“Follow me,” Minho said.

  He ran to a spot on the crashed ship where a large gash had split it open, and one by one the group disappeared into the darkness of the interior. Sparks still popped from one section of the gash, a few meters above the ground. This Berg was different from the one in which Isaac, Trish, and Sadina had flown. This one was at least twice as big, with a globular structure jutting from its middle, obviously the storage tank for the monstrous machine with spiked wheels that had dropped on them at the bridge. Isaac had no idea how or why some of them had ended up in the smaller ship on the other side of the oncoming Cranks. It had all been a blur, flashes of terror.

  Isaac was in the back of the line, Dominic right in front of him. Ms. Cowan entered the Berg ahead, right after Trish and Sadina, nursing her wounded eye.

  Dominic placed a hand on the metal of the hull and looked back over his shoulder. Isaac looked as well. Most of the Cranks had been freed from their shackles, and although they still had major difficulties maneuvering over the dozens of flattened trees, they were getting close. Maybe thirty meters away, now.

  “I sure hope this guy knows what he’s doing,” Dominic said. “Those people look hungry and I think they might like the taste of islanders.”

  “We don’t have much choice, do we,” Isaac muttered.

  Dominic slipped through the gap, then Isaac.

  The Berg seemed huge from the outside, far larger than any single building she’d ever seen back home on their island. Larger by a long shot. And yet its insides felt cramped and tiny, narrow corridor leading to even narrower corridors, small rooms and storage centers to the left and right, appearing just as small as the tiny cell into which they’d been crammed during the flight. She’d thought at the time that stuffing them in there had been an act of cruelty, but now she realized the whole ship was like that. Like the dollhouse her mom had built for her eons ago.

  She and the rest of them picked their way along, around corners and around more corners. The ship was dark, lit only by a few sparks here and there and glowing red emergency lights, half of which were broken. Old Man Frypan was directly in front of her, a little bit of a spring back in his step. Miyoko was behind her, patting her on the shoulder every once in a while for comfort.

  She knows, Jackie thought. She knows what I’m feeling.

  Carson and Lacey were dead. Dead. Jackie didn’t know who’d confirmed it, but Ms. Cowan had told her outside that they’d been lost. Wilhelm and Alvarez, too. The chaos, the Cranks, the danger—all of it allowed no time to mourn their friends, and certainly nobody wanted to talk about it. But the pain ached in Jackie’s chest, ached so badly she found it hard to breathe.

  Carson. Lacey. Dead.

  Her mom once told her that the oldest cliche in the book was that you had to take life one step at a time. Her mom also said that no cliche had ever spoken more truth.

  Jackie took another step.

  “It’s here!” Minho yelled from up ahead, his voice bouncing along the small hallway in echoes. “And it’s intact!”

  Jackie had no idea what he was talking about, but he seemed pleased enough.

  She took another step.

  The Grief Walker, as big as Roxy’s house, appeared solid and unspoiled, which didn’t really surprise him. The Berg itself was always meant as a cushion for the invaluable machine cocooned within it. Although he didn’t know much about the machines, there was no doubt what an important project it had been for the Grief Bearers and all of the Remnant Nation, a project that had gone on for decades.

  The round hatch before him was solid steel, a mechanical latch-lever thing that kept it closed. Minho grabbed the lever with both hands, then Orange joined him. They pulled in tandem, groaning with the effort. Minho finally lifted his feet off the ground, hanging every pound of his Orphan-trained body on the handle. It gave with a squeak, gave a little more with a squeal, then collapsed downward and the hatch popped open. It happened so suddenly that he let go and sprawled across the floor. Instead of helping him up, Orange darted through the hole and into the Grief Walker.

  Roxy was on him instantly, threading her arms beneath his armpits, hampering more than helping as he got back to his feet.

  “Thanks,” he whispered. It was kinda cool having a mom.

  They followed Orange into the machine, their other friends crowding up behind them. Orange had stopped at the railing of the walkway that circled the entire circumference of the Walker—the control center was recessed into the rounded bottom of the vessel with dozens of windows to view the ground below while it was in motion.

