Bethany saw the camp gate before Emmy did. A wall of scrap wood and sheet metal rose from the scrub, two lookout towers flanking an open archway. She pulled her bandana down from her mouth and let herself believe, for one breath, that they had made it. Her hair stuck to her neck. Her clothes hung in strips at the hem. Behind her, Julius shifted the heat-masking device on his shoulder and said nothing. Emmy was already running. "Emmy!" A man burst from the archway. Thomas. He caught the girl mid-stride and lifted her off her feet. Then he set her down and gripped her shoulders. "You do not do that again. You hear me? You do not run off." He pulled her back into his chest before she could answer. Over her head, he stared at Bethany like she was a ghost. "You were at the camp. You were at the camp when they came." "I was on a roof," Bethany said. "Julius got me down." Thomas looked at Julius. He did not offer a hand. He nodded once, which from him was a lot. Figures came up the slope from the south. Three of them. A brunette walked at the front, stained glass wings folded tight against her back, the colors dulled by dust. A blonde woman kept pace at her shoulder with a makeshift gun. Behind them came a barefoot man in a dirty tunic, blue shackles glowing at his wrists. Emmy pulled free of her father. "Where's Mendez?" The blonde stopped walking. Riley. She looked at Emmy for a long second. "He didn't make it. The Vael got him at the mine." Emmy did not cry. She just took the fact and held it. "This is Julius," Bethany said, because someone had to say something. "He kept us alive." Elina looked at Julius. Looked at the device on his shoulder. "Does it work moving?" "Some," Julius said. "Not enough," Elina said. She was already turning. Her wings shifted. Bethany followed her gaze past the archway, out to the south ridge they had all just crossed. Shapes came over the crest. Purple. Low to the ground. More than she could count in one look. Tails whipping the dust behind them. Bethany's stomach dropped. "Oh no," she said. "They followed us," Elina said at the same time. They looked at each other. Two women who had never met, saying the same words in the same breath. Thomas grabbed Emmy's wrist. Tevin took one step back and his shackles flared brighter. Riley raised her gun and swore under her breath. "Inside," Elina said. "Now. Close the gate." Bethany ran for the archway with the others. She heard the wooden doors groan shut behind her. She heard the first Vael hit the wall a moment later. The camp was no longer a refuge. It was a box, and they were all inside it together.

The gate shuddered under the first Vael body. Bethany backed away from it and turned into the yard. Elina was already climbing the ladder to the north tower, wings folded tight. The captured alien gun sat mounted at the top, its blue accents pulsing. Elina reached it, swung the barrel down over the wall, and fired. The first shots cut through the mass on the ridge. Bethany saw purple bodies drop. She saw others keep coming. Elina worked the gun in short bursts. Every burst took one or two. The line behind them did not thin. "Elina!" Bethany yelled up. "There's too many. Get in." Elina fired one more burst and swung down off the tower. She landed hard in the dust. Julius and Thomas dragged the gate bar into its slot. The wood shook. A tail slammed the seam. A claw punched through a gap near the hinge and tore back a strip of metal. "They're coming through," Riley called from the wall. Bethany ran for the yard's center where Virginia stood at a rack of makeshift weapons. Bethany had met her once, at the gate, when the older woman had waved them inside with a wrench still in her hand. Now Virginia was pulling spears off the rack and handing them out. Her glasses had slid down her nose. She did not push them up. "Take one," Virginia said. She pressed a spear into Bethany's hands. "Point end goes in them." "Virginia—" "Move." The gate split. Two Vael spilled through the gap, low and fast, tails whipping. A third came over the wall. One lunged at Bethany. She got the spear up in time. The point went into its chest and the weight of it drove her back a step. It shrieked and slid off the shaft. The second one hit Virginia before Bethany could turn. It took her down under it. Virginia did not scream. Her hand opened and a spear rolled away from her fingers. "No," Bethany said. She could not move for one breath. Then she moved. Julius was ten feet away, the heat-masking device still slung on his shoulder. His hand was on the switch. "Julius," Bethany said. "Turn it on. Turn it on now." He flipped it. The blue light flared. Every Vael in the yard jerked. Their heads swung. Their tails went stiff. The one on Virginia's body lifted its face and turned in a slow circle, searching for a signature that was no longer there. Riley shot it. Elina took the one at the gate with the sharp edge of her wing. Thomas drove a spear into the last. Bethany dropped beside Virginia. The older woman's glasses were cracked. Her chest did not move. Outside the wall, more Vael were coming. Bethany could hear them on the ridge. She stood up with the spear still in her hand.

