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“Good,” Clair says gently. “Then don’t think like you’re planning an attack. Think like you’re remembering a place you used to know. Food court. Bathrooms. Back halls. Stores with employee exits. Service doors. Loading docks. Anywhere kids cut through when they weren’t supposed to.”

Luis almost smiles. “Arcade had a side hall to the bathrooms. If you kept going, there was a gray door employees used.”

Carlos’s eyes sharpen. “Service corridor.”

Clair nods. “That’s what we need.”

Pride hits me low and hard.

Of course she knows how to pull a map out of a kid’s memory. She spent years teaching children how to find the answer without making them feel stupid for not already having it.

Carlos taps the main entrance. “Front’s a trap. They paint the signs so people walk right up to it. Speakers are hidden around the parking lot and inside the old security office. That’s where most of the recordings come from.”

Lyla folds her arms. “Lookouts?”

“Roof,” Luis says quietly. “Usually two. Sometimes three.”

Carlos glances at him, then nods. “They use binoculars. Rifles if they have ammo. Mostly they wait until people get close.”

“Numbers?” Trish asks.

Carlos’s jaw works. “Hard to say.”

Jacob’s expression doesn’t move. “Try.”

“Thirty, maybe forty inside. Not all fighters, but that doesn’t mean much anymore.” His finger drags along the map. “The ones with guns stay high. Roof. Second-floor windows. The ones on the ground carry blades, axes, whatever they can swing without wasting bullets.”

Joanie’s knife stops moving under her nail. “Charming.”

“Fuel?” Clair asks.

My gaze cuts to her.

She stands on the other side of the hood, rifle strap across her chest, hair wind tangled around her face. Her eyes stay on the map, sharp and steady.

Carlos taps the rear of the mall. “Service corridor behind the Fashion Outlets. Loading dock here. They run generators from there.”

“So the fuel is close,” she says.

“Close enough to guard.”

Earl bends over the map, cracked readers sliding down his nose. “How much?”

“Enough,” Luis says.

Enough to get us out.

Enough to be worth dying for.

Enough to be worth killing for.

Clair’s finger rests near the circled mall. “So we steal it.”

Silence settles.

Clair shrugs, eyes still on the map. “If they have all the gas in the city, we either steal it or stay here until we run out of options. And if stealing it stomps out a group of cannibals in the process . . .” Her mouth tightens. “Oh darn.”

Jacob exhales. “Okay. We’re stealing from cannibals.”