Chapter 57

• The roar of the engine was a triumphant, defiant sound in the dead quiet of the gray city. For three days, it was the only song we had, a hymn of diesel and steel that pushed back against the suffocating silence.
• We were making progress. Real progress. The armored truck, Mark’s resurrected ghost, chewed up the miles, leaving the horrors of the hospital in a trail of ash and dust behind us.
• Inside the cab, the air was thick with the smell of old oil and a fragile, unfamiliar feeling: hope.