Bethany stepped over Virginia's body and turned toward the gate. The blue light from Julius's device washed the yard. Outside, the Vael on the ridge were still coming, but they moved wrong now. They staggered. They turned in circles. Their heads snapped side to side like they had lost a scent. "It's working," Julius said. He held the device up in both hands. His arms shook from the weight. "They can't find us." "Then hit them while they're blind," Bethany said. She dropped the spear and grabbed her shotgun off the rack by the patched tent where Virginia had handed out weapons. She racked a shell. She had not fired a gun since before the camp fell. Her hands remembered. Harlen came around the side of the tent at a run. He was a stranger to her — a short, dust-caked man with a red-glowing rig strapped over his mouth. Elina's people had called him in from the wall. He did not look at Bethany. He looked at the gap in the gate. "Move," he said through the rig. Bethany moved. Harlen stepped into the gap and breathed. A cone of fire rolled out from the mask and washed three Vael at once. They shrieked and folded. The smell was oil and burnt shell. Elina dropped from the north tower without using the ladder. Her stained glass wings caught the blue light and threw color across the dust. She landed behind a Vael that had wandered close to the wall, and she cut it in half with the sharp edge of her left wing. She did not speak. Bethany braced the shotgun against her shoulder and fired into the gap. The first Vael's chest opened. She racked, fired again, dropped a second. "Julius, keep it on," she yelled. "I'm trying." She fired a third time. The four of them were working now — Harlen at the gap, Elina cutting outside, Bethany covering, Julius holding the light. The Vael on the ridge had stopped advancing. Some were running back. Then the blue light stuttered. It flickered once, then went dark. "No," Julius said. He slapped the side of the device. "No, no—" "It's out," Bethany said. She knew before he said it. The Vael in the yard had gone still, then their heads snapped toward Julius all at once. "It stopped!" Bethany screamed across the yard. "The device is out! Everyone — fight with everything you've got!" Elina's head came up. Harlen turned from the gap. Riley on the wall raised her gun. The Vael came again. Bethany braced. She fired into the closest one and racked the shell casing free. Beside her, Julius dropped the dead device and pulled a pistol from his hip. He stepped up next to her shoulder. "Together," he said. "Together," Bethany said. She fired again.

Bethany racked another shell and caught movement at the edge of the yard — two small shapes near the water barrels. Emmy. Thomas. They were out in the open, crouched behind nothing. A Vael on the wall had already turned its head their way. "Move!" Bethany shouted. She broke from the gate and ran to them. Thomas pulled Emmy up by the arm. His shirt was torn at the shoulder. He looked at Bethany without speaking. "The shack," Bethany said. She pointed at the scrap-wood hut against the inner wall. "Go. Now." They ran. Bethany kept the shotgun up and swept behind them. The shack door hung on one hinge. Emmy went in first. Thomas ducked after her. Bethany followed and shoved the door shut with her shoulder. The latch never caught. The door slammed open again and a Vael came through with it. Purple plates. Antenna twitching. It swung an arm and hit Bethany across the chest. She went sideways into the wall. The shotgun jumped out of her hands and skidded across the dirt floor. Her ribs would not pull air. She saw the gun by Emmy's foot. She saw the Vael turn. It lunged at Emmy. Thomas stepped in front of his daughter. He did not shout. He put his hands up like he was catching something heavy. The Vael's claw went through him below the ribs and came out his back. Thomas made a small sound. His knees folded. The Vael shook him loose and he dropped. Emmy did not scream. She bent, picked up the shotgun, braced it against her hip the way she must have seen Bethany do, and fired. The blast took the Vael in the face. It went down flat and did not move. The shack rang. Smoke hung between them. Emmy stood with the gun still raised. Her arms shook. She looked at Thomas on the floor and then at Bethany. Bethany crawled to Thomas. She pressed both hands to the hole in his stomach. Blood came up between her fingers, fast. His eyes were open, but he was already going. He looked at Emmy. He tried to say something. He didn't. Bethany pulled her hands back. She wiped them on her pants. She stood up and took the shotgun from Emmy's hands, checked the chamber, put it back. "You keep this," she said. "You stay in here. You do not open the door. Not for me. Not for anybody. Not until you can't hear anything outside. Not one sound. Do you understand?" Emmy nodded. She was looking at her father. "Emmy. Do you understand?" "Yes." Bethany pulled the dead Vael's blade free of its belt. She stepped over Thomas. She stepped out into the yard and pulled the door shut behind her. Outside, the fighting was still going.

