Somehow, it feels even colder now than when we arrived yesterday, a light dusting of snow falling from the gray overcast sky as we wordlessly ride down the highway. Phillip and his younger daughter share a horse, leading the way, while his older daughter has a horse to herself, trotting beside me and Dani, who sit upon Spirit. Spending the night at the Valkyrie outpost was tense, as a lot of the people who were gathered there asked me and Dani a million questions.

I told Phillip and his daughters a little bit about my siblings, and how his daughters remind me of them sometimes, and Breanne shares a few stories of herself and Skye from before the apocalypse. It's clear that despite their bickering, the sisters are close, and a small seed of envy takes root in my chest as I remember how things are with my sister.

Dani had been quiet the whole time, however, glued to my side. I haven't been able to get her to say more than two words at a time the whole night, and she was awake much earlier this morning than I was. Even as she sits behind me on Spirit, her arms stiffly around my waist, it's clear that her mind is a million miles away.

The path the Valkyrie leads us on is well worked with very few Feral sightings, a handful of them merely watching us from the side of the road as we pass them by. The longer the apocalypse seems to draw on, the more 'intelligent' they seem to become, and I find it less comforting that they don't attack right away like they used to. Perhaps it's an evolutionary survival instinct now, that they know when they're outnumbered, or that they would die if they charged in. Regardless of their reasoning for not attacking us, every Feral we pass through Brookhaven seems to have the same idea.

It makes my skin crawl.

"We'll be reaching a checkpoint here soon," Phillip says, breaking the long silence. "Our base is at the Emory University Hospital, but we'll have to pass through an active warzone to get there, so keep your heads up."

Skye and Breanne take out pistols for defense, and Dani grabs the rifle she took from the hunting cabin and scans the area.

Noting our defense, Phillip takes out a walkie and it crackles to life as he speaks into it. "Thunderbird to Base, we are en route to your location with two survivors, over," Phillip says.

There's a short silence, before a male voice answers, "Copy, Thunderbird. What is your ETA, over."

"ETA thirty minutes, we are passing through the Dead Zone now, over," Phillip replies.

"Copy, the gates are prepped for your arrival, and guards are ready to receive your inbound, over."

"Preparation acknowledged, Base. Over and out." Phillip clips the walkie back to his belt and turns to look back at me and Dani. "We'll have to be quick about this once we hit the city limits," he warns. "Widows have been all over this area like flies on shit, especially around Emory."

Dani tenses behind me and I nod, wondering what the Widows could be looking for besides Dani and Josh. However, the warzone they talked about isn't nearly as active as we expected as we enter Atlanta.

It's more of a war-torn ghost town.

Most of the skyscrapers in the distance are skeletons now, having been mostly destroyed by a desperate bombing attempt from the military, and most of the roads are shattered, leaving sections of the maze-like sewer pipes exposed to the frost. Hundreds of buildings sit sunken into the bombed sections of Atlanta, many of them with their brick and mortar spilling into the underground. Jagged destroyed bridges that once spanned the highway are now collapsed, with only the supports and small sections of the roads intact on top of them.

We pass areas where a large fire had broken out, likely in the beginning, as the walls and stone furnishings of outdoor parks remain scarred and charred. Old, blackened bones poke out of the snow in these areas as well, and I grimace when I think about how brutal the first days of the outbreak must have been for the people who lived in the bigger cities.

The silence of the city is unbearably loud, the clop of the hooves being the only notable noise in the area as we pass over a bridge. Dani tugs at the hem of my jacket and I glance back to her, though she gestures with her head over the side of the bridge.

"There it is," she whispers, looking out over the destruction to a shimmering mass of windows rising from the snow, the light from the morning sun making it sparkle like some sort of savior.

The CDC…

I pause Spirit, gently tugging his reigns as I take in the sight of our final destination. It appears untouched by the bombing, thankfully, and something in my chest tugs at me.

It's right there. I can finally see it, the end of the road, after four long years of travel. I could end this now if I wanted to. From this vantage point on the bridge, I can make out a clear path to my destination.

To Mom.

"Everything okay back there?" Skye's voice breaks my thoughts, and I blink, shaking my head.

