"It's just me." I puffed my chest out a bit, trying to look like a leader.

"Aren't there others living here?" Her eyes went up to the second floor, as if she expected some kind of trap.

"No, it's mostly loners who pass through." After months of talking primarily to mannequins, it felt nice to talk to someone breathing. "The Castellano clan used have their home base in the old Cabela's store, but it burned down a couple months ago. This was their turf, but now it's neutral territory."

A few of the groups who'd passed through had made camp in the mall. I'd crept up to their camps at night, listening to them talk. Rumor had it that Gabriel, the Castellano clan leader, had set up a new clan at the Old Penitentiary—the fortress he'd always wanted. But Kaden had always told me if something happened he would meet me here, at the mall. So this is where I headed after I woke up. Also, screw Gabriel.

Her eyes swept over our surroundings: the deepening colors of the day, the breeze sweeping down through the broken skylights. She seemed to reach a decision. "Fine. Get up. Take me back to your"—she rolled her eyes—"hideout. Try anything and I'll shoot you."

I climbed to my feet, and then hesitated. "Can I pick up my pack and bow?"

A pause. "Yes. But hurry."

"I'm Sam—"

"I didn't ask for your name."

I scrambled to gather up the contents of the bag. Instead of holding my bow in my hands, as I normally would, I slung it over my shoulder. It was awkward with the pack, but less threatening. Only once all my things were gathered did I hesitate. What was the appropriate thing to say to a female pointing a gun at you? She wasn't my prisoner—I was closer to hers—but maybe I should offer her a drink of water at the fountain? Show her how the pump still worked after all this time? Or tell her she was safe with me?

"Are you alone?"

Wow, smooth, Sam. Really.

She cocked the gun, the cartridge falling free and bouncing on the ground. "We're all alone. Shut up and walk."

"My hideout's this way." I nodded toward the small hallway I'd come through.

She swung the gun to my face. "Are you stupid? I said: Shut. Up. And. Walk."

It felt odd to turn my back on someone with a gun, but I did, checking one last time down the expansive, cavernous space, before I led us back into the narrow hallway. She followed close behind. As we walked, her words made me wonder. We're all alone. It had been a long summer, and each day I spent by myself, it became a little harder to believe that Kaden, Ara, and Issac would return.

Last year it felt like we'd done the impossible when our expedition team had found Ara, the first female I'd seen since the plague, and brought her back to the clan. But then everything went to shit—all because of Gabriel. He made his clan, the Castellano clan, a prison, when it should have been Ara's home. He invited Colborn and his horde of men to join the clan, despite knowing they were responsible for butchering a smaller clan in the Boise area. Gabriel might have been domineering and heavy-handed, but Colborn was a straight-up psycho. I wasn't sure of all the details, but after Ara and I followed Kaden's plan and escaped, I returned to the Castellano clan to try to free Kaden, when I was thrown from the horse. The next thing I remembered was waking up in a bunker, miles from the clan.

When I finally found my way back to the Castellano clan, the building had been burned to the ground, the people gone. Kaden, Ara, Issac—the man who'd become my father figure after the plague—were all gone. So I'd spent the summer waiting here, tagging buildings sam was here, waiting for them to come back and for things to go back to the way they'd been. Before Kaden had ever met Ara.

The final door out of the mall loomed, and I pushed it open, letting my worries drift away. We stepped out to a golden sun sinking into the horizon, lighting a city both ruined and beautiful. Summer was gone now; fall had arrived in all her glory.

"Stop grinning, it's creepy," the girl snapped. I barely managed not to apologize as I continued forward. For the first time since coming here I wondered if instead of things going back to the way they were, I could hope for a better future—one with Kaden, Ara, Issac, me and a new girl, as a new kick-ass expedition team. Or hell, our own clan. The Rock 'n' Roll Clan. Or the Teenage Wastelanders. Or the Sam Clan. The possibilities were endless.

We walked down a sidewalk covered in weeds, debris, and fallen leaves, moving away from the sprawling ruins of the mall and toward my hideout.

Today, I'd heard real music for the first time in four years. I'd recruited the first member of a new team. Sure, she was pointing a gun at my head now, but we'd find common ground soon enough. The world might have become a teenage wasteland, but it took everything in me not to smile as we walked into the dying sunset.

The apocalypse only sucks if you let it.