Her routine is repetitive. Her eyes open blearily to the dim light of candles to watch her sister rise from their shared bed in their small corner of space tucked below the old general store; it's a punctual thing, five every morning, ready to do her share of communal work. Every morning, Nadia rises shortly after and throws on Alexa's hand-me-downs. She grabs her bag. She inches around dozing children, the young ones who get to have their recommended eight hours. Out of the stifling subterranean "homestead" she flees, her boots grasping the concrete steps to freedom.

She isn't any sort of woodsy aficionado. While her sister disappears into the trees that border the building, she diverts from the path, rounding away in the direction of the garden, such as it is. Very few things are sustainable in the climate they inhabit, particularly during the colder months, but Nadia is determined. She spends hours there. The hours pass like sand trying to move through a hole too small.

It's exhausting, but it's better than daycare duty.

This is where she is when her routine changes. They get so few visitors that even some of the hunters emerge from their cover in the forest, pairs of suspicious eyes watching the helicopter set down on asphalt. The guns are startling to everyone. Some of the children flee. When one of the uniformed men demands to see one Nadia Burns, the suspicion turns to accusation, and the eyes go to her; it's an unnerving thing, all that consciousness.

She clutches her bag with dirt-smudged fingers. She steps forward. At seventeen, she's old enough to hold the expectation that she won't scurry off like a horrified munchkin seeking refuge from a wicked witch. As the man speaks, she struggles to pay attention to it, searching the faces for her sister while her stomach flip-flops awkwardly in her abdomen. The words process slowly, bringing to light new horizons and an escape from the repetition, at the cost of familiarity: Alexa stays behind.

It's a joint decision between the two, pressured through by the older of the girls. [i]That garden's going to die,[/i] she reflects, sinking into a seat in the noisy aircraft, looking out into the faces of people she knows as they disperse, back to their orderly day-to-day lives.