Frozen

THIRTY

IT’S SNOWING AGAIN, FREEZING COLD, and there are too many clouds for the moon to effectively light the land. The world is obscured by darkness save for a single light source ahead, barely penetrating the downpour of flakes.

I move toward it, feeling my way along the alley walls. The light is coming from a massive vehicle sitting just before the gallows, illuminating the ground around it in a gleaming ring. It looks like a wingless plane, vaguely similar to the metal birds I saw AmWest fly over Taem when I ran from Frank. This model stands on planklike feet, its body bulbous and proud. There are two more behind it, only they don’t have their lights on. I squint, trying to take in more details, and notice the units do have wings. They are overhead, and numerous—more like a dragonfly than a bird. These must be helicopters. I read about them in some documentation about the Laicos Project. Something about this particular type of flying contraption makes it easiest for the Order to move over the Wall.

A figure moves, backlit by the helicopter’s light. Marco. Even with the poor visibility, there’s no mistaking that massive beard of his. A pair of Order members flank him. He raises something to his lips and then his voice is thundering through the evening.

“I have someone who wants to talk to you, Gray. Someone who wants you to know how important it is that you don’t waste any more of my time.”

I think I know what he means, and then I hear her voice, amplified.

“They’re dead, Gray,” Emma says. She sounds brave, her voice surprisingly steady. “Xavier and Bo. The Order didn’t even hesitate when they took the shots.”

I swallow, trying to push a knot out of my throat. There’s an amplified sob from Emma, and whatever courage she was channeling just seconds earlier is gone.

“Please,” she begs. “No. Please don’t do this.”

I realize she is no longer talking to me but to whoever is with her on the other side of the Wall.

Marco starts counting. “Five . . .”

Emma is sobbing now.

“Four . . .”

They won’t do it. They can’t.

“Three . . .”

I race forward.

“Two . . .”

“Wait!” I yell, spilling into the light of the helicopters. “I’m here.”

A gunshot sounds in the distance.

I go rigid.

“Gray,” Marco says. “I’m so glad you could join us.”

“I showed myself! I came and you—”

“We gave you plenty of time. She didn’t need to die, but you cut it too close. You killed her.”

I sink to my knees, oblivious to the cold sting of the snow. I should want to strangle him, attack him, beat him until he begs for mercy, but I’m empty. First my father. Then Bo and Xavier. And now . . .

I can’t think it. Can’t even bring myself to admit she’s gone.

One of the Order members checks me for weapons. “He’s unarmed.”

“Good,” Marco says. He grabs me by the collar and hoists me to my feet. “Let’s go for a walk.”

I’m led into a ruined building by Marco, who leaves two guards stationed outside.

“Why stop here?” he asks. “You were trying to cross into enemy territory, were you not?” Even though he stands right in front of me, I can barely see him through the thickness of night.

“Why would I tell you anything?” I manage to say. “You killed her. You have no more leverage to use against me.”

“I don’t think that’s entirely accurate. If you want to ensure the safety of the rest of your team, you will cooperate.”

“They’re dead. Drowned with the Catherine. I’m the only one left.”

“We saw you lower a lifeboat—a full lifeboat.”

“It got overturned,” I say. “The three people you just killed were the only ones who didn’t freeze to death that very night.”

“You have a history of lying, Gray, and I don’t believe you.”

“That’s not my problem.”

It’s so dark, I don’t even see the blow coming. My face is suddenly burning, my mind blurry. It is the worst punch I’ve ever taken, but then I hear Marco reholster his handgun, and I know far worse than his fist struck me. I blink, move my head side to side, test my jaw. When I find it working, I toss a few foul words Marco’s way.

He grabs me by the collar and shoves me. A shelf along the wall hits my back and I cough in pain. I feel a deep, suppressed urge to push him off, but when I try to move, my limbs are too heavy. It’s like I’ve already given up.

“Why are you here?” Marco snarls again.

“Seeking shelter on my way into AmWest. That was our goal, just like you suspected: cross the border.”

“Then why turn off the cameras here?”

“I didn’t.”

“We know you did. It’s the only reason we even found you!” I think he shakes his head, almost in embarrassment. “Sitting on the borderlines, waiting like idiots. I should be thankful you made such a stupid move.” He shoves me harder against the wall. “Last chance, Gray. Give me the location of headquarters, and I’ll spare the rest of your team.”

“I already told you. They’re dead. That threat means nothing.”

“Have it your way. It makes no difference to me whether we get the location now or back in Taem.”

And this is fine. Marco can take me to Frank, throw me in his prisons, torture me for the location. I’ll die before I give it. At least Bree and the others can escape after I’m gone. I refuse to be responsible for the death of everyone under my lead.

Marco twists toward the doorway and shouts, “Get the choppers set to evacuate. And ready the weapons, too.”

The guards’ feet stomp off through the snow. Marco grabs my arm and tugs.

“I know your team is here somewhere, Gray, and I don’t have the time to search them out. I’ll let the bombs do that instead.” He leans toward me. “But since you claim they’re already dead, I guess you can just think of this as an unceremonious flattening of a deserted test group.”

And at this, the numbness in my core melts, because I cannot be the only one to make it out of this alive. I twist when Marco least expects it, deliver a blow to his gut. He trips over something hidden in the darkness. I throw another two punches, grapple for his gun. It’s so hard to see, though, and he’s stronger than I anticipate. His elbow catches me in the jaw, then a boot finds the inside of my leg, near the knee. I buckle, and then collapse as I’m kicked in the stomach. Again, and again. I’m trying to scramble to my feet, trying to crawl to safety, but each time his foot finds me in the dark. I shield my face in my arms, try to protect myself from the blows. I feel his hands on the back of my shirt, flipping me over. His gun is right before me, the barrel pressed against my forehead.

“I know the posters ask for you alive,” he sneers, “but believe me when I say I have no problem bringing back a corpse if you fail to cooperate. I can get the Rebels’ location from someone else. It’s only a matter of time.”

“Good, then you do that,” I say, positive he’s bluffing. “Go on. Shoot me.”

He flicks the safety off. Reaches for the trigger.

And then he does the unthinkable: He drops the gun. His eyes bulge. His hands fly to his neck.

I grab the fallen weapon and scramble backward, trying to make sense of things. Marco is sputtering, flailing, grabbing at something beneath his chin.

I step to the side and the figure comes into view: dark skin, dark clothes, almost invisible except for the whites of his eyes. Bleak. I don’t know when he snuck out of the tunnels, or how he managed to get into this room unseen, but he’s here now, a rope looped around Marco’s neck. He pulls back on it with all his strength, and when Marco starts to go limp, Bleak lets him slide to the ground.

“If I can come with ya, I’ll get yer team to the Wall. I swear it.”

“Deal,” I say immediately.

We shake at the same time Marco stumbles to his feet, coughing. He pulls a small knife from somewhere along his waistline and I turn on him, the gun aimed. We’re little more than an arm’s length apart, my weapon inches from his chest, his held out just as close.

“Don’t even think about it.”

“All I have to do is call for help,” he says, voice raw.

“You make a sound and I’ll shoot you.”

“You won’t pull the trigger.”

“Are you sure you want to test me?”

“No,” he says. “Maybe not.”

But he doesn’t lower his knife. He attacks.

I twist away instinctively, and as a cold sting rips down my thigh, I realize too late that I’ve missed my chance to fire. Marco darts for the door, but Bleak is quicker. He tackles him, loops the rope around his neck a second time, and drags him backward. Marco is gagging, making a scene that is sure to get us caught, but the pain blooming over my leg is so sharp and unforgiving that I barely hear him. I feel in the dark, wincing. The knife went in at the meaty part of my left thigh and trailed toward the outside of my knee as I twisted. It’s dangerously deep for only an inch of the entire cut, but there’s already a lot of blood. Too much blood. I shed my jacket and wrap it around the wound, tying it as tightly as possible by the sleeves.

There is a horrible screeching sound, and when I look up, Bleak has dragged something that looks like a short bookshelf to the center of the room. He throws his rope over a rafter, hauls a wheezing Marco atop the bookshelf, and tightens the looped section of rope around his head.

In a flash of recognition, I know what I’m seeing. Gallows.

Bleak pulls on the rope and Marco gags, toes barely reaching the wood.

“It’s yers to finish,” Bleak says to me.

I hobble forward. Marco mumbles something I can’t quite hear. All I can comprehend is the gun in my hand and the fury in my chest, hot and rancid. I despise this man more than anyone I have ever met. He has taken so much from me, things that cannot be replaced or mended or rebuilt. He held invaluable pieces of my life in his palm and smothered them without hesitation.

I raise the weapon, aim directly at Marco’s heart. I reach for the trigger.

