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Sacrificing even a few moments is stupid, but even so I hold the postcard up, turning it back and forth. With each thump of my heart my fingers waver, panic-fueled blood racing through my body.

And then everything lines up perfectly. There’s the skeleton of what used to be a tall glass skyscraper and beyond that the building with the green roof and the arching windows.

But which one has the secret rooms? I clench my eyes shut, trying to put myself back in time with my sister as she was telling me about these places, but all I can recall is my frustration and skepticism.

I drop to my knees, tossing my sister’s books around me and flipping frantically for anything that will give me a clue as to which one has the access. Nothing.

The Recruiters race toward me but there’s no direct route; they keep having to detour when they encounter cut bridges. There are only a handful of them, and even though I might be able to take them, it would be insane to try. If I got hurt, if they overpowered me—I’d have no hope of finding Catcher again.

I’m about to give up and start running when I notice tiny numbers imprinted on the postcard, so small they almost fade into the background. I hold the card up to the sky, tilting it toward the morning sun until I can make some of them out: page numbers.

My sister made a key.

Trying to keep my breath steady, I turn to the corresponding pages in the book that held the postcard. I scour the history of three buildings and want to scream in frustration when something catches my attention.

A diagram of the subway. A picture of a rusted-out sign over an old metal door. An arrow pointing to the green-roofed building that’s just down the street from me. A footnote about a ghost station in the basement.

I tuck the postcard into my shirt and start running across the roof to the next building and then the next, vaulting the short walls in between. I might be a fool for believing what the book says. It’s my sister who believes parts of this city have truly survived since the Return—that there are still places rooted in the before time.

But it’s a chance I have to take. If I stay up here the Recruiters will eventually catch up to me, overpower me. Take me back to the Sanctuary, where Catcher and I will be trapped forever.

I can’t do that to him. I’d rather risk myself than see him turned back into their lackey.

The morning wind gathers around me, pushing balloons lazily across the sky high over my head. All of them chasing a strip of smoke on the horizon leading to Catcher and safety. All of them so close but beyond my grasp.

Under my feet the bridge jostles and jumps as I cross, one of the boards splitting when I land on it, my leg breaking through. I grapple with the rope railings, twisting my wrist through one to stop my fall.

My breath comes in jerks and I close my eyes for just a moment, the muscles of my arm straining to hold me up. Slowly I ease my way onto the next board, testing its strength before transferring my weight.

Already I can hear the Recruiters shouting behind me, closing the distance. My body begs to run, but I force myself to take even steps, testing each section of the bridge before moving across it, agonizingly slow.

I can’t stop glancing over my shoulder, watching the uniform-clad bodies weave their way nearer and nearer. Unable to keep the need to run from taking over, I leap from the end of the bridge onto the roof of the green-roofed building, my feet slipping on a patch of ice when I land.

Without pausing, I sprint to the fire escape and bolt down the stairs two at a time. In the street below the plague rats sense me and turn their faces up, their mouths gaping wide. There are so many it’s like looking at a writhing mass of maggots twisting and wriggling in the body cavity of a dead animal. They scratch at the old bricks, pressing against brittle-looking wood blocking the large entrances on the ground level.

At the first open window I come across, I duck inside, grateful to be away from the sound of the dead. I’m met with a long narrow hallway, the floor stained and