- Taylor stays at the hut all night until the sun comes up and the candles are burned out. Then she hikes toward the river and the unfinished house Hannah lives in.
- Taylor's relationship with Hannah began when she was eleven, when her mother abandoned her at the 7-Eleven on the Jellicoe Road. A few minutes later, Hannah showed up, told Taylor to get in her car, and took her to the school.
- Taylor has always known that this was not a coincidence and that Hannah is somehow linked to her past.
- At Hannah's house, Hannah gives her a list of new students being moved into Taylor's house. They have an argument about this, as well as Taylor's aspirations of leaving the school before graduation.
- This makes Taylor think about the time she ran away to try to find her mom. One of the Cadets was involved in her escape and the Brigadier found them and brought them back to Hannah, who was scared out of her mind because two kids had gone missing in the town where they were found only to turn up dead two weeks later.
- Taylor returns to her house to find a seventh grader named Jessa McKenzie waiting for her. Jessa is super annoying and follows Taylor everywhere, even when Taylor is mean to her to try to get her to go away.
- Today Jessa is buzzing about the coming arrival of the Cadets and what damage they'll inflict as part of the territory wars. She tells Taylor that the kids in her old dorm are all talking about it and are scared out of their minds. She thinks that since Taylor's the new leader of the Jellicoe School faction, it should be her job to talk to them.
- That bit about her "old dorm" stops Taylor cold. Sure enough, Jessa's name is on the list of students Hannah's transferred to her house. Oh snap.
- As it turns out, Jessa—not to mention Raffaela—thinks she can help with the territory wars because she can figure out where the secret tunnel is.
- Oh man. There's a secret tunnel? When these kids have a war, they really go all out.
- A guy in the school's surveillance tree announces to Taylor that the Cadets have arrived. The territory wars have officially begun for the year.
- The text now shifts to italics, which can only mean one thing: We're back to Hannah's book.
- A year after the car accident that took their families, Webb, Tate, and Narnie meet Jude Scanlon. He's a Cadet from a boy's school in the city that's sending a bunch of their students on a life education trip for six weeks as part of their military program.
- On a jog with his troop, Jude notices five poppies growing on the side of the road that have been stomped. He also sees Narnie watching from the other side of the road, her eyes filled with tears.
- Drawn by the sad girl and the damaged flowers, Jude comes back the next day to replant them. Webb, Narnie, Tate, and Fitz join him, explaining that the flowers get trampled every year, but the road is the only place they can plant them. We know that the spot can be none other than the site of the accident.
- Jude starts coming back every day to hang out with the Jellicoe Road crew. He connects with the group in a deep way and becomes intimately involved with their lives.
- The next year, when the Cadets return to Jellicoe for their six-week trip, Jude looks out the window for his friends, wondering if things will be the same as they were last year. Sure enough, they are waiting for him at the general store where the bus stops.