It will be loud. The Order will hear. But I have to do this. I need to do this.

My hand shakes just slightly.

Marco chokes on his laughter, the sound escaping him broken and ragged. “And your father sacrificed his life for you! What a waste. Look how weak you are.”

The shaking gets worse. I can’t steady my arm.

“You don’t have it in you!” The amusement in his voice is unmistakable. “You can’t pull the trigger.”

I lower the weapon. “You’re right. I can’t.”

A triumphant smile spreads across Marco’s lips.

“But I can do this,” I say, “and it’s for my father. For all of them.”

I lift my good leg and kick the bookshelf from beneath him.

THIRTY-ONE

I DON’T LOOK BACK.

Bleak leads the way through a side alley. I can barely see where we’re going, but he must have the town’s layout memorized, because he plows ahead despite the darkness. I stumble after his form, not nearly as quiet as he is because my feet are unprepared for the sudden dips in the earth and my injured leg is throbbing. I hope I’m not bleeding into the snow, giving the Order an obvious trail to follow. They’re bound to check on Marco soon. And that’s if they didn’t hear our struggle to begin with.

Bleak and I dart into a building with a collapsed roof and have to crawl beneath a fallen beam before we can stand again.

“This way,” Bleak says.

I move toward the sound of his voice and find him holding back a raglike cloth that hangs against the wall. Behind it is a small room. He lifts something in the floor and reveals the top rung of a rickety-looking ladder.

He’s halfway down it when the Order finds Marco. I can hear their shouts.

“Get him down from there! Do it quickly.”

“It won’t matter. He’s beyond saving.”

“Find the boy!”

Pushing aside the pain in my leg, I move after Bleak and pull the trapdoor closed overhead.

The passageway we drop into is in rougher shape than most of Burg’s tunnels and only a fraction of the size. At the bottom of the ladder, we have to flatten onto our stomachs. I hear the sound of a flint striking, and then Bleak holds a feeble flame. The tunnel walls around us are dirt and earth and rubble. I instantly worry they’ll collapse on us.

“Where are we?” I whisper as we begin shimmying through the tunnel on our stomachs.

“Underground.”

“I know that much. Did you dig this?”

He nods. “So I could go above on my own terms.”

“Is that what you were doing tonight?” I think of the journal he keeps stashed in the schoolhouse, the girl’s dreams that have become his own.

“No. Yer friend Sammy found me, told me what was happenin’. I locked Bruno and Kaz in Titus’s room and ordered a few people I trust to spread the word: There’s a fight comin’. Stay hidden. Wait for me to come back. Then I locked yer team in the Room of Whistles and Whirs.” He glances over his shoulder at me, apologetic. “I thought ya were with them, ya know? The Reapers? I thought ya’d be up here tellin’ ’em how to find us, but then I heard what that man did to yer team, Gray, even after ya showed yerself.” A quick pause. “I’m sorry.”

I should say something, but my tongue feels swollen and it’s not like words will fix what’s been broken. They won’t bring back Emma or Bo or Xavier.

“I don’t know if yer a Reaper or not,” he continues, “but I know ’nuff to see that the ones out there are yer enemy as well as mine. And if yer fleeing from them, I wanna flee with ya, too. And I wanna make sure my people don’t get the same fate they got last time those killers crossed our Wall.”

We crawl in silence after that.

The tunnel is not terribly long, but the going is slow. I imagine it took several years for Bleak to dig. Eventually we spill into what must be his room, tumbling through a blanket hanging against the wall. The space is even more bare than Titus’s. No table or chair-crates. No hammock. Just a mat on the floor. A blanket is folded and set to the side. Knives positioned with care hang from the wall. I spot the modified hayfork he mentioned the other day, its attached rope coiled into organization.

Bleak springs across the room and grabs it, followed by a pair of knives.

“Here,” he says, thrusting one toward me. It’s a good weapon, made of bone. The grip is smooth and slightly curved, fitting easily into my palm, and the blade, no longer than my forefinger, is sharpened expertly.

We slip from Bleak’s room and through the halls, making our way to the Room of Whistles and Whirs. The door isn’t locked as Bleak said, but in a manner, the team is indeed “locked in.” Two people who must be Bleak’s friends stand guard. They are armed with knives—in hand, strapped to their backs, hanging from their belts—and have stacked a series of crates in the doorway. Anyone exiting the room would be slow and easy to take down.

“They ain’t our enemy,” Bleak says, striding up to the boys.

He fills them in, and I scramble over the crates, too impatient to clear a proper entrance. The entire team is inside, huddled around the computers. Bree sees me first. Her eyes dart from mine, to my bloody leg, to my eyes once more.

“You made it back.” She sounds like she doesn’t believe her own words.

The rest of the team spins around, and their faces light up. Sammy embraces me the way Blaine often does, one hand clasping mine, the other smacking my back.

“The second Bleak shoved us in here, I thought you’d chosen the wrong guy to trust,” he says, “but it looks like he saved your skin after all. Although dammit, Weathersby, you really cut it close.”

“Close?”

“Marco’s countdown,” Clipper says from near the computers.

“Sammy nearly wet himself with relief when Marco stopped at two,” Jackson says.

I force a smile but can’t bring myself to tell them the truth. If they heard the countdown, they must have also heard Emma confirm that Xavier and Bo are dead. But Sammy still seems relieved, the Forgery is cracking jokes, and Bree is scowling only semifiercely so she might as well be smiling, all of which means that they couldn’t possibly have heard the gunshot. They think Emma’s still alive, and that small victory seems to have rendered them hopeful. I can’t ruin that by telling them I was too slow, that I am the reason Emma is dead like the others. I need their hope to fuel us all, because I’ve run dry.

“I sent out a distress call,” Clipper announces. “I couldn’t reach Xavier and Bo and then when we got locked in here, I started thinking: about these computers, all the AmWest rumors, that message from Ryder to engage.”

“What are you saying, Clipper?”

“You were up there with Marco and we didn’t know if you’d make it back. The Order had us surrounded. Still do, actually.” Clipper’s eyes move from the keyboard, to the computer screen, and finally back to me. “I thought they’d be our best shot. I couldn’t reach them directly, so I just . . . I sent out a broad call. Addressing the Expats. Hailing them for help.”

“What?” A wave of panic rushes through me. “I thought you said the computers were only networked with Franconian technology.”

“They are. But the Rebels had spies at the source. Remember Christie, who helped you and Harvey get the vaccine? Who’s to say there aren’t Expats in important places? With access to Franconian information?”

“But if you sent a call in the open, doesn’t that mean that the Order could pick it up, too?”

He frowns. “Well, yeah. It was always a risk.”

“A risk?” I shout. “Could you have done anything more stupid, Clipper? If the Order hadn’t called for backup already, some will definitely be sent after they hear your ‘distress’ call. And why would the Expats even think of helping us now? We’re surrounded, with more Order forces likely on their way. Aiding us would be like walking to their deaths!”

“Screw you,” Clipper says, so quietly I almost miss it.

“Excuse me?”

“Screw you!” He stands, pushing his sleeves up to his elbows. “You gave me an order and I took a chance. Just like you did when you went above to face off with Marco. That’s what happens when stuff doesn’t go as planned. You take chances and hope they pay off. Harvey would have done what I did. He would have made this same call—I know it—and I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t be yelling at him the way you’re yelling at me. I might be young, but I’m not stupid.”

He stops, out of breath, and I’m so startled by his outburst that I have absolutely no idea what to say. For the first time since setting out I see him not as an almost-thirteen-year-old boy, but as a member of our team. Ageless. Titleless. And he’s right. There are risks to every action and sometimes the actions we think are best backfire. After all, I did what I thought was necessary just earlier, and it got Emma killed.

“I guess we’ll just hope your call gets to the right people,” I say.

Clipper doesn’t look as sure of himself anymore, but I would love for him to prove me wrong. To go aboveground and find allies waiting to usher us to safety would be a dream come true.

“Puck’s rallyin’ the others,” Bleak says from the doorway. “They’re gonna sneak above and spread out on the opposite side of town, try and create a distraction. That’ll give yer team a chance to run fer it. I’ll get ya to the Wall and then I’ll lead my people after when the fightin’s o’er. It ain’t gonna be safe for us here no more.”

“You know you’re outmatched, right, Bleak? The weapons these people have . . . We’re grateful and all, but—”

“We know what we’re up against from the stories of our grandparents,” he says to me. “And it ain’t like no one here don’t want a little revenge.”

