"Of course you can," I said. The others nodded their heads in support.

"I'm too big. Twitch barely made it through and he's a beanpole."

I placed my hands on Flush's shoulders. "Look at me," I commanded, and his eyes locked with mine. "You survived the Brown Shirts and the Hunters, and now you're telling me a little hole's going to defeat you?"

"Well . . ."

"You made it through the hard part, Flush. This hole's the easy stuff. Remember, you once ate maggots."

"I was hungry." He couldn't help but smile as he said it.

"So what I'm saying is, if you can do that, you can do this." My gaze shifted to the hole. "All we ask is that you try. You willing to do that?"

He nodded a trembling chin. And then, like a duck diving into the shallows, he lowered his head and began to slide his way through the makeshift tunnel. It was a feat that would have been utterly impossible a few months earlier.

But Flush had changed. We all had.

My focus shifted from Flush to the line of others on the opposite side. Pale moonlight cast a crisscrossing shadow of chain-link fence across their faces.

That's when it hit me. We'd made it. We had done something extraordinary. This group of misfits. Of Less Thans and Sisters. We few, we happy few. We had survived the most insurmountable of obstacles and made it to a new territory. To freedom.

And yet . . .

Flush popped up on the other side and people patted him on the back. A smile the likes of which I had never seen before plastered his face. There was genuine pride there. A feeling you only get from pushing yourself beyond all boundaries. Something earned.

"Thanks," Flush said, leveling his gaze at me. "I'm glad I did it."

I got what he was saying. Not just grateful he'd made it through the hole, although that was part of it, but grateful he'd come along on the journey. Grateful he belonged. Even grateful he was a Less Than.

That's the moment I understood what the woman with the long black hair was really saying.

You will do what's right, she'd told me, over and over, echoing in my dreams. Or my memories. Or both. And now I finally understood. You will lead the way.

She'd been guiding me all these years and I just hadn't known it.

"Come on, Book," Twitch said. "Your turn."

But I didn't move. And then I said the two words that surprised me most. Words I didn't know were still a part of my vocabulary.

"I can't."

Jaws dropped. Eyes grew wide.

"What're you talking about?" Flush asked. "I made it."

"Yeah, and he's a whole lot bigger than you," Dozer added.

After fires and deserts and Hunters' bullets, what was there about a little hole to be afraid of?

"It's not the hole," I said. "It's something else."

"Like what?"

I hesitated, if only because I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to say.

"The others," I said at last.

"What're you getting at?" Dozer asked.

"Is it fair we're here and there are Less Thans stuck back at Liberty?"

"They didn't come with us," he sputtered, suspicious and disgusted all at once.

I thought of the ones gagged and manacled in the bunkers. Thought of the ones, too, who'd be sold off after the next Rite, when they turned seventeen. "We didn't give 'em the chance."

Even in blue moonlight I could see Dozer's cheeks turning crimson. "We couldn't've done it with hundreds! We're not frickin' Methuselah or Moses or whoever it was! We had trouble enough with just us."

"Fine. So now we can rescue the others. Those hundreds."

"We?"

"Okay, maybe I rescue them. I know how to get back, what to avoid, what precautions to take. I'll lead them here."

Dozer laughed. A sarcastic scoff. "You?"

"No offense, but you can't rescue all of them," Diana said. "Not by yourself."

"Maybe not, but I've gotta try. They're dead otherwise."

No one could argue with me there. That's what the woman with long black hair had been telling me. You will lead the way. Not to the new territory, but back to where we'd come from all along. I still didn't know who she was-but after all this time I finally understood what she was getting at. It wasn't intended for me to save my own skin, but to help the others. What was the point of surviving, if there was only a handful of us?

Even if I was lucky enough to have Hope in my life, I'd never stop thinking about the ones we'd left behind.

"So you're going all the way back to Camp Liberty?" Hope asked, trying to make sense of what I was suggesting. "Through the Brown Forest?"

"Yep."

"Across the Flats?"

"That's right."

"Up the mountains?"

"I don't have a choice."

It was crazy-I knew it. We'd reached the Heartland. Had traveled halfway across the West to do so. But even more than that, I'd finally been involved in something that mattered. For the first time in my life, I actually belonged. And yet, by leaving, I was saying good-bye to all of that. Saying good-bye to Hope, too. For what?

