As the group scatters during the Scavenger ambush, Lena, Raven, and Sarah flee through deep snow from three Scavengers. They have no time to load weapons, and Lena’s knife is trapped in her pack. The Scavengers appear larger and stronger than normal people should be, one wielding an ax.

They reach an outcropping of massive boulders that form interlocking caves, with no way around. Raven pushes Sarah into a small cave for protection, then fumbles for her knife, preparing to make a final stand. A Scavenger closes in on Lena. As he pursues her, she glimpses their twin shadows on the snow and thinks of running with Hana in Portland.

With nowhere left to run, Lena is knocked to the ground and falls onto her back near the rock face. The Scavenger stands over her and raises his ax to strike. Lena closes her eyes, too terrified to move.

Three rifle shots explode through the silence. The Scavenger above Lena collapses, and two others fall as well, blood spreading across white snow. Tack and Hunter emerge from the trees, alive and carrying rifles, having intervened just before the attack could be carried out.

Lena wakes to find Julian beside her, his hands unbound. He explains that the underground people cleaned and bandaged their wounds. A woman with a “misshapen” (267) face appears. Lena realizes the woman has a “birth defect” (267)—the right side of her face is much smaller than the left, collapsed inward and reflects on what she has been taught about people born outside the cure. The woman asks how many Intruders (Scavengers) attacked them. She explains that the tunnels are a safe haven for babies who would otherwise be killed on the surface. She correctly deduces that Lena has been cured.

Julian assures the woman they are not with the Intruders and are on their own. Lena requests a way to the surface. The woman, who calls herself Coin, agrees to help after they rest and eat.

After they recover, Rat-man arrives to guide them to the surface. In the tunnels, he stops to feed rats that crawl over his hands and arms. He reveals he chose the underground after the woman he loved was taken from him and cured. He explains that he refused the procedure because he did not want to lose her again, even if it meant living with pain.

They climb a ladder and emerge onto a derelict open-air train platform. Rat-man identifies the location as near a landfill, with Manhattan across the river. Lena recognizes the area and realizes a resistance homestead is nearby. Rat-man says he has no name because the past is dead, warns them that “they’re always watching” (280), and disappears back into the tunnels.

Lena sobs with relief and gratitude. Julian puts his arms around her, and they walk to the homestead, a patchwork structure built from scavenged materials. Julian expresses astonishment at the reality of the Wilds and “Invalids” (283). He confesses he is uncertain he can return to his old life, and they share an electrically charged moment. A sudden noise startles them—a cat—and Lena, feeling increasingly tense about her growing feelings for Julian, cuts their conversation short and leads him inside.

Tack and Hunter return after attempting to salvage supplies from the destroyed Rochester homestead, where bombs and fires have left little behind, bringing minimal supplies but one miraculously preserved chocolate bar, which Tack keeps strapped to his pack as a kind of good luck charm. The weather holds, and half a day later, the group discovers a mushroom-shaped house deep in the woods, covered in brown ivy.

Four “Invalids” (288)—two men and two women—live there with five children, treating everyone as one family. They invite the travelers to camp on their grounds and share their food: canned vegetables, dried venison, and smoked meat. Hunter and Tack spend the evening marking trees so the group can find the house again next year.

The next morning, a barefoot child runs out and gives Lena a bundle containing acorn bread and more dried meat. As he runs back to the house, laughing, Lena feels a pang of envy for his fearless, happy life in the Wilds. But she also recognizes the hardships he faces: no medicine when sick, never enough food, brutal winters, and the constant threat that someday the planes and fires will find even this remote place.

After three more days of travel, they reach the Tappan Zee Bridge, an enormous steel structure spanning a river. The dizzying height reminds Lena of the story of an uncured woman who jumped to her death. She thinks of Alex and his belief in the resistance, and commits to carrying on his work. Their destination—a homestead built from trash and scraps near a city dump which they have been travelling toward—represents heaven to them: food, water, and walls against the brutal wind.

At Salvage, Lena bathes and changes into clean clothes while Julian explores. He finds a copy of Great Expectations, a forbidden book he used to hide in his mattress after his brother’s death. When Lena fills a bath for him, Julian pauses beside her and remarks that her hair smells like roses, leaving her flustered.