The stairwell we take above dumps us at the edge of town, right where the overrun livestock fields begin. Glancing over my shoulder, I can make out the lights of the Order helicopters near the gallows. I cringe at the thought of what awaits the Burg citizens. Half of me wants to stand with them, but I have to make a decision, and as ugly as it is, I’m putting the lives of my four remaining team members above the hundreds who will fight as we run. Maybe this makes me horrible. I don’t know. And I don’t have time to assess it.

Bleak points ahead. “We’ll run, and once we start we ain’t stoppin’ ’til we reach the Wall.”

Bree groans. “How can you even see?”

She has a point. It’s pitch-black.

“I can’t,” Bleak admits. “But there ain’t no trees, and the land is mostly level. Just keep yer feet movin’ and trust yer balance. We take off soon as we hear the signal.”

Just then, there’s an outburst behind us. Order members shouting in confusion. Flashlight beams bouncing off the buildings, the snow, the cloud-socked sky overhead. The citizens of Burg have sprung to action.

“Now!” Bleak whispers, and we all break into a sprint.

We’re clumsy in the snow, and loud. I can hear the Order fighting Burg’s people in the distance, but I swear some of their voices grow nearer. And that the beams of their flashlights are flicking against the snow around us.

“There!” someone shouts, and my suspicions are confirmed. We’ve been spotted.

“Call the others. Give the order.”

“Now! Hit the lights now!”

A wall of light appears ahead. Helicopters, so many more than the three that were originally in Burg’s center. I think I can hear a distant roar, too, and I know in an instant that the Order called for reinforcements. After finding Marco, maybe. Regardless, we are trapped, surrounded with nowhere to run. We skid to a halt.

When the first Order member leaps down from one of the helicopters, I feel like someone has shoved a knife between my ribs.

He has the same broad shoulders and lean build. Same dark hair and quiet gait. Same chin and nose and ears and mouth and deep-set, colorless eyes.

It seems impossible, even when I’m staring at the proof.

But it’s not.

This is my one operational model, just like Frank’s records said, and he’s standing before me.

THIRTY-TWO

BLOOD POUNDS IN MY EARS.

I take back everything I thought about wanting to save the small piece of Blaine that was in his Forged version. Because a Forgery is not the real thing. This replica, this reflection—it is not me. I want it dead. I want it gone. I want it to have never existed.

It motions, a fist in the air, and a small army of what I assume to be more Forgeries emerges from the helicopters to join him in the snow. They are a diverse group. Varying heights and builds, hair and skin color. Some are female, but most male.

Forged Me is staring at our team with a terribly calculating look. He inclines his chin just slightly, eyeing me over the bridge of his nose. It’s an acknowledgment of my presence. A nod that he sees me.

For the briefest moment, I have the delusional thought that he will help us. That they all will. But unlike Jackson, these Forgeries didn’t see the Wall. They didn’t touch it, climb it. They flew overhead, and the structure—if it was visible at all in the darkness—was likely nothing but a blur. These Forgeries are not going to break down or malfunction. No matter how hard I wish it, they will not end up on our side.

As if he can hear my thoughts, the faintest smile tugs at the corners of Forged Me’s lips. He points his handgun in our direction and says, “Hi, Gray.”

The distant rumble is more of a roar now, additional reinforcements bearing down fast. There is no way we are getting out of this.

“What do we do?” Sammy asks frantically, but I’m too busy grabbing Bree and pulling her into my chest to answer.

“I’m sorry,” she says into my shirt.

“Me, too.”

Forged Me to his soldiers: “Ready.”

They raise their weapons. The roar of the approaching enemy grows louder.

“Aim.”

Sammy again: “Gray! What do we do?”

I rest my chin on the top of Bree’s head and close my eyes because the answer is nothing. We have lost.

“Fi—”

There is an explosion of brilliance and I’m thrown off my feet. The world goes silent.

I’m dead.

I’m dead. I’m dead. I’m dead.

But I can still feel, and there is pain.

Everywhere.

I force my eyes open. One of the helicopters is in ruins, its metal frayed and scattered. The earth around it has been upheaved, dirt staining the snow in violent spatters. There are bodies in the mess, black and bloody and pieces of a whole. Those still alive are running for cover, but I can’t hear them. I can’t hear anything except a hollow echo in my ears.

The world smells of fire and smoke and burning flesh. Shadows pass overhead, casting bold patterns on the snow. The world goes brilliant again.

For the second time, I’m thrown aside as though I weigh nothing. I put my arms overhead, protecting myself from the random chunks of metal that rain down. When I look up another two helicopters have been destroyed.

I catch Bree in the corner of my vision. She’s crawling toward me. Her mouth is moving, but no words come out. Nearby, Jackson is pulling Bleak to his feet. They, too, are yelling, and I still can’t hear them. I try to stand but my balance is off.

Sounds return slowly.

First comes the roar of aircraft overhead, retreating, followed by the blurring screams of the Order scrambling for cover. And then, finally, Bree.

“Gray!” Her voice is murky and muffled, like she’s calling out to me underwater. “Dammit, Gray!”

And now it’s crisp and urgent as she grabs my wrist. I force myself to my feet, my balance poor and my bad leg hot with pain. I feel like I might fall over, but the roar overhead is growing louder yet again.

“Quick!” I shout to the others. “Before they come back.”

Sammy looks at the sky and I know he’s pieced together what I have. Clipper’s distress call reached more than the Order after all. Someone in AmWest heard our cry for help and the infamous Expats are flying overhead right now, giving us this small window of opportunity to escape. Of course, they may very well kill us in the process.

Jackson hauls Clipper to his feet—the boy’s shoulder is so bloody I’m amazed he’s still conscious—and we run. Every step burns my leg. We dart between the burning wreckage of two helicopters, Bree grabbing the rifle of a fallen man in the process. There are limbs scattered among the remains, fragments of soldiers that have been ripped apart as though they were paper. The snow beneath our feet is a million shades of pink. I force myself on, gagging.

Just as the lights from the still-intact helicopters begin to fade behind us, the sky goes brilliant for a third time. The explosion is thunderous, even from this distance. We sprint into the safety of darkness, and for the first time since arriving in Burg, I’m happy for such little light. We are temporarily invisible. But then I hear the pounding of footsteps behind us: the Order—or worse, the Forgeries—on our tail.

I skid to a stop when we reach the Wall. It seems especially massive tonight. Bleak slings the coils of rope off his shoulder and tosses the hooked bit of metal at the Wall. We hear it scrape on the surface, anchor in place as he tugs down on the rope.

“What is that? A homemade grappling hook?” Sammy takes the rope and tests its strength. “Genius!” A moment later he’s climbing as fast as possible, feet against the facade.

“Got it,” comes his response a few grunts later, and even though I can’t see him, I know he’s pulled himself atop the Wall. “Put a lasso knot in the bottom and I’ll help pull you up. It’ll be quicker than climbing.”

I turn to Bree.

“You first,” she says.

“Bree, don’t even argue with me about this.”

Even in the darkness I can sense her scowl, but I grab her arm and tug her toward the rope. She puts her foot in the loop that Bleak’s tied and Sammy pulls her to safety. Clipper goes next, his shoulder looking like a piece of poorly butchered meat. I’ve never seen a weapon that could do that sort of damage, and wonder if it was the scraps of helicopter that mangled his skin or fragments of the exploding weapon itself. Clipper somehow manages to remain conscious as Sammy hauls him up.

“You have to climb,” I say, turning toward Bleak. “If you go back for your people you’re going to be killed before you can even reach town.”

I can’t make out his face in the darkness to gauge his reaction, but he grabs the rope. The shouts of the pursuing Forgeries can be heard easily now. A sea of flashlight beams bob up and down as they close in, their brilliance bouncing off the smooth surface of the Wall. I motion for Jackson.

“No. You go,” he says.

I can see how close the lights are, how there’s barely enough time for even one more person. And we were supposed to be allies. How can I just leave him here after everything?

“I’m one of them, Gray,” he says as if he’s read my mind. “Maybe they’ll recognize that. Now please go. Before all of this was for nothing.”

I find the rope in the dark and step into it with my good leg. My shoulder bangs against the Wall as Sammy pulls, and while I try to use my injured leg to help scale, it’s too painful. A moment later Sammy’s hands hook beneath my shoulders and I’m heaved atop the Wall.

I look back just in time to see the lights descend on Jackson.

Even though he has his arms raised in surrender, the Forgeries do not slow. There must be a dozen of them, and my Forged counterpart is leading the charge, arms pumping. Just steps away from Jackson, he throws what I think is a punch.

But then I see the weapon in his hand: a knife held in reverse grip, the blade exposed and gleaming.

Jackson’s hands go to his neck.

And then he collapses in the snow, dead.

THIRTY-THREE

I’M SCREAMING AT MY FORGERY, cursing him. How could I be capable of that? How could some piece of me kill a man who had his hands up in surrender?

