Fern clutched at me, her hand clammy against my bare arm. “You can’t be serious.”

I turned to her, giving her a light shake. “Fern. Cassava thinks you are too weak to survive. She won’t look for you in the human world, which makes it the only chance you have. The forest is too dangerous for you right now, you know that.”

Her back slowly stiffened and she gave me a slight nod. “You’re right. I have to be strong enough for both of us. You’ll come back for me when you’ve made it safe?”

Well damn, it looked like Fern had done some maturing. And then her words hit me. She expected me to fix whatever problems there were with Cassava. “I’ll do my best, but it will probably be my father who makes things better. He has to deal with his batshit crazy wife.”

Fern gave me a smile and then wrapped her arms around me tight. “You’re going to be the best step-daughter ever.”

“Ack, let me go.” I wanted to shove her away and would have if she hadn’t been in her particular condition.

Now came the tricky part. While we’d both been educated on the human world, the history of it, where they were at with their technology, actually stepping into their world was entirely different. How to deal with humans was all good in theory. Putting it in practice, I wasn’t so sure.

“Have you ever been out of the forest?” Fern asked.

I shook my head. “No. Have you?”

She shook her head. “I remember the books from school, about the humans, but I never wanted to go. I’m ashamed to say I didn’t pay much attention.”

And really, I hadn’t, either. I took a deep breath and let it slowly out. This was not how Enders traveled when they had a Hunt. That much I was sure, but we didn’t have a choice left to us. “I think we can do something called ‘hitched’ hiking.” Taking her hand, we walked to the side of the black ground. It was fully dark now, and the vehicles were lit up like owls, their lights giant glowing orbs that aimed at our midsections as they whooshed by us. Each time a car passed, Fern clutched me to her.

The real problem though was I didn’t really know how to make one of the cars carrying humans, stop.

“Do you think the painted lines in the middle are important? Maybe we should stand on them.” Fern asked, pointing to the middle of the road.

I shrugged, not recalling anything from my lack luster human history lessons that would help. “Worth a try.”

Watching the cars zip by, I waited until there was no great glowing orbs coming our way, then led Fern to the middle where the lines were. “When one of the cars gets close, wave at it,” I instructed, recalling that the hitched hiking required you to signal the drivers of the vehicles so they knew you wanted their attention.

The first set of lights curled around a bend in the road and the sound reverberated in my chest. “Lark, that one is far bigger than the others.”

I grit my teeth. Bigger was an understatement. It was ten times the size of the others, and the lights were lit all over it. Like a squat mountain on fire, it hurtled toward us. But humans did this hitched hiking all the time, so it couldn’t be dangerous. Fern squealed and clung to me as the lights hit us, blinding us completely.

“Wave at it!” I yelled and I assumed she did because the vehicle let out a powerful roar and then something that sounded like a monstrous goose. If a goose could be the size of an elephant. The screeching of metal on metal, the goose honking and the blinding lights, the ground bucking underneath us with the impact of a massive weight slamming into it, and we just stood there, waving our arms as the world went to hell around us. I held my breath hoping I hadn’t made a mistake and just killed us both.

The silence was what made me open my eyes, my arms still over my head. The oversized vehicle was on its side, inches from our faces, and vehicles were stopping all around us, humans getting out of them as they rushed to the aid of the driver of the big vehicle.

I pulled Fern to the side of the road, nodding. “Well, that worked well.”

She turned her eyes up at me. “Now what?”

I did a quick scan of the people who’d stopped their vehicles, spotting one that had flowers painted in a variety of colors on the side. It seemed a good omen. “That one.” I dragged her with me, through the growing crowd.

The people in the car saw us coming and rolled down their windows. A haze of smoke rolled out and I recognized the smell. I wrinkled up my nose. “Fern, they smoke the funk weed.”

She shrugged her shoulder peeking out from the collar of my t-shirt. “That’s okay, my uncle grows it for the healers.”

“Hey, two groovy babes.” A human man stuck his head out, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips. “Need a ride?”

“Yes, my friend does. Can you take her to the next closest city?”

Fern clutched at me. “You aren’t coming with me?”

“I have to go back, you’ll be missing and if they figure out I’ve helped you we’re both sunk,” I growled at her. The human was bobbing his head.

“Yeah, no problemo. We’ll take her to Eureka.”

I shoved my bag into Fern’s hands, lowering my voice for her ears only. “There’s human money in here. Find a place to stay on the outskirts of town, close to nature. Don’t show the money to anyone and bargain wherever you can. It should be enough for a few weeks. If it takes longer than that, I’ll come get you.” I didn’t know how the hell I was going to manage, but the fear in Fern’s eyes was enough to make me promise her something.