The Observatory on the Ridge

They left at dawn, because dawn was when Cedar Creek belonged to nobody.

Maya had set three alarms and still woken before the first, her mind replaying the voice: *don't let them open the dam... he's already there...* She dressed in the dark — jeans, boots, her grandfather's old field jacket — and packed water, protein bars, a flashlight, and the portable radio Jonas had lent her, tuned to 3.33 MHz.