  Minho stepped forward beside Orange and saw why she had stopped.

  A Grief Bearer and an acolyte were seated at the controls, having just begun the maneuvers to start up the machine. Two Orphans, Orphans he didn’t know, dressed in the rough vines and cloth of a wilderness-wandering, stood nearby, both of them holding the rifles that Minho knew all too well. And each gun was aimed—one at Orange, one at Minho.

  Damn it, he thought. He’d really hoped they’d all died in the crash.

  He and several of the others were crammed together in a small opening outside the hatch of the Grief Walker, the hatch small enough that they could only enter one at a time. About half of them were inside, and Ms. Cowan was just leaning through the hole when she abruptly pulled back and turned around.

  “People are in there!” she said in a biting whisper. Although that much was obvious, Isaac knew what she meant. The people. The ones who flew the ships, the ones who’d taken them into the sky. She faced the hatch again, gave a worried look back at them, then entered the large machine anyway. Trish and Sadina did, too. Then Miyoko.

  Dominic stood in front of the hatch. Jackie was right next to him, peeking over his shoulder.

  She turned and spoke to Isaac, about as defeated as someone could sound. “They have guns, I guess. Ordering us to come inside.”

  Isaac felt as if he’d just shrunk two inches and lost thirty pounds. Dominic climbed through the hatch and then Jackie moved to follow. Out of the frying pan and into—

  A noise rattled behind Isaac. He was just beginning to twist around when a hand slammed atop his shoulder, then another hand stuffed a wadded rag of cloth into his mouth. Footsteps pounded up the small hallway, something pushed him to the side, a figure ran past him. That person attacked Jackie, threw her to the floor and stuffed her mouth with cloth as well, then grabbed her by the ankles. Isaac was barely registering this when he was yanked backward, lifted off his feet and pulled away from the hatch.

  Then he was being dragged down the hall, fear like an expanding balloon in his throat, watching helplessly as Jackie met the same fate.

  He heard whispers from behind, but he could only focus on one problem at a time. Two Orphans, rifles raised, their barrels aimed at Orange and him. A priestess of the Cure, working switches and controls as if she hadn’t noticed them enter. And then there was Glane, his Grief Bearer and master for many a year, having now stood from his own chair to face his pupil, the one in whom he’d been so proud. Minho had not known until that very moment that the man had accompanied the others on this trip.

  “Orphan,” Glane said. “It looks as if you’ve strayed from the wilderness. I believe your forty days ended without your triumphant return to the Remnant Nation. But all’s well, as they say. Griever Barrus made it clear that we could still use you. He gave you the pragmatist speech, I believe. True?”

  “I didn’t know you came with him,” Minho said.

  “I did.”

  He said nothing else, letting the absurdity of his response linger in the stale air.

  “I’m . . . glad.”

  “Are you? Are you on our side, Orphan? I want to believe it, despite every single action you take saying otherwise.”

  Orange stood right next to Minho, and yet Glane hadn’t so much as looked at her. Roxy and the others crowded in behind him, still and silent, no more whispers. Orange moved her foot against Minho’s, then pressed against it with the lightest of touches. Message received.

  “Speak, Orphan.” Glane’s voice reminded Minho of why he’d kept walking west, even on the brink of starvation, sick and weak. Roxy had saved him, body and mind. And now, to save her, his left hand needed only to move two inches.

  “Now,” Minho finally said, probably not the response his master had been expecting.

  His finger made it one inch before a shot rang out, from the Orphan on the left. The second inch was accomplished before the echo of that shot had even begun. The bullet pinged against the railing, just as his finger triggered the burst packet on his waist. Orange triggered the burst packet on her waist. In sync, with the sounds of twin explosions, their bodies lifted from the landing and curved into the space of the globe, then flipped as they continued to manipulate the dynamics of the packet’s guidance device. Feet first, with the precision that had come from years of relentless training, they slammed into the faces of both armed Orphans with the force of booted cannons.