Sammy pulls the rope up before anyone can grab it. Forged Me turns to the others, starts shouting orders, instructing them to form a pyramid so they can get into the Outer Ring. Over half of them seem distracted, though, staring at the Wall the way Jackson did when he first saw it.

I look between the few Forgeries at work and the group at a standstill. I’d bet almost anything that Jackson was an older model, an F-Gen4 like Blaine, and that these Forgeries, pausing to admire the Wall rather than trying to scale it, are the same. The towering structure is causing something to flicker in their programming. But Forged Me, and the handful that must be F-Gen5 models, are stronger. Nothing seems to faze them.

Sammy nudges me into action. I take one last look at Jackson’s crumpled body, and we drop safely into the Outer Ring. There’s a small fire burning ahead in camp. We sprint toward it.

My run is becoming more and more of a limp, but I push myself harder. I can make out Bleak helping Clipper, and Bree approaching with her rifle at the ready. I have no idea how many Order members found our team here, but our car is the only one in sight, so at least they are only on foot.

When I’ve almost caught up to Bree, she comes to an abrupt halt. She spins, a look of horror on her face. Shakes her head. Waves for me to stop. And I see why.

Emma.

She’s not dead. She’s alive. Xavier, too. But she has a gun to his head. Emma is holding Xavier at gunpoint and Bo is facedown behind her, the snow beneath him dark.

“That’s close enough,” Emma says calmly.

I must be seeing this wrong. I must. She gives me her customary half smile. Instead of the typical ache in my chest, the expression makes my stomach clench.

“There was never an Order member out here, was there?” I manage. “You killed Bo, jumped Xavier, used the radio to get in touch with Marco.”

“Very good, Gray,” she says. I realize, as the knot in my stomach twists even tighter, that this is not the first time she’s betrayed us.

“And it was you on the boat, too. You said you were getting bandages but you called the Order.”

“I was worried you’d doubt me from the moment you saw me bent over Isaac’s maps,” she says, smiling even wider. “But love’s a funny thing, isn’t it? It makes us blind.”

“Gray,” Xavier begs. “Please—”

Emma presses the weapon against his head a bit harder, and he falls silent. The rest of the team spills into camp behind me and I hear them freeze in their tracks.

“Emma, why are you doing this? Did Frank promise you something? Did he say he’d let Carter go? Free Claysoot?”

“You think I don’t want to be doing this?” she sneers. “You think I’m experiencing some moment of weakness?”

It’s like I’m talking to a stranger. “There’s no way you actually want to do this, Emma.”

“But I do!” she practically shouts. “I’ve wanted this from the moment you took me out of Taem, and I can’t even tell you how hard it was to be so patient, to wait for exactly the right moment. And that’s why it’s so surprising, isn’t it, Gray? Because unlike Blaine and Jackson, you didn’t even think this was possible.”

My breath catches and I see the truth.

This isn’t Emma.

This was never Emma.

Emma is still in Taem. Or worse, dead. The girl standing before me only looks like her. I was foolish—so, so foolish—to assume that a Forgery would only be made from a Heisted subject.

“I could have ended it all that morning on the Catherine,” she adds, “but no, you had to come barging in, forcing me to drop my call the very moment I was able to make contact. I was so close, and I just had to quit. Get all shy and meek and bat my eyelashes and act flustered by your presence.”

She looks disgusted by the idea. The expression triggers a handful of moments, all of which now seem painfully obvious. How she hasn’t shed a single tear since I rescued her from Taem, despite all she’s been through. Her annoyance when I let Jackson speak to the Order in Bone Harbor instead of her, and her offhand comment about his speed when he opened the Outer Ring, because maybe it really could have been done faster. And her eyes. They’ve seemed so lifeless and dead lately, so emotionless. So unlike Emma. She even pointed out that sign to us, told us how to identify her own kind, and I was too blind to see it.

I feel like the wind has been knocked out of me.

“But you never gave us up when we were at Crevice Valley,” I say. “And it wouldn’t have been hard for you to sneak into the technology wing, figure out how to contact the Order.”

“I wasn’t going to call them when I was there, and they were foolish to think I would. Why would I willingly give them a read on my location—the Rebels’ location—and let them end my own life with the bombs they were sure to drop? How dumb do they think I am?”

She’s just like Jackson in Stonewall: putting her own life before her mission. Self-preservation is the strongest of motivators.

“So now we’re here,” she says, “and I’ve finally gotten through to them. Granted, Crevice Valley is just a damn nickname and I don’t know exactly how to find it, have no direct coordinates to report. I’ve told them to check where my tracker last transmitted. It should be enough for them to find your precious headquarters, but just in case, we’ll wait. As soon as the Order isn’t quite so busy”—she tilts her head toward the Wall as an explosion momentarily lights up the sky—“you can confirm things, Gray.”

I’m starting to feel sick. From blood loss. From her. From everything.

“Emma, I can’t just wait and let you hand us over. You have to know that. But if you put the gun down, we can figure something out.” I move toward her cautiously.

“Not another step.”

I take one anyway.

“You think I won’t do it?” She pushes the barrel harder against Xavier’s skull.

“I know you won’t.” Another step. “Because you’re in there somewhere, Emma. And you’re better than this. You can help us. Like Jackson.”

“If he helped you, it means he’s an older model. I’m stronger than him.”

She’s a mere arm’s length away now. One more step and I can grab the gun. One more step and everything will be fine.

“If you don’t stop right now, he’s dead.”

“You’re not a killer, Emma. I know you.”

She looks right at me, and for the briefest moment, I think she hears me. I reach for the weapon and the recognition on her face vanishes. Her eyes narrow and her nostrils flare and she says, “I’m not your Emma. You don’t know anything about me.”

And she pulls the trigger.

And the blast echoes.

And she points the weapon at my chest.

And there’s another gunshot.

I paw at my front.

But I’m not bleeding. I’m . . . fine.

Emma looks down to find her jacket blooming with darkness. She falls to her knees, and then sideways, legs bent beneath her.

I spin around, searching for the shooter. Bree is lowering her rifle. Her eyes are impossibly heavy as they meet mine, her lips pressed together as though they are stitched shut. Sammy is staring at the dead bodies as though he’s seen a ghost.

There’s noise behind us. Distant flashlights.

The Forgeries.

Everyone bolts for the car but I check Xavier. He’s gone. He’s gone and it’s bad and I want to unsee it, but can’t. I throw up in the snow.

“Gray?” Emma coughs.

And even when I know it’s not her, I move to her side. I go to her because she’s saying my name and her voice sounds exactly like Emma’s and I can’t ignore it. She reaches for my hand, grabbing, fingers sticky with blood, and she smiles. She’s dying but she’s beaming like it’s the best day of her life.

“They’re coming.”

The sound of Bree opening fire makes me flinch, but even still I can’t move.

“Where is she?” I ask hurriedly. “The real Emma?”

She takes a few shallow breaths. “I don’t know.”

Sammy shouts for me from the car.

“Dammit, Emma.” I shake her hand. “Is she alive at least? Tell me she’s alive!”

“I don’t know,” she repeats. “But it was so easy to be her . . . to pretend I loved you.” She coughs up a small amount of blood. “Her memories . . . emotions . . . I felt them clear as day.”

I pry her fingers from mine. “Don’t act like you know her. You are nothing like her. The way you deceived us, what you did here tonight.”

“But you never . . . suspected me,” she says between gasps. “Not once.” A smile. “Maybe you’re the one . . . who doesn’t know her.”

And I have nothing to say because I worry it’s true. First with the Forged version of my brother; now Emma. How can I claim to know these people and not be able to sense such a foul wrongness in them?

Sammy is cursing, waving his arms like a madman from the driver’s seat. I look at Bo and Xavier in the snow. They won’t even get a proper burial.

“There’s no time!” Sammy shouts, and I know he’s right.

I turn my back on Emma, and sprint for the car.

THIRTY-FOUR

BREE CLIMBS INTO THE FRONT seat, and me, the rear. We’ve barely shut the doors when the Forgeries enter the extended glow of the campfire, Forged Me still in the lead. We pull away and he loses it. Screaming, shouting, kicking at the snow. His back is arched in rage, his arms outstretched.

He scares me. He scares me more than anything I’ve ever faced.

He waves the other Forgeries after us. Bree leans out the window, firing as they chase us, coming blindly, fearlessly, endlessly after our car. The ground is slick with snow, but Sammy must be driving fast enough, because Bree ducks back inside a moment later. Even though it is too dark to properly see anything, I stare at my hands.

How did this happen? I couldn’t sense that something was off with Emma and now Bo and Xavier are dead as a result. Clipper may as well be. I’ve seen the blood. I know he won’t last long.

