Reached

me. “Is she in the medical center?” I ask. “Is she sick?”
    “Oh no,” Indie says. “She’s fine. She’s outside, on my ship.”
    All these months I’ve wanted to see Cassia again, and now I might have the chance. But I can’t do it. There are too many still, and one of them is Lei. “I’m sorry,” I tell Indie. “I have to take care of the patients here. And you’ve been exposed to the mutation now. You shouldn’t leave. You need to go to quarantine.”
    She sighs. “He thought you might be hard to convince. So I’m supposed to tell you that if you come with me, you’ll be able to help him work on the cure.”
    “Who are you talking about?” I ask.
    “The Pilot, of course.” She says it so matter-of-factly that I believe her.
    The
Pilot
wants me to help work on the cure.
    “He knows you have firsthand knowledge of the mutated Plague,” Indie says. “He needs you.”
    I look back down the hallway.
    “
Now,
” Indie says. “He needs you now. There’s no time to say good-bye.” Her voice is honest and unflinching. “Can any of them hear you anyway?”
    “I don’t know,” I say.
    “You trust the Pilot,” Indie says.
    “Yes.”
    “But have you ever met him?”
    “No,” I say. “But you have.”
    “Yes,” Indie says. She enters a code and pushes open the door. It’s almost morning now. “And you’re right to believe in him.”

CHAPTER 22
    KY
    K
y,”
she whispers to me.
“Ky.”
    Her hand is soft against my cheek. I can’t seem to wake up. Maybe it’s because I don’t want to. It’s been too long since I dreamed about Cassia.
    “Ky,” she says again. I open my eyes.
    It’s Indie.
    She sees in my face that I’m disappointed. Her expression falters a little, but even in the very faint light of early morning I can see triumph in her eyes.
    “What are you doing?” I ask her. “You should be in quarantine.” After we brought back Caleb, they took him away and locked Indie and me both up in quarantine cells here at the base. At least they didn’t put us in City Hall. “How did you get in here?” I ask, looking around. The door to my cell is open. Everyone else that I can see looks asleep.
    “I did it,” she says. “I’ve got a ship. And I’ve got her.” She grins. “While you were sleeping, I flew to Central.”
    “You went to
Central
?” I say, standing up. “And you found her?”
    “Yes,” Indie says. “She’s not sick. She’s fine. And now you can run.”
    Now we can run.
We can get out of here. I know it’s dangerous but I feel like I can do anything if Cassia’s really in Camas. When I stand up, I’m dizzy for a second and I put my hand on the wall for support. Indie pauses. “Are you all right?” she asks.
    “Of course,” I say. Cassia’s no longer in Central. She’s here and she’s safe.
    In unison, Indie and I slip out the door of the cell and start for the fields. The grasses whisper to each other in the pale dark and I start to run. Indie stays next to me, keeping pace.
    “You should have seen the landings I did.” Indie says. “They were perfect.
Better
than perfect. People are going to tell stories about them someday.” Indie sounds almost giddy. I haven’t heard her like this before, and it’s contagious.
    “How does she look?” I ask.
    “The same as always,” Indie says, and I start laughing and stop running and reach to grab Indie and spin her around and kiss her cheek and thank her for managing the impossible, but then I remember.
    I could be sick. So could she.
    “Thank you,” I tell Indie. “I wish we weren’t quarantined.”
    “Does it really matter?” she asks, coming a tiny bit closer. Her face is full of pure joy and I feel that kiss again on my lips.
    “Yes,” I say, “it does.” Then I’m struck by fear. “You made sure Cassia wasn’t exposed to the new virus, didn’t you?”
    “She rode in the hold almost the whole time,” Indie says. “The ship had been sterilized. I didn’t really even talk to her.”
    I’ll have to be careful. Wear a mask, stay out of the hold, keep my distance from Cassia . . . but at the very least, I can see her.
Too good to be true,
some instinct within me warns.
You and Cassia together, flying away, just like you imagined? Things don’t happen like that.
    If you let hope inside, it takes you over. It feeds on your insides and uses your bones to climb and grow. Eventually it becomes the thing that
is
your bones, that holds you together. Holds you up until