Croft had not slept in two nights, and the cold was starting to win. He was nineteen, thin, with green spiked hair that no longer meant anything out here. Back home it marked him as trouble. In the ruined city of The Lost, it only marked him as prey. He kept moving because stopping meant freezing. Somewhere in this wreckage his family waited, or so he told himself. Finding them was the only reason he kept his feet moving at all. The cluster of broken towers rose ahead of him. War had chewed their upper floors to nothing. Steel beams hung loose from the shells, swaying when the wind pushed. But the lower floors still had walls. Walls meant a break from the wind. Croft picked his way over the rubble at the base and slipped through a gap where a door had been. Inside, a small fire burned in a rusted drum. A girl crouched beside it, feeding it strips of wood. She could not have been more than sixteen. She heard him and did not run. Instead she picked up a length of pipe and stood, keeping the drum between them. "Stop there," she said. "I've split heads for less than you're thinking." Croft raised both empty hands. His teeth were chattering too hard to hide. "I'm not thinking anything. I just want to not die tonight." She studied him. Her eyes moved to his shaking hands, then his boots, then his hair. Something in her face loosened, just a little. "You're soft," she said. "City-soft. You won't last a week." "Then let me last one more night." He nodded at the fire. "I'll trade. I've got food." He pulled a dented can from his coat. It was the last one he had. He held it out anyway. She stared at the can a long moment. Then she lowered the pipe. "Sit," she said. "Far side. You touch my things, you go back out." Croft sat. The heat hit his hands like something alive. He almost cried from it. The girl opened his can with a blade and split what was inside without asking. She handed him half. They ate without talking while the fire snapped. "People come here at first light," she said finally. "Not friendly ones. This isn't my place. I just found it empty." She looked at him hard. "If you're still here when they come, you're on your own." Croft swallowed. The warmth had a price after all. He had a wall and a fire for one night. Come dawn, he would have to run again, and now he had no food left to trade. "Then I'll be gone before light," he said. The girl nodded and turned back to the flames. For the first time in two nights, Croft let his eyes close. But he set them to open early. Morning was coming, and it was bringing company he could not fight.

Croft woke to the sound of movement, not light. The fire had burned low. Across the drum, the girl was already up, rolling her blanket tight and stuffing it into a worn backpack. The sky through the broken wall was still black. But he knew what the black meant now. Dawn was close, and with it came the people she had warned him about. He had no food left to trade for another night. Leaving meant the cold again, and the cold had almost killed him twice. He sat up slow. His hands were stiff. He had no plan. He only knew he could not stay here, and he could not go out empty. He watched her cinch the pack shut and sling it over one shoulder. Her boots were laced tight, ready for miles. She moved like someone who had done this a hundred times. "You're leaving," he said. It wasn't a question. "Before they get here." She glanced at him. "You should be gone already." Croft stood. His legs shook. He had nothing to offer and nowhere to go, and she owed him nothing. He braced for her to send him out the door alone. Instead she crouched, dug in the side of her pack, and pulled out a knife in a leather sheath. She held it out to him, handle first. "Take it," she said. Croft stared at the blade. "Why?" "Because a soft city boy with no knife is a dead city boy." She pushed it closer. "You follow me today. I'll show you the ground. Where water is. Where to hide. You learn fast, or you don't, that's on you." He closed his fingers around the sheath. It was heavier than it looked. Warmth spread through his chest that had nothing to do with the fire. For the first time in The Lost, someone had chosen to help him. "Two rules," she said. She held up one finger. "You don't slow me down." A second finger. "You make yourself useful. You can't do either, I leave you where you stand." "I can do that." His voice came out rough. "I will." "We'll see." She kicked dirt over the last of the fire. The coals hissed and died. "I'm Trin." "Croft." She was already moving toward the gap in the wall. Croft slid the knife into his belt and followed. Behind them, far off, he heard voices carry through the ruins. Men's voices, coming closer. Trin heard them too. She stopped and pressed a hand flat to his chest. "They're early," she whispered. "Move quiet. Stay behind me. If I run, you run." Croft nodded. His heart slammed. He no longer had a wall or a fire. But he had a blade in his belt and someone ahead of him who knew the way. He stepped out into the gray, and this time he was not alone.