And then everything seems to crash on me at once. I see the Forgeries torn apart, smell their burning flesh. I see Emma dead, Isaac dead, my father dead. I see Forged Me aiming his gun at my chest and slashing Jackson’s neck and screaming after our fleeing car. How could I be the basis for that? Why was Jackson able fight his orders, and my Forgery was not?

I punch the seat in front of me, cover my mouth with my hands, and shout swears into them.

“Not now, Gray,” Bree says from the front. I want to scream at her lack of emotion. I want to call her heartless. I want to tell her she might as well be a Forgery for how callous she is. But then she says, “Later—I promise later—but not now,” and I realize she’s saying exactly the words I need to hear. It’s not that I can’t feel these things; it’s that I can’t let them own me in this moment.

“Clipper,” I say, flinching at the sound of my own voice. It is uneven and I struggle to steady it. “I’m sorry about earlier. You were right to send that distress call hailing the Expats. It’s the only reason we’re alive right now.”

I don’t mention that I’m rushing to apologize because I fear I won’t get another chance, that he’ll be dead if I put it off.

“Right or not . . . I still . . . got punished,” Clipper gasps. “Shrapnel to the shoulder.”

“We’ll get you to a doctor. Maybe in that town you spotted beyond Burg.” I wanted to head west immediately, toward the Expats, but Clipper isn’t going to last long. “Which way was it again?”

“North,” he wheezes. “Head north.”

And then he passes out.

The sky outside the car illuminates with another explosion and I swear I can hear the Forgeries shouting even though we are too far for this to be possible. My thigh is throbbing, my pant leg heavy with blood. I wonder if I’m starting to lose my sense of reality.

“We’re coming up on the exit,” Sammy announces. I see the Outer Ring whiz by outside my window but before I can feel even the slightest wave of relief, Sammy slams on the brakes. We all lurch forward.

“Sammy!” Bree yells. “What the—”

But she doesn’t bother with another word because it becomes very obvious what Sammy has stopped for.

A barricade of light appears before us. We’re trapped. Again.

Sammy curses luck and the heavens and odds and a number of other things, smacking the steering wheel in rage as he does so. Bree twists around to face me and the light from outside the car is so bright I can see every inch of her expression. Determination in her brow. Worry in her eyes. Fear at the corners of her lips.

“What now?” she asks.

But dark figures are already descending on the car, ripping the doors open. They leave Clipper untouched, but Sammy and Bree are yanked from the front, followed by Bleak and me in the rear. I stare at how white the snow is. How crisp and perfect and pure. This is the end for sure. If it’s the Forged version of myself who will do the deed, I don’t want to look.

A pair of boots steps into my vision, but they are not the typical Order model. I glance up, startled.

The man before me wears thick pants that tuck into the boots, a woolen hat, and gloves that are cut away to expose his fingers, and even though it’s freezing, he’s opted for a bulky sweater instead of a jacket. He looks about my father’s age and dark stubble covers his jaw. The attire of the woman with him is just as mismatched.

I peer at the vehicle behind them. It looks something like the Order’s helicopters, only a bit more battered. The emblem on its side is familiar: a blue circle positioned inside a red triangle, with a pale, unadorned star at its center.

It’s them. AmWest. The people whose ancestors started the Second Civil War and released a virus on millions of innocent lives. The people who today saw reason to answer our call for help, even when just months earlier I watched their planes attack Taem.

“Who’s in charge?” the man asks. His voice is low and raspy, like he doesn’t use it much.

I raise a hand and he tilts his head to the side and looks us over, something like curiosity and doubt flicking across his expression.

The woman motions at us with a knife. “They don’t look like much, Adam.”

The man, Adam, doesn’t take his eyes off us as he answers. “Neither did we.”

There’s an explosion in the distance and I’m pulled back into the moment, hyperaware that the Forgeries are still chasing us, that Clipper is bleeding out in the car.

“One of our team needs a doctor.” As I say this, my leg spasms with pain and I realize I need one as well.

Adam simply raises his eyebrows. “How many are you?”

“Five.”

He motions a forefinger in a small circle. “All of you.”

“We lost four just earlier, and another on the Gulf. Split up with one more before setting sail.”

Adam inclines his chin, still waiting, and I throw my hands up in frustration. “I have a boy on the verge of death in this car! If you have a deeper question, just say it. I don’t have time for games, even if you did save our asses back there.”

Adam smiles at this: a wide, brilliant smile that is so white it matches the snow. “I meant what I said: All of you. Your people. How many?”

Bree seems to hear the heart of his question because she answers for me. “Last time there was a head count we were just over two thousand.”

Adam purses his lips, like he’s tasting the number and finds its flavor rather curious. What had Isaac said? If you have good information—methods of undermining AmEast—AmWest is always willing to make a trade or strike a deal. Could this be true now? They answered our distress call only because they thought we might be beneficial to their cause and now Adam’s sizing up the Rebels’ numbers to see if those assumptions were correct?

“Someone told us the real patriots are Expats,” I say, repeating words I first heard from Isaac.

Adam’s eyes light up.

“I was thinking we could maybe work together. Your people. Our people. We might have more success united.”

“You know,” Adam says, a small grin appearing, “I had the same thought when we decided to answer your call.”

We reach for each other, and in one curt handshake, I strike an allegiance with the Expats.

THIRTY-FIVE

WE LIFT INTO THE SKY and I instantly feel nauseous. I keep a hand against the window, watching Burg disappear from view. It is still bursting with explosions of light and chaos. I worry about the rest of Bleak’s people, wonder how they are holding up. At least with the Expats’ aid they stand a chance of surviving. There are others still fighting by air behind the Wall, and just before we took off, I heard Adam give an order to keep it that way until the Order was defeated.

Clipper is conscious again, clutching Sammy’s hand beside me. He keeps making these horrible noises, gasps of pain so unbearable I wish a bomb could go off and temporarily deafen me again. The boy’s face looks hopeless. Like he just wants it to be over.

I press my head against the window and will the pain to pass. The pain in my leg, my chest, my mind. I start drifting in and out of consciousness, reality and dreams blending.

I see the Forged version of Emma in the clouds, her jacket dripping with blood. You have to wonder about that day you found Emma with Craw, she says. Was it really her? Or was it me? Is your Emma even alive? She giggles lightly, and carries on in a singsong manner. I won’t tell. Never. Not ever.

But I already know. I don’t want to admit it, but I know it was my Emma, the real Emma, that day in Taem. I was disguised as Blaine, and yet she touched my face and knew it was me. She was crying, full of emotion. And I screwed everything up by not taking her with me right then. I bet Frank even saw that reunion—his cameras are everywhere. By the time I returned for Emma, he knew the truth: that I was Gray, not Blaine. That I’d take Emma back to Crevice Valley with me. That he could plant a spy right into my eager, outstretched hands.

So clever, Emma sings among the clouds. Only it’s too late. Far, far too late.

Bree’s voice in the distance: “Keep your eyes open, Gray.”

But Emma is morphing into the girl from Burg’s tunnels. My children ain’t old ’nuff to die, she says. Nobody here asked fer this and ya brought the Reapers right to our door.

I blink and she’s Xavier, a hole clear through his skull. You pushed Emma too hard. You didn’t think she’d do it, and now look. Look!

But I can’t, and when I don’t, there’s Jackson, a line of ragged red across his neck—Some ally you are—and Bo—I was finally out, finally free. It wasn’t supposed to end like this.

The world shrinks, narrowing like I’ve set foot in a tunnel. Bree’s hand is in mine. I feel her fingers, miles away, but squeezing. No words, just a reassuring grip. My vision steadies slightly as the helicopter greets land.

I’m off the vehicle somehow, an arm wrapped behind Bree’s neck. We’re moving, but she’s doing most of the work. There’s a squat white building ahead. And a woman with auburn curls, running to meet us.

The ground shifts beneath me. It happens slowly, like I’m suspended in time. I turn to Bree because I want to warn her of what’s coming, but I manage to say only her name before collapsing in the snow.

I wake in a foreign bed, feeling thirsty and downright exhausted. Bree is asleep in a chair beside me, one hand resting on the mattress near mine, almost as if our fingers were laced together before she drifted off.

By the look of the place, we’re in an average home. The bedroom’s walls are a dusty peach, the windows dressed with curtains so thin the first light of dawn filters through them. There is a nightstand beside the bed, a glass of water sitting on its worn surface. I grab the drink and down it in several gulps. The liquid sloshes in my stomach, which has been empty for too long.

Gritting my teeth, I sit and push back the sheets. The leg of my pants has been cut off high around my injured thigh, the wound seen to and bandaged. I climb out of bed. Putting weight on my leg is unpleasant, but I manage.

