Page 33 of Twilight Tactics

“You bring it?” Iris asked.

Eleanor pulled a crumpled notebook from her jacket. “Chapter seven ofProject Escape. Freshly written in the bunkhouse while pretending to fold laundry.”

Iris grabbed it like it was treasure, flipping through the pages. “You’re a genius. ‘Operation Mozzarella Moonshine’ might be your best code name yet.”

Eleanor grinned. “Better than ‘Project Squirrel Whisperer’?”

They burst out laughing. For a while, everything felt normal—just two sisters plotting imaginary missions far from drills and ration charts and Dad’s lectures about government overreach.

But then Iris’s laughter faded. She stared down at the pages, her thumb tracing a doodle in the margin—a lopsided girl holding a sword made of canned peaches.

Eleanor tilted her head. “What’s wrong?”

Iris didn’t answer right away. The mood changed, became more tense. “I heard Mom and Dad talking last night,” she said finally. “They’re thinking about moving.”

Eleanor blinked. “Moving? Why? Where? When?”

“To Tennessee. There’s a new settlement LaRoche is forming. He inherited some land in the mountains. He wants Dad to come and be like his lieutenant or something. But it sounds kind of scary. More isolated. He said we’d be more self-sufficient in case the government decides to implement even more control than they already have. Dad said, and I quote, ‘Virginia’s getting soft.’”

“But...” Eleanor’s heart thudded. “We already live off the grid. We grow our food. Mom teaches us. We have training every week. What’s more isolated than this?”

Iris gave a bitter half smile. “Apparently, a place wherethere’s no contact with outsiders. No cell phones. No compromises.”

A chill slithered down Eleanor’s spine. She imagined the rumors they’d heard—about a group in Tennessee with no phones, no books except survival manuals, no exceptions. Children who trained with knives instead of pencils.

“I don’t want to go,” she said.

“Me either.” Iris picked at the moss. “This place might be weird, but it’sourweird. We have the creek. The pine trails. Even Old Man Fischer and his conspiracy theories.”

Eleanor hugged her knees to her chest. “Do you think they’ll actually do it?”

“I don’t know,” Iris said. “But when Dad gets that ‘we’re running out of time’ look in his eyes...” She trailed off.

They sat in silence, the wind threading through the trees like a warning. Eleanor felt smaller than ever. Small and powerless. She hated both feelings. She looked at Iris. “If we go, promise me we’ll still come here in our heads. Like, if it gets scary ... we just think about this spot.”

Iris smiled and reached over, linking their pinkies. “Deal. Our secret base. No matter where we end up.”

Elena blinked herself back into the present. She didn’t have time for memories. And Maya was right. They wouldn’t panic yet.

But what if they needed to?

The basketball left Ollie’s fingertipsand sailed through the air. Perfect arc. Perfect angle.Swish. Four in a row now.

“You’re on fire today.” Piper jogged to retrieve the ball. “Where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

Ollie shrugged. “Coach Miller at Jefferson Middle. He said I had natural form.”

“Well, he wasn’t wrong.” Piper passed the ball back. “Want to try some three-pointers?”

“Sure.”

Afternoons in the gym with Coach Miller’s patient instruction had been her salvation last year. And then he’d let her come early, opening the gym just for her, and she’d reveled in the quiet hours when she could practice alone. Just her, the ball, the net, and the math.

Distance, force, angle. At least math made sense when nothing else did.

Ollie stepped back to the three-point line. The distance felt right. She lined up her shot, calculated the trajectory, and released.

Swish.