But I knew the answer. To save the others. To do what's right. That simple.

I gripped the cyclone fence, my fingers curling around its metal strands like vines. "Thanks," I said.

Several of the others placed their hands on top of mine. Twitch. Scylla. Flush. Red. Even Four Fingers.

"Thanks for what?" Twitch asked.

"For us. Thanks for being us."

To my surprise, Flush's chin quivered and tears streaked his dirt-covered face. Dozer was irritated beyond words and rolled his eyes. Hope looked at me, perplexed or hurt or both. And then there was Cat, sitting off to one side, shaking his head.

"You're crazy, you know," he said.

"I know."

"You'll never make it there alive."

"Possibly."

"We'll be safe and sound and stuffing our faces and you'll be tromping through the wilderness fighting off wolves."

"True. But I seem to remember someone who risked his life to walk across the No Water because it was the right thing to do." I pried my fingers free and took a final glance at my friends. At Hope. She could barely meet my eyes.

I started walking up the hill, Argos following at my heels. It was just him and me. Two of us, taking on Brown Shirts and Hunters, Crazies and wolves. It was a long walk up the slope, the dew-covered weeds brushing my legs.

"Wait," someone called, and I turned.

It was Cat. But instead of trying to talk me out of going, he was crawling through the hole.

"I thought you told me I was crazy," I said, when he popped up on my side.

"You are," he answered, brushing away dirt. "But I'm crazy, too. And there's no way I'm going to let you have all the fun by yourself."

There was more to it than that, I figured. Something having to do with his dad, maybe. I didn't ask.

And then the most remarkable thing happened. Cat smiled. He actually smiled. I couldn't believe it. Emotion surged through me. Relief and joy and a sudden love of life.

He turned to the others and said, "Any of the rest of you Janes care to join us? It'll be the adventure of a lifetime."

"As if what we just went through wasn't?" Twitch asked.

"That was nothing. We're talking real fun this time. The chance to free several hundred Less Thans and stick it to Westbrook all at once."

"The Flats?" Flush asked.

"Unfortunately," I answered.

"Crazies?"

"Probably."

"Brown Shirts?"

"Definitely."

"Wolves?"

"I don't see how we can avoid 'em."

On the other side of the fence, the five LTs and nineteen Sisters looked nervously at each other.

"Then count me in," Flush said, and he dove into the very hole that minutes earlier had stopped him dead in his tracks. And then Twitch did. And Scylla and Diana and Red and Four Fingers, until gradually all the Less Thans had joined me and a handful of Sisters.

But not Hope.

My heart faltered at the sight of her on the other side of the fence, sitting in the grass, her eyes avoiding mine. But I couldn't blame her. I really couldn't.

There were fourteen of us: seven Less Thans and seven Sisters. We had changed over the course of these weeks. We were covered in grime. Our clothes were more tattered rags than anything resembling actual shirts and pants. The sun had weathered our skin, and we had become stronger, all muscle.

"Now what?" Twitch asked, brushing the dirt from his clothes.

I felt the eyes of the others and looked to Cat. His expression seemed to say, This was your idea, pal. You're in charge.

"Now we get back to Liberty and free those Less Thans," I said.

I took a final look at Hope and her eyes met mine one last time.

I turned and began working my way up the slope. The others followed, spreading out without needing to be told-a squad of seasoned warriors. A band of brothers-and Sisters-washed in a slant of moonlight, bows slung over our shoulders, ready to take on whatever came our way.

Whether we would succeed or not was anybody's guess, but we would try. We would give it our best shot. We would do what's right.

Just before we reached the crest of the hill, I heard a voice behind me call out, "Hey, wait up!"

I turned around . . . and smiled.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

NO BOOK IS CREATED by oneself-a first book especially so-and I am incredibly grateful to all the people who had a hand in the shaping of this manuscript.

To my agents, Victoria Sanders, Bernadette Baker-Baughman, Chris Kepner: thank you for your guidance, your wisdom, and-most importantly-your faith in me, even during those lean years when I didn't earn you a penny.

To my editor Alyson Day, copyeditor Renee Cafiero, designer Joel Tippie, marketing manager Jenna Lisanti, and publicist Gina Rizzo, and all the wonderful folks at HarperCollins who believed in this book and did editing and copyediting and book jackets and designs and marketing plans and on and on and on: please know that I am more grateful than I have words to say.