It’s not until I’m standing, bracing against the steady ebb of pain, that I notice how small and vulnerable Bree looks. I haven’t seen her sleeping before, not in such clarity, and now the morning light is basking over her and all I can see is this calm, peaceful girl, so different from the one I usually face. Her forehead is smooth because she’s not scowling it full of wrinkles. Her eyebrows arch elegantly; her lips part with grace. Everything about her is softer when she dreams. I feel like I’m witnessing some great secret, seeing this gentle side she never shows the world.

She flinches; makes a small, tiny sigh. She’s going to wake with a horrible pain in her neck if she stays in the chair, so I lift her and transfer her onto the bed.

“Gray?” she murmurs. She’s still dreaming and my name comes out tinged with panic, like she might be having a nightmare. She’s even scowling now.

“I’m here,” I tell her. “I’m here and we’re fine.”

Her lips twitch into a smile and her face goes still, like the dream has steadied.

And in that moment I forget everything she said to me below Burg, because this is what I want: to make her fears melt away. To calm her and steady her and to simply be there when she needs me. Always.

I watch a few strands of blond hair flutter in rhythm with Bree’s exhales. I know I should go find the team, but all I want to do is climb into the bed. I want to fall asleep with Bree’s back against my chest and my arm around her waist, because if we’re together we’ll be okay. I’ve known her barely five months, but it feels years longer. When I wasn’t looking, she became my second half, and now the thought of braving the storm raging around us seems impossible if I have to do it alone. Truthfully, the thought of braving anything without her seems utterly absurd.

She was right. About us. About the fact that I was fighting it. Why does she always have to be right?

I put a hand on her shoulder, but I don’t wake her. I don’t know how to even begin to apologize. I was wrong about everything . . . I do need you, us, the fire, to be scared and challenged and pushed . . . I was wrong and I’m sorry.

None of it seems like enough.

So I kiss her forehead, tuck the blanket beneath her chin, and leave to find the others.

THIRTY-SIX

THE AMWEST WOMAN IS WAITING when I step into the hall. She introduces herself as Heidi and tells me Clipper’s injuries have been seen to and that he and the rest of the team are sleeping. I ask to see them, and she insists Adam needs to talk to me first. When I press the issue she tosses around words like urgent and imperative, so I reluctantly follow her.

We head through a sitting room littered with books and plush couches, a kitchen that smells of warm bread and soup, and down a flight of stairs before finally entering a large, windowless room. It’s packed with computers and displays and other devices I’m sure Clipper would know how to use blindfolded. Adam is standing in the center with his back to us, talking to the woman I remember rushing to greet the helicopter before I passed out last night. Her curls are pulled back and her freckle-covered cheeks are flushed.

“Sylvia,” Heidi says to the woman. It’s a dismissal of sorts, because Sylvia leaves, followed by Heidi, and then it’s just me and Adam.

He sits in a chair, drinks from a glass on the table, and then leans back, arms hooked behind his head.

“How’s the leg, Gray?”

“How’d you know my—”

“Bree told us. Then proceeded to order us around like she owned this place, made sure you and Clipper were seen to, requested food and drink for your team.” His eyebrows flick skyward. “Quite a girl.”

I smile, feeling proud—of Bree, for Bree.

“I never thanked you for helping us,” I say. “Earlier, with the Order. And here. Wherever here is.”

“I owe you thanks for sending that call as much as you owe me one for answering it. What happened in Burg benefited us both. As for the state of your team, that was all Sylvia and her husband. They man this refuge.”

I eye the displays on the wall behind him. Refuge. A home filled with a bit of everything—medics, computers, extra beds for the Expat in need.

“How’d things turn out in Burg?”

Adam’s face hardens. “I’d told my pilots to eliminate the Order at all costs, and the results weren’t pretty. I didn’t know there were civilians fighting on the ground, or living beneath all those buildings. We only managed to save about half of them.”

I’m not quick enough to keep the horror from showing on my face.

“But the Order was annihilated, and we cleared out before additional forces arrived,” Adam says. “Plus, the remaining Burg survivors were ushered west to Expat safe houses. That’s success in my book.”

“But all those other people. Dead. Because I called you. Because we—”

“A person can go crazy thinking like that, and sacrifices must be made in battles like this. Besides, do you think all the Order members my men killed in the process of saving yours deserved to die? Could it be possible that some of them are blinded by Frank? Think they are doing good? Willing to change if they were shown the error of their ways? Perhaps, but I gave orders to eliminate them, no questions asked.”

I pull up a chair and join Adam because the thought that Burg is destroyed, and so many people dead, has made my feet weary.

“Humans are complex creatures,” Adam adds. “We are not all good or all bad. We are shades. Many, many shades. Surely you understand this, Gray, with a name like yours.”

I do. Practically everyone I’ve met these last few weeks has been fueled by complex motives: Jackson, Titus, Bleak. Not to mention the fact that I’m the biggest contradiction of all. I killed a version of my own brother in order to save what I thought was Emma. I took advantage of a relationship with Bree in the hopes of repairing a childhood one. I treated Jackson as less than human because I assumed him a threat, and I left so many people in Burg to die. I tossed aside hundreds of lives to save the handful I knew.

“More sacrifices will likely be made in the process, but setting things right, removing Frank from power—that is an act that needs to happen,” Adam says. “So how about you put me in touch with your leader back east?”

Even with all the gear filling the room, I know only one way of reaching Crevice Valley.

“I can’t do it. But Clipper probably can.”

“I thought that might be the case.”

Just then, Heidi appears with Clipper in tow. His bad arm is in a sling, his shoulder heavily bandaged. He takes the room in slowly, gazing over the equipment before finally making eye contact with me.

“What’s going on?”

“You’re getting us in touch with Ryder,” I say.

He grins, pulls a chair up to one of the computers, and is in his element.

Seeing Ryder’s face come up on the display, knowing that Crevice Valley still stands, is an immense relief.

I give Ryder a quick rundown of the team’s current status. Despite Emma’s betrayal, Ryder explains that Order activity in the forest has been no better or worse than usual. Much of Crevice Valley’s electronic equipment would have produced magnetic fields interfering with Emma’s tracking device, and Ryder claims Harvey had even set up some gear to scramble signals at a distance—near the interrogation center and beyond—as additional precautions. I smile, recalling something Bree said to me once about the Rebels having defenses even if they couldn’t be seen.

“I want to talk with Adam,” Ryder says. “Alone.”

I can tell arguing will be futile, so I head into the hallway.

“What are they going on about?” Clipper asks.

I slide to the floor, back against the wall opposite him. “I wish I knew. How’s your arm?”

He shrugs. “Sylvia said some of the metal will be in me for life, but I’ll be fine.”

I want to tell him that he did well and I’m proud of him, but it all sounds so lame in my head.

“I’ve been thinking about that Forgery of Emma,” he says. “She took care of Aiden so genuinely. Rusty never seemed to suspect her the way he did Jackson and Blaine. She even feared the two of them initially, just like us, and when she did spot them for what they were, she stayed quiet. She sold them out only when it benefited her most. It’s like she was on another level. Like she was one of those newer models—like your Forgery.”

“She was. She told me so right before she shot Xavier.” I pause for a moment, staring at my feet. “It scares me how convincing these newer ones are. And how they can’t be reasoned with. This changes everything, doesn’t it?”

“Yes,” Clipper says. “And no. We just stay vigilant. Trust our instincts. Work together. That’s what Harvey would do.”

“How old are you again?”

He breaks into a wide smile and it’s when his teeth show—unruly and proud—that he actually looks his age. In a flash, the smile is gone, replaced with a look of horror.

“Harvey tested everyone who walked into Crevice Valley, but Emma was the first to arrive after his death and I only clipped her,” he says. “In a way, this is all my fault.”

“You can’t think like that. It’s no one person’s fault. I brought her back, after all.”

He eyes the stairwell, looking unconvinced. “Yell for me if they need anything else, okay? I’m tired.”

I nod and he’s gone, taking his guilt with him. Muffled voices still converse from behind the door. And I’m just sitting here. Waiting. Clueless.

How can Ryder kick me out of a meeting like this? Be so focused on business and alliances? He didn’t even flinch when I listed my father, Bo, and Xavier as deceased. I wonder, suddenly, if Ryder is numb with shock. He was best friends with Bo—practically brothers.

And then my chest flares because I realize if Adam is talking to Ryder, back in Crevice Valley, I can talk to Blaine. Everything else becomes unimportant. I jump to my feet. The door is pulled open before I get to it and Adam steps into the hall.

“He wants to talk to you again.”