"That building," I say, pointing to the CDC. "Do you know anything about it?"

"The CDC?" Skye asks, eyeing me as she turns her horse to trot back to us, and further ahead, Phillip and Breanne pause. "Not a lot. We've tried getting in to get some answers about the outbreak, but that place is sealed like a vault."

"Do you think there's anyone still alive inside?"

Skye watches me for a long moment, and I glance back at her, looking innocent. She shrugs. "Beats me, but the place still has power. Every once in a while, we can see the lights turn on outside at night, but we haven't seen anyone go in or out of the place."

"Weird..." my voice trails off as I think of Mom, wondering if she leaves the facility to find a place to meet with us.

Before I can imagine her sitting in the snow outside the facility, waiting for me, Felix, Octavia, and Uncle Tommy, Phillip's voice interrupts. "Come on girls, we're almost to base. Best not to stick around here."

Nodding, I signal for Spirit to move once more, watching the top of the CDC disappear under the tree line and destroyed buildings as we trot down the bridge and get back onto solid ground, and onto a side road.

This particular road has been cleared of vehicles, and the snow on the road here has melted rather thoroughly, leaving no tracks. As we trot along on the pavement, Spirit's ears swivel back and she bobs her head. Taking the hint, I glance around at our surroundings, noting how closed off we seem from the rest of our surroundings. Between the brick fences of the backyards that line the road and the tall trees behind those fences, I can't help but feel as if we're walking through a funnel, uncovered and exposed. Skye seems to feel the same way as well, glancing around with knitted eyebrows.

"Be careful," she mutters. "Somethings got the horses spooked-"

BANG!

A shot rings out in the dead silence and we all jump, and Dani lets out a surprised yelp, jerking into my back.

"WIDOWS!" Skye yells, kicking the sides of her horse so they bolt forward along with Phillip and Breanne. Quick to follow, I do the same as a cacophony of gunshots ring out from the tops of the walls, bullets whizzing past my head and miraculously missing us and Spirit.

"Get to the Upper Gate!" Phillip orders ahead of us as he turns down a road with Skye on his heels. Breanne does her best to provide cover fire behind Phillip, firing her pistol at the Widows in cover, and somehow manages to plug at least one of them.

A bullet buzzes past my head, leaving my ears ringing, and I duck, Dani, slumping into me with her arms weakly around my middle.

My heart leaps to my throat as Dani sways behind me, and I quickly grab her hands and wrap them tightly around my middle in an attempt to keep her on the horse. "Stay with me, Dani, we're almost there!"

Rounding the corner, we're met with a sky bridge connecting a parking garage and the hospital proper, and on top of the bridge is a gaggle of guards with their rifles ready.

"Get the gates open!" Phillip demands to the guards as he darts into the garage with Skye hot on his heels once more. 

Two guards quickly break off from the others and sprint towards the parking garage as I follow suit, doing everything I can to keep Dani upright. We climb up two levels of the garage, the clopping of hooves on the asphalt echoing throughout the garage, and we find out rather quickly that a few Widows have decided to follow us inside.

Unable to shoot at them with my hands occupied, I called out to Skye, "We've got a tail back here!"

Skye glances back, her eyes wide, and she pulls on the reins, forcing her horse to skid to a stop as she quickly turns around, brandishing her weapon. "Get to the gate, I'll cover you!"

Nodding, we race past her on Spirit as we follow Phillip up one more level until we come face to face with a large barricade of heavy-duty sheet metal and spikes. Once we're in sight of the barricade, it starts to creak open, the sound of grinding metal as it opens drowning out the gunfire behind us. We're ushered inside as four guards stand at the entrance of the gate, waiting for Skye to arrive, which doesn't take long.

"Run and hide all you want to!" A Widow yells at us from a lower floor. "You won't last long in there!"

With the gates closed and all of us inside, we're quickly led over the bridge and through a broken window leading into a waiting room. I barely manage to dismount Spirit before Dani starts to slump off, and I almost don't catch her. Her lower shoulder is hot and wet, and it doesn't take long before my hands find the bullet wound by accident, Dani gasps in pain, looking more and more pale by the second.