They share a meal by candlelight and talk, carefully avoiding difficult subjects. Lena feels unexpectedly comfortable with him. That night, Julian confesses he knew the cure would kill him and wanted it to. He asks Lena what the deliria feels like, then asks her to teach him. They share a kiss and fall asleep in one narrow bunk, Julian’s arm around her.

The next morning, police and regulators storm the homestead. Lena and Julian are captured and handcuffed. Lena sees Julian’s father, Thomas Fineman, watching from a black town car and realizes the raid is a setup. A female regulator in a gas mask whisper to Lena that she is a “freedom fighter” (306)—a resistance code—and leads her to a fake correction van. After driving away, the woman, now wearing a nylon mask, removes Lena’s handcuffs. Lena briefly sees a tattooed number on the woman’s neck before being locked in the back.

The van arrives at a warehouse where Raven and Tack are waiting. They reveal the shocking truth: the resistance paid the Scavengers to kidnap both Lena and Julian. The plan was to have Julian kidnapped and influenced by Lena, then captured by authorities so his public defiance would discredit the DFA. Lena was never meant to be in real danger. She realizes with horror that she was used as a pawn and led Julian into a trap.

Radio broadcasts announce that Julian has refused the cure and is scheduled for execution at 10:00 the next morning at Northeastern Medical. When Lena asks about rescuing Julian, Raven states there is nothing to be done—Julian’s sacrifice serves the cause.

Devastated and angry, Lena decides to rescue Julian herself. She steals a knife, food, and water, says a quite goodbye to Raven, and slips out at night. She walks for hours to the New York border, creates a distraction by shattering a floodlight, then climbs onto the roof of a garbage truck passing through the checkpoint. She rides the truck into Manhattan, clinging to the slick metal roof in the freezing rain.

In the city, she makes her way to the Fineman townhouse on Charles Street. She deciphers the gate code from a religious proverb and decorative lanterns, then picks the lock on the basement door. The house is empty. She discovers a locked door to Thomas Fineman’s forbidden study and retrieves a key hidden inside a porcelain rooster. Just as she unlocks the study, Fineman returns home. Lena hides inside while he talks on the phone in the hallway, confirming the execution details: ten o’clock at Northeastern Medical.

After Fineman leaves, Lena examines logbooks listing political prisoners from the Crypts. She finds her mother’s name: Annabel Gilles Haloway, intake number 5996. With shock, she realizes the masked woman who rescued her from Salvage—the woman with that same number tattooed on her neck—was her mother. The revelation devastates her.

Lena leaves the house and heads to Northeastern Medical. At the lab’s front desk, she uses a stolen ID for Sarah Beth Miller and gains access past a nurse. She navigates to the sixth floor, where she sees Thomas Fineman, bodyguards, and medical staff gathered outside an examination room. She realizes she can access the procedural room from an observation deck on the seventh floor.

On the observation deck, she crouches behind the low wall and looks down through the glass. Julian is brought in by regulators, accompanied by a priest reading from the Book of Abraham. A doctor prepares a syringe while a photographer documents the scene. Thomas Fineman watches from an adjacent room.

As the doctor approaches Julian with the lethal injection, a lab technician bursts in, creating a disturbance. Lena recognizes the technician as Raven in disguise. When Thomas Fineman enters the procedural room, Raven pulls a gun from her coat and shoots him dead.

In the chaos, Lena smashes a chair through the observation deck glass and jumps down to the floor below. She fights through the confusion to reach Julian, who is handcuffed to the examination table. She retrieves keys from an unconscious regulator and frees him. Raven fights off other guards as the three escape through a fire exit.

Tack is waiting outside with the fake police van. They drive back to the resistance warehouse. Lena asks Raven about her mother. Raven is shocked— says she did not know the masked woman was Annabel. She explains that Lena’s mother is a “top-top” (372) resistance operative, a higher level than Raven herself, and that she left that morning with other senior members whose movements are kept secret. Raven adds that a fugitive who recently escaped from the Crypts in Portland has arrived at the warehouse and might know something about Annabel’s time there.

In the parking lot, Lena and Julian hold each other. He tells her she has given him the deliria. She corrects him: call it love. They kiss and promise to stay together.

A voice behind them tells Lena not to believe that. Lena turns and sees Alex standing in the doorway—thin, scarred, with a prisoner tattoo on his neck—alive.