I slip past him. Ryder is still on the display, rubbing his eyes like he desperately needs sleep. I don’t bother with greetings.

“Is Blaine there? Can I talk to him?”

Ryder looks up and sighs. “That’s not what’s most important right now.”

“Not important?” I erupt.

“Gray—”

“No. Don’t you dare tell me what’s important when I hiked across this damn country only to lose half the people I love. My father is dead, Ryder. He’s dead! Bo and Xavier, too. Oh, and Emma? I don’t even know if she’s alive, and that’s almost worse than the alternative. So excuse me for wanting to talk to my brother. I’m so sorry I’m not focused on the right things after this stupid, wasted mission!”

I want him to yell back, scream at me, but he has the nerve to calmly place his hands on the table and say, “We can talk about your brother later. Right now, we’re discussing this new alliance.”

“Dammit, Ryder. I just want to see Blaine. I—” Everything seems broken. So many people are dead, and I’m here, separated from Blaine, feeling lost, sick. “How did this happen?” I mutter. “This wasn’t supposed to be my life.”

“And do you think I wished this to be mine?” Now he decides to yell. Not before, when I wanted it, but now. “I haven’t let my guard down since I was eighteen! My best friend is now dead. I’ve lost one of the finest captains I’ve had under my command. Is it terrible? Yes. Does it hurt? Worse than I can even begin to describe. But I square my shoulders, hold my head high, and carry on. Moving forward is the only option.”

I’m glaring at him now, because I can’t push feelings aside the way he describes. I don’t work that way. I don’t know how to exist if I don’t feel.

“Here’s what you’re going to do,” he continues. “You’re going to take some time to mourn for those you lost and then you are going to realize that this mission was not a waste. Look at all you’ve accomplished. You saved Bleak from a life underground and Adam’s men freed half his people. You met a Forgery that fought against his programming—bent his will to help you! Above all, you have given us our best edge in years: an ally. Adam has assured me that the Expats will put our numbers to shame, that together we will be unstoppable.”

I can see the logic to his words, but the price paid in the process of gaining these assets seems unjustly steep.

“Now as for this alliance,” Ryder continues, “I’m sending a captain to help oversee things out west. Elijah will meet Adam at neutral ground—about a three-hour hike north of Crevice Valley—and he should be to you by tomorrow evening at the latest.”

“And Blaine,” I say. “Send Blaine, too.”

“That was not a part of our agreement.”

I slam my hands on the table. “I don’t care, Ryder. Just send him!”

As if on cue, there is the sound of a door bursting open on Ryder’s end, and then Blaine, speaking from out of view.

“Is it true? I heard you made contact with them!” And then he’s stumbling into the frame, pushing against Ryder, who is trying to restrain him. “Gray!”

His hands go into his hair, like he can’t believe what he’s seeing, and I don’t know how I ever mistook a Forgery for him. This is Blaine, so real and alive I can feel it even though he’s only on a screen. Ryder is pointing back toward the door, asking Blaine to leave, but Blaine pulls up a chair.

“You look horrible,” he says as he sits down.

“Thank you?”

He laughs and I can’t help but laugh, too. It fills an empty space in my core.

“I’m coming,” Blaine announces. He says this so surely it’s almost as if he believes he can blink his eyes and be next to me.

“You are not,” Ryder says.

“Ryder, I’m going and that’s the end of it. I sat here when Gray went into Taem to get the vaccine and it nearly killed me. I spent the last month chewing my nails and worrying nonstop while he trekked across the country. You keep us apart again, and I’m just going to hike there myself. You know I can do it. I’m well enough now.”

I’m speechless. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Blaine disagree with someone so forcefully. Ryder opens his mouth, closes it.

“Fine,” he says eventually. “You two are as stubborn as your father.”

I’m beaming, because this seems like the very best kind of compliment, and Blaine thanks Ryder profusely.

“Gray, be sure Elijah gets in touch with me when you’re all settled over there,” Ryder says. “Until then, I’m sure you have some things to attend to.”

He stands and moves out of the frame. I hear a door close a moment later and I’m left with my brother. All I wanted was to see him, and now even this is not enough. Tomorrow seems terribly far away.

“Pa’s dead,” I blurt out.

“What?”

“He jumped in front of a bullet. To save me. And . . . it’s a long story. I’ll tell you everything when you get here. I promise. I just couldn’t keep it from you and I’m sorry it happened.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Everyone keeps saying that.”

He’s making one of his big-brother faces now, something like parental concern mixed with sympathy. “You’re okay, and that’s what matters.”

“He mattered, too, Blaine.”

“I’m not saying he didn’t. It’s just that you matter more.”

I shake my head. Blaine’s always doing this: weighing outcomes as though every piece of life is either more or less important than another. I don’t think he realizes that in no way does my living make our father’s death any easier to accept.

When I look up, Blaine’s hand is resting against the display, like he wanted to grab my shoulder and forgot we were on opposite ends of the country.

“I’ll see you real soon, Gray,” he says. “Promise.”

“If I’ve learned anything these past weeks, it’s that you shouldn’t make promises. Not ever. Nothing is so certain you can guarantee it.”

He smiles. “Oh, I’m guaranteeing this. There is nothing more important right now than getting to you. You come first. Always.”

I feel like we’ve had this conversation before, but I can’t help repeating his final word.

“Always.”

THIRTY-SEVEN

I ROUND UP THE TEAM so that we can properly say good-bye to our dead. It is a crisp, clear afternoon, the sky so cheerfully blue I swear it is mocking us.

We walk behind the house and form a half ring around a small fire pit, the wind at our backs. I clear away the snow and nurse some flames to life. Sammy says a few words the way he did that day in Stonewall. A funeral should make you feel at ease, help you move on, but I just keep feeling guiltier and emptier and unworthy of being alive. I made it and they didn’t. That’s the bit that kills me most, but that’s how it is with death: It doesn’t care if you deserve to face it or not. It comes of its own accord and it takes life without considering how those left standing will feel. Death is a greedy, selfish thing.

Sammy brings things to a close and Bleak, Clipper, and Bree head inside, shivering.

“You going to be here awhile?” Sammy asks.

I stare at the flames. My legs feel like roots, suddenly, reaching deep into the earth. “I guess so.”

“Great. I’ll be right back.”

When he returns he’s clutching a near-empty glass jug, amber liquid sloshing in it as he walks. He takes a swig and passes it to me.

“Swiped it from the kitchen pantry.”

I take a drink and the burn of the alcohol is a welcome distraction. We pass the jug back and forth a few times, watching the fire like it’s doing something interesting.

“I loved her,” Sammy finally says. I have never before heard him say three words with more sincerity.

“I know,” I say, because I’ve suspected it for a while.

He seems startled by my answer and coughs on a bit of alcohol. “Was it anything like her, or did I fall for an illusion?”

“Sammy, that Forgery was so much like Emma it terrifies me. It had her personality and her voice and her mannerisms. I mean, it fooled me, and I grew up with her.”

We both take a few more swigs from the jug.

“I hope she’s okay,” he says. “I can’t lose them both. God, I can’t.” His eyes grow glossy and I realize he’s mourning not only for Emma, but for Xavier, too. They were best friends, always walking around Crevice Valley like they were each other’s shadow. And Sammy watched that friend die at the hands of a thing he thought he loved. He might be as messed up about Emma as I am.

“She has to be alive still,” I tell him, because the alternative is unthinkable. “We’ll find her somehow. I have to find her.”

“I feel the same way. It’s just that . . .” He takes a deep breath and looks right at me. “You don’t deserve her, Gray. Not if you can’t see her, and it’s so damn obvious that Nox is the only thing you really, truly see.”

“I know,” I say again. Deep down, I think I’ve known all along.

“That’s it?” Sammy looks confused. “I was sure you’d be furious with me for saying that.”

“Last week I might have been. Or even yesterday. But now I see what everyone else already knew, what Bree’s been trying to tell me for ages.” He still doesn’t look convinced. “I’ve loved Emma since I was six, Sammy. It’s sort of hard to admit you might love someone new more than the person you’ve loved for forever.”

He nods at this, stares at the fire.

We keep drinking and the ache of sorrow steadily surrenders. I grow warm despite the setting sun. We don’t exchange any more words. We don’t need to. Maybe I have a friend in him now. I’m not sure if it’s a real friendship, or something forced upon us from everything we’ve been through. Maybe the details don’t matter. Maybe a friend is a friend.

By the time we are called inside for dinner, the jug is empty.