The voices swelled behind them. Trin ran, and Croft ran with her. The ground was flat gray dirt with no wall, no ditch, nothing to hide behind. His lungs burned. The knife slapped against his hip. He kept his eyes on Trin's braids and matched her stride. Every second the men gained. There was no cover, no way to slip loose. They could only run, and running was not enough. Trin cut hard around the base of a broken tower. Croft followed close. He came around the corner and stopped dead. A group of men blocked the way ahead. Trin froze beside him. Croft's hand went to the knife, but his fingers shook too hard to draw it. They had run straight into worse. Behind them the other men still came. He thought this was the end. One man stood in front. He was tall and broad, dark hair, a thick beard clotted with dirt. His green eyes fixed on Croft. Croft did not know him. He braced for the man to raise a weapon. "Croft!" The voice hit him like cold water. Croft stared. He knew that voice. He searched the bearded face, the hard jaw under all that hair. Then the eyes. He knew those eyes. He had grown up looking into them. "Dad?" The beard had hidden him. Months of it, and dirt, and a body gone lean and hard. But it was Reggie. It was his father. Croft's legs moved before his mind caught up. He ran across the open ground and slammed into him. Reggie caught him and held on. The arms around Croft were the same. Croft pressed his face into the filthy shirt and shook. "I looked everywhere," Croft said. His voice broke. "I thought you were dead." "I've got you." Reggie's hand gripped the back of his neck. "I've got you now." The men behind them rounded the tower. They pulled up short when they saw the crowd. Reggie stepped past Croft and faced them. The other men fanned out at his side. Croft understood then. These were not enemies. This was his father's group, and they had numbers. The pursuers looked at the wall of standing men, backed away, and were gone. Croft turned to find Trin. She had not moved. She watched the reunion from a few steps off, one hand still on her pack strap, her face careful. She did not know these men. She did not know if she was safe here. Reggie looked her over. "Who's this?" "Trin," Croft said. "She kept me alive. She's with me." Reggie held Trin's gaze a moment, then nodded once. "Then she's with us." Croft breathed for the first time in what felt like hours. The men who hunted them were gone. His father was alive. But part of his family was still missing, and now there were more mouths, more choices, and a group of strangers he did not yet trust.

The group filed back into the main lobby of the ruined tower. Reggie's men dropped their packs and got to work. Someone stacked broken wood in a corner and struck a spark. A small fire caught and grew. Croft sat close to it with his father. Trin settled a few feet off, watching the strangers, her back to the wall. The heat felt good after days of cold. Croft studied the man across the fire. His father was here, alive. But one question sat heavy in Croft's chest. "Where's Mom?" he asked. "Where's Ellie?" Reggie's face changed. He looked into the flames. "We got split a month back," he said. "A bad night. Men came through where we were camped. We ran different ways." He rubbed his gloved hands together. "I never found them again." Croft's stomach dropped. "So where are they now?" "I don't know." Reggie met his eyes. "That's the truth of it. I've got no idea where they went." "Then why aren't you looking?" Croft's voice rose. Trin glanced over. "You just sat here?" "I've been at the edge of the city for weeks," Reggie said. "Praying. You want the honest reason I stayed put?" He pulled off a glove. From his shirt pocket he drew a small photo book with a bright blue cover. He opened it. The pages held tiny printed pictures, worn soft at the corners. He turned it toward Croft. "I kept telling myself you'd come through here. Your mother and sister still had each other. You were out there alone. So I waited at the gate for you." Croft took the little book. He saw his own face in one photo, younger, standing between his mother and Ellie. His throat tightened. His father had chosen to wait for him over hunting for the others. "You gave up on finding them," Croft said quietly. "No." Reggie's jaw set. "I bet on you. And you walked right in. Now there's two of us. Now we go get them." The words should have felt like a gift. Instead they landed like a weight. Croft closed the album. His mother and sister were somewhere in The Lost, and no one knew where. A whole month gone. No trail. No direction. His father had traded that time to find him. "A month is a long time," Trin said from the wall. Both men looked at her. "People move. They don't stay lost in one place." She shrugged. "If you want to find them, you need a lead. Somewhere they'd go." Reggie nodded slow. "There's a man deeper in the city," he said. "He trades word. Names. Where folks pass through. If anyone tracked your mother, it's him." Croft stood. The fire threw his shadow long against the broken wall. He had his father back. Now he had a name to chase and a place to go. The search was no longer his alone. "Then that's where we go," Croft said. "Tomorrow."