“No.”

Without warning, Anderson raises his arm and fires two shots. The first, at Nazeera, hitting her square in the chest. The second—

At me.

Several people scream. I stumble, then sway, before collapsing.

Shit.

“Find her,” Anderson says, his voice booming. “Burn the whole place to the ground if you have to.”

The pain is blinding.

It moves through me in waves, electric and searing. Someone is touching me, moving my body. I’m okay, I try to say. I’m okay. I’m okay. But the words don’t come. He’s hit me in my shoulder, I think. Just shy of my chest. I’m not sure. But Nazeera— Someone needs to get to Nazeera.

“I had a feeling you’d do something like this,” I hear Anderson say. “And I know you used one of these two”—I imagine him pointing to my prone body, to Nazeera’s—“in order to make it happen.”

Silence.

“Oh, I see,” Anderson says. “You thought you were clever. You thought I didn’t know you had any powers at all.” Anderson’s voice seems suddenly loud, too loud. He laughs. “You thought I didn’t know? As if you could hide something like that from me. I knew it the day I found you in her holding cell. You were sixteen. You think I didn’t have you tested after that? You think I haven’t known, all these years, what you yourself didn’t realize until six months ago?”

A fresh wave of fear washes over me.

Anderson seems too pleased and Warner’s gone quiet again, and I don’t know what any of that means for us. But just as I’m beginning to experience full-blown panic, I hear a familiar cry.

It’s a sound of such horrific agony I can’t help but try to see what’s happening, even as flashes of white blur my vision.

I catch a mottled glimpse:

Warner standing over Anderson’s body, his right hand clenched around the handle of the machete he’s buried in his father’s chest. He plants his right foot on his father’s gut, and, roughly, pulls out the blade.

Anderson’s moan is so animal, so pathetic I almost feel sorry for him. Warner wipes the blade on the grass, and tosses it back to Haider, who catches it easily by the hilt even as he stands there, stunned, staring at—me, I realize. Me and Nazeera. I’ve never seen him so unmasked. He seems paralyzed by fear.

“Watch him,” Warner shouts to someone. He examines a gun he stole from his father, and, satisfied, he’s off, running after the Supreme Guard. Shots ring out in the distance.

My vision begins to go spotty.

Sounds bleed together, shifting focus. For moments at a time all I hear is the sound of my own breathing, my heart beating. At least, I hope that’s the sound of my heart beating. Everything smells sharp, like rust and steel. I realize then, in a sudden, startling moment, that I can’t feel my fingers.

Finally I hear the muffled sounds of nearby movement, of hands on my body, trying to move me.

“Kenji?” Someone shakes me. “Kenji, can you hear me?” Winston.

I make a sound in my throat. My lips seem fused together.

“Kenji?” More shaking. “Are you okay?”

With great difficulty, I pry my lips apart, but my mouth makes no sound. Then, all at once: “Heyyyyybuddy.”

Weird.

“He’s conscious,” Winston says, “but disoriented. “We don’t have much time. I’ll carry these two. See if you can find a way to transport the others. Where are the girls?”

Someone says something back to him, and I don’t catch it. I reach out suddenly with my good hand, clamping down on Winston’s forearm.

“Don’t let them get J,” I try to say. “Don’t let—”

ELLA

JULIETTE

When I open my eyes, I feel steel.

Strapped and molded across my body, thick, silver stripes pressed against my pale skin. I’m in a cage the exact size and shape of my silhouette. I can’t move. Can hardly part my lips or bat an eyelash; I only know what I look like because I can see my reflection in the stainless steel of the ceiling.

Anderson is here.

I see him right away, standing in a corner of the room, staring at the wall like he’s both pleased and angry, a strange sneer plastered to his face. There’s a woman here, too, someone I’ve never seen before. Blond, very blond. Tall and freckled and willowy. She reminds me of someone I’ve seen before, someone I can’t presently remember.

And then, suddenly—

My mind catches up to me with a ferociousness that’s nearly paralyzing. James and Adam, kidnapped by Anderson. Kenji, falling ill. New memories from my own life, continuing to assault my mind and taking with them, bits and pieces of me.

And then, Emmaline.

Emmaline, stealing into my consciousness. Emmaline, her presence so overwhelming I was forced into near oblivion, coaxed to sleep. I remember waking, eventually, but my recollection of that moment is vague. I remember confusion, mostly. Distorted reels.

I take a moment to check in with myself. My limbs. My heart. My mind. Intact?

I don’t know.

Despite a bit of disorientation, I feel almost fully myself. I can still sense pockets of darkness in my memories, but I feel like I’ve finally broken the surface of my own consciousness. And it’s only then that I realize I no longer feel even a whisper of Emmaline.

Quickly, I close my eyes again. I feel around for my sister in my head, seeking her out with a desperate panic that surprises me.

Emmaline? Are you still here?

In response, a gentle warmth rushes through me. A single, soft shudder of life. She must be close to the end, I realize.

Nearly gone.

Pain shoots through my heart.

My love for Emmaline is at once new and ancient, so complicated I don’t even know how to properly articulate my feelings about it. I only know that I have nothing but compassion for her. For her pain, her sacrifices, her broken spirit, her longing for all that her life could’ve been. I feel no anger or resentment toward her for infiltrating my mind, for violently disrupting my world to make room for herself in my skin. Somehow I understand that the brutality of her act was nothing more than a desperate plea for companionship in the last days of her life.

She wants to die knowing she was loved.

And I, I love her.

I was able to see, when our minds were fused, that Emmaline had found a way to split her consciousness, leaving a necessary bit of it behind to play her role in Oceania. The small part of her that broke off to find me—that was the small part of her that still felt human, that felt the world acutely. And now, it seems, that human piece of her is beginning to fade away.

The callused fingers of grief curve around my throat.

My thoughts are interrupted by the sharp staccato of heels against stone. Someone is moving toward me. I’m careful not to flinch.

“She should’ve been awake by now,” the female voice says. “This is odd.”

“Perhaps the sedative you gave her was stronger than you thought.” Anderson.

“I’m going to assume your head is still full of morphine, Paris, which is the only reason I’m going to overlook that statement.”

Anderson sighs. Stiffly, he says: “I’m sure she’ll be awake any minute now.”