Sylvia’s cooking is the best meal we’ve had in ages—some sort of meat stew with fresh bread. My head is humming, my body warm. I imagine Sammy is the same. We’re not belligerent by any means, but we keep laughing at things that aren’t very funny and fumbling with our spoons. Sylvia’s looking pretty annoyed and I start feeling bad about the whole thing. She did patch up our team and give us beds and agree to keep us under her roof until Adam returns with Elijah and Blaine. So I apologize for being rude, only to have Sammy tell her we’re not being rude at all. I knock over my bowl while trying to punch his arm.

“Dammit, I am so sorry,” I say, sopping up the mess.

“I’ve got it,” Sylvia says. “Just stop. I have it under control.”

“No. I’ll help.” I manage to knock Sammy’s bowl askew as I try to clean quicker than her. More stew floods the table.

“Why don’t you just excuse yourself,” she says to me sharply.

Everyone at the table is glaring at me and I have the foresight to not push things. I get up, leave. I have no intention of falling asleep, but when I lie down on my bed, the weight of the last few days is suddenly unbearable.

I wake to a knock on my door.

I’m cold now, the pleasant hum of alcohol replaced with guilt and regret and things I wish I could change. It’s dark out, the sun still hours away from rising. I couldn’t have been asleep long.

Another knock, less patient this time.

“Come in.”

Bree enters and tosses something on my bed. “I was going through the gear and found that in Owen’s pack. I thought you might want it.”

My fingers close around the handle of a small knife sheathed in leather. I pull it from the case. A couple of shavings fall onto my lap and the memory of a wooden duck Blaine and I played with as children hits me. It was a gift from our father, a product of his work with this very blade. Weathersby is carved into the handle.

My breath snags as I exhale, and I’m caught between wanting to laugh and needing to cry. I look at Bree and I can’t seem to get my mouth to form the words thank you, but she must hear me anyway because she says, “Don’t mention it.”

My eyes trail over her. The angle of her brows, her slender neck, the shape of her collarbone, which has been hidden beneath bulky attire for what feels like a lifetime. Bree turns to leave and I grab her wrist, pull her toward me.

She frowns. “I have to go now.”

“No you don’t.”

“Yes. I do.” She twists free of my grasp.

I sit up, swing my legs over the mattress. “Bree, I was wrong. About us. About everything. I should—”

“I’m not your consolation prize,” she snaps.

It takes me a long moment to realize what she means.

“No. It’s not like that. I always needed . . . I just . . . I thought . . .” But I know I’m not making sense. I’m still half-asleep, flustered from being given Owen’s knife, aching from how much I need to pull Bree into my bed, to strip her bare and touch her everywhere and use my lips to tell her all the things I worked out earlier and am currently grappling for so poorly.

“You told me you needed her more than you needed me, Gray. That’s what you implied that night on the beach. So what happens when you see her again? The real her? What then?” She folds her arms across her chest. “If I wasn’t enough for you before, I don’t see why things would be any different now.”

She heads for the hallway and I’m left gaping after her, still trying to process her words.

“But we’re stronger together,” I say. “We both know it.”

She pauses near the doorway. “Yeah. We are.”

“So what’s the problem?”

“The problem is I told you things I’ve told no one else. I let you get close to me. I stopped protecting myself all the time and dropped my guard. I trusted you to not shatter what we had, and when you did I felt so vulnerable, so exposed, so foreign in my own skin that I couldn’t think straight. I still feel this way and I hate it, Gray! I hate that you can make me so weak.”

So this is what she meant when she spoke about weakness in Burg. I think I understand her now, because a piece of who I am is so tied up in her that she’s made me feel weak, too. Weak when I’m without her. Never stronger than when we’re together. I want to tell her this but the concept seems too complex for words.

She pulls the door open.

“Don’t go,” is all I manage to say. “Please?”

But Bree just shakes her head.

“I already gave you everything, Gray, and I’m not doing it again. I’m putting myself first.”

THIRTY-EIGHT

IT IS MIDDAY WHEN ADAM returns.

Our gear is packed—the team, restless. I’m sitting on my bed, sharpening Owen’s knife and replaying my conversation with Bree, when I hear the helicopter approaching. I slip the knife into its sheath and race from the room.

Adam is jumping from the vehicle when I burst outside. Elijah comes next, and finally, Blaine. He has a bag slung over his shoulder in this carefree manner, and he’s smiling so wide that I remember it is possible to be happy. We collide, our greeting a series of playful shoves that are punctuated by moments when one of us breaks down and clasps the other around the back.

This is my brother. This is what I should have felt that day back in Stonewall: complete ease and sureness. I still don’t know how that Forgery fooled me for even the briefest of moments.

“I hope this isn’t too much for you,” I joke, shoving him. “Given your fragile, recovering state and all.”

He shoves me back. “I’m in working order again. Might even be able to outrun you if you don’t watch yourself.”

“I don’t doubt it. I took a knife to the leg two nights ago.”

This news seems to startle him, and never missing a chance to play big brother, his face flushes with concern. “You doing okay?”

“Yeah. My leg is the least of my worries.”

“Anything you want to talk about?”

Bree steps outside with the rest of our team, carrying our remaining supplies. She shoots me a scowl, and I turn back to Blaine.

“Maybe later.”

He winks, like he already knows everything I have yet to say, and then moves to say hello to the rest of the team. While Adam and Heidi thank Sylvia for her assistance, I help Elijah load the helicopter with our gear.

“New year, new start,” he says after we shake in greeting.

I pause, trying to recall when we fled from Burg and the number of days that have passed since.

“Today’s January first,” Elijah clarifies. “This is the year things turn around for us. I can feel it.”

A new year. What would have been Year 48 in Claysoot. The year I was supposed to be Heisted. The year I grew up fearing because it marked my turning eighteen. But no, I’ll be nineteen this summer. It’s like I blinked and missed twelve months of my own life.

I’m somewhat overwhelmed by it all. Here we are, going west again, moving even farther from the thing we have to fight. But I need to trust that Ryder and Adam know what they are doing. Clearly, I can’t be trusted with heavy things. Not missions, or lives, or people’s hearts.

I glance at Bree. Sammy’s heckling her about something. In fact, he’s been back to his sarcastic self since this morning. I think it might be the armor he’s chosen to wear as he recovers from the shock of the last few days. After a few foul words from him, Bree finally snaps.

“You know I can take you, so don’t push me.”

“Aw, you’re just looking for an excuse to wrestle,” he responds. “I don’t blame you, really. Girls can’t keep their hands off me.”

Bree rolls her eyes and I wish I were Sammy. She used to make that face at me, too. We used to be nothing but playful banter and ridicule. We used to be easy. But I don’t want easy anymore, because I want all of her. Every last drop. Even the pieces that terrify me.

Bree catches me watching her, and her mouth twitches into a tiny grin. She looks away even quicker, but the glance was there, mischievous rather than hostile, and it makes me think I can fix things between us if I try hard enough.

I hear footsteps in the snow and Adam is suddenly at my side, tossing the last few bags into the rig.

“So what happens now?” I ask him.

“Elijah has the details.”

“And I don’t get to know anything?”

“Guess that depends. Sometimes when a person has details, they end up running operations they never intend to.”

I could nod and let it lie. It would be easy enough, and I’m not sure I’m cut out for this type of stuff: knowing specifics, being trusted with missions and things of importance. But I think about my father, how he told me that I am stronger than most, and I feel like I should do this: stay involved, be involved. I owe him that.

So I look at Adam and say, “No, tell me. I want to know.”

“We’ll fly for about an hour to a refueling station. Then we’ll head to Pike.” A quick raise of his eyebrows. “Frank isn’t the only one with a domed city, after all.”

Sammy and September mentioned that domed cities sprang up around the country before the War split the land in two. It shouldn’t be surprising to hear that AmWest has one, or that Adam and his Expats seek refuge beneath its dome, but I’m still caught off guard.

“The ocean is right at our door,” Adam adds. “The real ocean. Puts that gulf you sailed across to shame.”

I instantly want to see it.

“I think you’ll like it. When the sun hits the water in the evenings, the entire thing lights up orange. But summer is the best: warm winds, calm evenings, loons that can be heard for miles.”

“Loons?” I ask. “Like the bird?”

“That’s the one.”

Adam climbs into the front of the helicopter, and I step into the rear. I take a seat beside Blaine, but I don’t join him when he falls into conversation with Sammy. I’m staring at Bree, who is sitting across the way with the others, staring back. I’m thinking about how trust is delicate but repairable, about how the loons sometimes get separated but then they cry and cry and don’t let up until one hears the other. They always reunite, two halves becoming one.

I cup my hands together and try to reproduce a call. I fail.

But Bree makes one.

The eerie cry fills the space between us, somehow as beautiful and reassuring as it is mournful. It is instantly drowned out by the roar of the helicopter, but Bree and I share a small, knowing smile as we lift into the uncertainties of an overcast sky.