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when we walked here from the other house where we’d parked the SUV. I couldn’t tell if a fresh set had been laid over them. Tobias would be using his military evasive skills against us now.
    “Someone check if he went out the front!” I called over my shoulder.
    “Doesn’t look like it,” Leo answered. He came through the kitchen, scooping up the flashlight Tobias had left. Anika had hesitated by the counter. Near the pistol. The memory of the violent ringing of shots, the thud of falling bodies, reverberated through me. But someone needed to take it. And if our lives were on the line, I still had the feeling Anika would save herself at the expense of the rest of us, given the chance.
    I stepped inside, grabbed the gun, and stuffed it into my coat pocket. Anika turned toward me, her expression hidden behind her scarf. We all headed out into the backyard.
    Leo cast the flashlight’s beam over the snow. “Tobi—” Justin started to shout, and I threw out my hand.
    “Quiet!” I said, keeping my voice low. “He doesn’t want us to find him. If he knows we’re looking for him, he’ll take off even faster.”
    I strode toward the trees. Of course, he had to realize we’d go after him when we saw he was missing.
    Or would he? Could he really believe we’d be glad to get rid of him? The way he’d talked before, about the danger he was putting us in, about Justin, and Anika—I should have made sure he understood how much it mattered to me to get him to Atlanta, to help him beat the virus. If he’d known there was no way we were giving up on him, maybe he wouldn’t have done this.
    We stepped into the thicker darkness beneath the branches of the oaks and pine trees. The trail of footprints veered to the left, and no new ones split off from them. I walked faster, my breath coming in puffs of mist. The night air stung my cheeks. I hadn’t thought to grab my scarf.
    Leo swept the flashlight across the forest around us, and I tracked its light. The surface of the snow between the trees remained smooth and unbroken, other than a faint scattering of rabbit prints and a dimple here and there where a twig must have fallen. We followed the downward slope of the ground to the base of the hill.
    My hands balled in my pockets. There had to be a way to track Tobias down. I wasn’t letting him sacrifice himself when we had a chance to save him.
    I was trying to think of what our next best move would be, when there was a sharp inhalation behind me. Anika had frozen. She pointed through the trees.
    A low mechanical hum reached my ears. An engine. Leo flicked the flashlight off without a word.
    My mouth went dry. I took a few steps forward, toward the edge of the forest. There, I could see across the lawns to the road beyond.
    Two pale lights glimmered into sight. A Jeep with its running lights on, cruising slowly over the snow.
    “Wardens?” Justin said.
    “I don’t know,” I murmured. It was possible some other group of survivors was traveling down the same road we’d taken, wasn’t it? But as I watched, the Jeep crept past the house we stood behind, past the two after, and eased to a stop by the fourth. After a pause, it turned down the driveway, toward the spot where the SUV was parked.
    Whoever was in the Jeep, they were following our tracks. It could be the Wardens, or other raiders just interested in a new car and supplies to steal. Either way, it was bad.
    My mind leapt to the cold box in the corner of the tent, back at the house we’d left undefended, and panic jolted through me. I couldn’t see the Jeep now, but I heard the thud of the doors closing. As soon as our pursuers realized the house we’d parked by was empty, they might start checking the others.
    “Go back!” I whispered. “Fast but quiet!”
    We rushed along the trail the way we’d come. Without the flashlight, it was harder to avoid the sticks that crackled underfoot and the shrubs that rasped against our clothes. Every noise seemed to