Bethany shut the shack door and turned back to the yard. The fight was still loud. Bodies lay near the gate — some hers, some theirs. She counted maybe four defenders still up. The Vael kept coming through the archway in the scrap-wood wall. She gripped the blade she'd taken from the dead Vael and ran low along the inner wall. Near the water barrels, she saw a young man with dreadlocks and bare feet pinned against a stack of crates. Blue shackles still glowed on his wrists. Tevin — the prisoner Elina's group had pulled out of the mine. He had a captured Vael rifle up, firing into three creatures closing on him. One dropped. The other two kept coming. Bethany drove the blade into the closest one's neck from behind. It went down hard. Tevin swung the rifle at the last one and put a burst through its chest. The Vael folded. "Thanks," Tevin said. He was breathing fast. "More at the gate." Bethany looked past him. She saw the shapes of her people — down, or fighting, or gone. She looked up. The big alien gun sat on its stand at the top of the north tower. The one Elina had used on the first night. Nobody was on it now. "Cover me," Bethany said. Tevin nodded and raised the rifle. She ran. A Vael cut across her path from the archway. She ducked under its arm and kept going. Another lunged. Tevin's rifle cracked and it dropped. She hit the tower ladder and climbed. Her ribs screamed where the Vael had struck her in the shack. She climbed anyway. The gun was heavier than she remembered. She swung the barrel down toward the archway and found the trigger. The stand hummed. Light built in the chamber. She fired. The first shot tore through two Vael at the gate. She swept the barrel and fired again. And again. The recoil punched her shoulder each time. Vael scattered in the yard. She hit them as they ran. Something cut across her sight from above — colored glass catching the sun. Elina dropped from the sky with her wings spread wide. The sharp edge of the left wing came down through a Vael's shoulder and out its hip. She landed, pivoted, took another one across the throat. Bethany kept firing. Elina cut. Tevin picked off the ones that broke for the wall. Then there was nothing left to shoot. Bethany's finger stayed on the trigger a second longer. The gun's hum wound down. She let go. The yard was quiet. Wind moved through the archway. Somewhere a piece of sheet metal knocked against a post. Elina stood among the bodies, wings folded, breathing hard. Tevin lowered the rifle. Bethany climbed down. Her legs shook on the last rungs. She looked at the faces on the ground — people whose names she had never learned. She turned toward the shack where Emmy waited behind a barred door.

Bethany stood in the yard and listened to the wind. The gun on the tower was cold now. Vael bodies lay in twisted piles by the archway. She counted the defenders still on their feet. There were not many. The shack door scraped open. Emmy stepped out with the shotgun held low against her leg. She saw Bethany and ran. Bethany caught her hard against her chest. Emmy didn't cry. She just held on. Elina walked over through the bodies, wings folded tight behind her. She looked at Emmy, then at Bethany. She waited. "Thomas didn't make it," Bethany said. Emmy's face did not change. She had already known. Elina gave a single short nod and did not try to fill the quiet. Boots crunched behind them. Riley came around the back of the water barrels, her makeshift gun slung low. Blood streaked her tank top. It was not hers. "Virginia didn't make it either," Riley said. She stopped a few feet off and did not come closer. "Took one at the gate." Tevin sat down on a crate and let the captured rifle rest across his knees. The blue shackles at his wrists still glowed. He looked at Bethany. "Well," he said. "You weren't wrong about the place being defendable." Harlen came in through the archway, the red rig on his face still hissing steam. He kicked a Vael body over and knelt to strip something off its belt. He did not speak. Julius stepped up beside Tevin. His device hung dark at his hip, dead since the middle of the fight. "Yes," Julius said. "But that's over. We can't stay." Bethany looked at the archway. The scrap-wood wall was split open in three places. The gate hung on one hinge. More Vael would come. They always came. Elina looked at each of them in turn. Emmy. Bethany. Riley. Tevin. Julius. Harlen. "He's right," Elina said. "Grab any supplies and weapons you can carry. We hit the road tonight." Nobody argued. Bethany let Emmy go, gentle. "Get your bag from the shack," she said. "Anything of your dad's you want. Small enough to carry." Emmy nodded and went. Riley moved to the store shed and started passing out cans and canteens. Harlen pulled a Vael blade free and wiped it on his pant leg. Tevin stood and shouldered the rifle. Julius climbed the north tower to see if the alien gun would come loose from its stand. Bethany stayed where she was a moment longer. She looked at the yard she had defended. The bodies of people she had not known. The shack where Thomas had died. The camp was gone. It had been gone the moment the wall broke. She turned and went to gather what she could carry.