  Minho and Orange ignited a rebound repression just as they made contact, preventing them from slamming against the wall of the Grief Walker. Minho fell on to his back, the breath knocked from his chest. As he struggled to recover, struggled to get breath into his shocked lungs, the priestess leaped from her command chair and came at him, a long curved blade having appeared in her hand. Weak from the effort just expended, he raised an arm, a useless attempt to block her as she dove, weapon first.

  But then a long object swung in from the left of his vision, slamming directly into the face of the priestess. The woman screamed, blood spurted, she dropped the knife, collapsed, and went still. Minho, finally pulling in a pathetic attempt at a breath, looked up, tried to see what had happened.

  Roxy stood there, brandishing the rifle dropped by the Orphan whose face Minho had ruined with the flying missile of his feet. The butt of the rifle, a little blood dripping from its tip, was actually dented from Roxy’s assault on the priestess. Minho didn’t have enough air to utter a single word, but their eyes met with all the power of a lightning strike.

  “No one hurts my son,” she said. “An Orphan no more.”

  Her head thumped twice against the floor as the bald-headed freak dragged her down the hallway and around a corner. Then he dropped her next to Isaac, who lay on his back with a look of the purest terror gripping his features. In the devil-glow of the red emergency lights, Jackie stared at the people who’d pulled them like sacks of garbage away from their friends.

  They were two of the mysterious strangers she’d spotted from the top of the Berg, the ones who’d unlocked the chains of the Crank horde. Standing over her and Isaac, they looked down at them with wide, haunted eyes—eyes lacking some crucial element that would’ve made them closer to human. Jackie didn’t know what it was. They were both bald, dressed in drabby gray clothing, androgynous. One of them yanked the rags out of their mouths.

  “Who are you?” Isaac asked.

  Jackie was relieved that he’d recovered his wits enough to speak.

  “What do you want?” she added.

  The one on the left spoke, revealing teeth that had rotted considerably. Its voice was surprisingly normal, neither deep nor high. Not even that creepy.

  “We’re the in-between, kid. We want no trouble. We only want the girl. Give us the girl and we won’t hurt any of you. That’s a promise, sworn on the Flare. And she won’t be hurt either. The girl will be safe.”

  “Why does everyone want Sadina so bad?” Jackie whispered, mainly to herself. How could one person be so important to all these people?

  “Are you Cranks?” Isaac asked. “I didn’t think Cranks could talk.”

  This time the one on the right answered, its voice a little deeper. “Don’t use that word, boy. It’s not nice. We come from a different variant, anyway. But I hear all of you are immune. What a sad thing for you. What a sad, sad thing.”

  “Will you give us the girl?” the one on the left asked.

  Jackie couldn’t take it anymore. She simply couldn’t.

  “Isaac,” she said, not caring that their captors heard because it wouldn’t matter. “We have to do this together.”

  “I know,” he replied, an answer that was somehow both resigned and brave at once.

  Jackie balled her right hand into a fist and swung it upward, smacking the face that hung over her like a cloud. She’d never punched anyone in her life but surprise was on her side—the creature’s head jerked to the left so hard that it hit the wall. She grabbed its shirt and yanked, pulled it to the ground while it was stunned, then rolled on top of its torso. Holding both of her hands together in one tight ball, she smashed it into the thing’s nose, lifted her arms and did it again. It screamed, a wet sound of agony. She hit it again, ignited by enough rage that she knew she had another dozen or so in her.

  To her left, Isaac was being strangled.

  He knew there’d been other times when he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. They just weren’t coming to him as the bald-headed half-Crank squeezed his neck with both hands. Jackie was winning her battle, beating the ever-living hell out of the one she’d chosen to attack, all of which Isaac could see rather well since his eyes were half-bulged from their sockets.

  He beat at his attacker’s arms, beat at its chest, kicked with his legs, tried to squirm his body left and then right. None of it was working. He flailed, feeling for anything, any object nearby that might help. The life was squeezing out of him, leaking out, and the ugly expression of the one doing it, that face just a small distance away from his own, made Isaac desperate not to let it happen.

  His pocket. He remembered his pocket.

  He reached for it, brushed across its fabric, felt the hard solid length of what nestled inside. Choking, dying, making no sound because there was no air to do it, he fumbled with his fingers, reached into the front pocket of his pants, found the object, gripped it tightly in his hand. It was the key, the big, metal key, the one Orange had given him to unlock their shackles.

  His vision was muddled, full of sparkling diamonds of light that obscured everything in sight. He could only make out the bare outline of his attacker’s head. The pain, the pain in Isaac’s throat was a great and sharp and terrible thing. His lungs begged for air, his eyes were on the verge of absolute detonation from the pressure.

  Somehow, he found the strength. He reared his arm to the right, then swung it with every last speck of his remaining power toward the creature’s neck. The key, as solid as any key ever made at the Forge by Captain Sparks, found the perfect spot, sliding into the soft tissue and releasing a beautiful fountain of blood. The half-Crank let go of Isaac’s neck and clutched its own, but it was over for the pitiful creature. Even as Isaac sucked in the most glorious breaths of his life, the attacker toppled to the side and bled out.

  Isaac rolled over, looked at Jackie, straddling the one she’d fought. Her fists were bloodied and her face glistened with sweat.

  “I can’t believe we just did that,” she said through several gasps. “I can’t . . .”

  Isaac heard all kinds of noises, now. Creaking, moaning, footsteps, screams, incoherent babbling.

  Cranks! The familiar word flashed inside his mind.

  He was weak, his adrenaline spent. But he saw shadows moving down the hallway. Human-shaped shadows that were growing in size, along with an increase in volume of their terrible sounds.

  “Come on,” Jackie said. “Come on.”

  Helping each other, leaning on each other, holding on for dear life to each other, they stood up, shuffled their way back in the direction from which they’d been dragged down the hall. They found the hatch. It was open, and Dominic was just stepping out of it.

  “Oh, there you guys are. Hurry up, would you?”

  They entered the belly of the beast and shut the heavy door.

  Cranks swarmed outside the Grief Walker, especially energetic after being freed from their shackles. Minho heard them banging on the hull. He saw them through the viewports on the bottom of the rounded control center. Scratches of fingernails against metal sounded from above. All of it was enough to encourage Griever Glane to assist Minho in getting the giant machine up and running. Of course, the man didn’t have much choice now that Roxy and Miyoko possessed the discarded rifles. But Glane actually knew very little—the real expert, the priestess, was on the floor, knocked out cold from Roxy’s devastating blow.

  Jackie and Isaac had just appeared, looking like Cranks, themselves. Sweaty, dirty, bloody, traumatized—evidently they’d been dragged away, forced to fight their way out of it. Minho was ashamed to admit that he didn’t even know they’d been missing. Other matters had taken precedence.

  Initially, his hope had been to barricade themselves, utilize the food supplies, maybe get enough power to use whatever weapons were available. But the Grief Walker was intact, and the Grief Walker was functional. Based on the scattered knowledge he had of the machines, they could very well break through the wreckage of the Berg and escape the invading Cranks.

  As he frantically worked with the petulant Glane to figure things out, Jackie came up to him.

  “What happened?” he asked her. She must have been in horrified awe of his capacity to remain detached, to repress emotion—one of the many skills he’d learned as an Orphan of the Remnant Nation. Roxy was the only weakness in the armor he’d felt in a long time.

  “Minho, it’s not just Cranks we have to worry about,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady. “There’s . . . others, people who look like them but aren’t as . . . I don’t know. They were smarter, talked to us, almost killed us. Maybe they’re just early on in the disease.”

  Isaac had joined them, looking even worse than Jackie. “They said something about being in-between. They were just as creepy as those guys.” He pointed down at the closest viewport, where a Crank was bashing its head against the glass. Thump, thump, thump. A small crack had actually formed.