Author: Erin Klitzke

No one came in the morning.

Buried beneath the blankets on his bed, Hadrian Bridger listened for the sound of footsteps approaching his door. Usually they’d come early with the first dose, if they were coming, and if he’d tracked the days correctly, this should be one of those days.

But no one had come yet.

There was a lot of movement in the hallway, though. He could hear muffled voices, footsteps moving back and forth. This part of the facility was seeing much more traffic than usual.

I didn’t dream it, then. I really heard what I thought I heard. Stiff, cold fingers bunched in the sheet. Of course, the trick of pinching the web of his fingers between his thumb and forefinger usually woke him from any dream or vision that gripped him, but sometimes reality and memory and his grip on both were still tenuous.

Maybe they really were getting ready to move them again. That was usually what shut it down meant—that they were closing this facility, moving everyone to another one. It had happened several times over the past few years.

At least, he thought that was true. Everything felt so muddled, had for a while. He still hadn’t quite figured out what the cause of it was, either—was it the drugs? His own abilities? Something else?

Did it really matter?

It probably didn’t, at least not on the inside.

She’s alive.

The thought crackled through him like a current.

The Institute—every staff member, ever doctor, every attendant, everyone—had repeated it over and over again.

“Kyle Anne Monroe died attempting to escape. It’s a tragedy and she will be remembered for what she could have been. Let her loss be a lesson to all of us of what defying the will of God can mean.”

“She’s dead, gone. She failed to follow God’s plan for her and paid the price—and will continue to pay it in eternity.”

“Do you want to end up like her? She’s gone. She’s been punished for her transgressions and lack of faith.”

“She died. Mourn, but learn from her mistakes. Do not repeat them. Follow the path.”

Variants on a theme, every time. She defied their beliefs, defied the path laid out for her. She died. She was dead. Listen to us. Do as we say and survive. Do as we say and live. Do as we say and be saved. She could have been so much more than what she allowed herself to be. Defiance means death because you’re not defying us.

You’re defying the path that’s been ordained for you by the lord of all.

It was as if they believed that if they repeated it often enough, they might actually start to believe it. The worst part of it was, sometimes they did almost did. But that was more about survival, more about finding a way to pull through the hell they were living in than actual belief.

He knew that all of this was insane.

But their circle had shrunk, now, and none of them could move against the Institute. It wasn’t the way it was before when she was here, or even when he’d thought that she could still reach them—reach him.

The sudden silence after the fire all those years ago had let them convince him that maybe, just maybe, it had all been in his head for all those years since the day they brought T.S. back barely breathing and told them all that Ky was dead.

But that was a lie.

It had to be. Deep down, in his heart of hearts, he’d never believed she was gone. But if she wasn’t gone, if she was still out there somewhere, why hadn’t she come for them? Why hadn’t she reached for them?

Why hasn’t she reached for me?

What if she—

Could it be possible that she had no idea that they were still alive?

It was enough to make his stomach sink.

They made it look like we were dead, didn’t they?

A shiver shot through him and he shifted in the bed, rolling onto his side and pulling the blankets up over his head. Moving brought pain and he choked quietly on it. Something about what they’d been giving him to stimulate his visions made every muscle in his body seize up like he’d run for miles on an empty stomach without water.

Really, he wasn’t sure if that was slowly killing him or not. It wouldn’t have surprised him very much if it was and that they didn’t care. After all, the other half of his equation wasn’t in their hands anymore. His visions, though—he was still pretty sure that they through those were important and useful. He couldn’t be sure, though, because half the time he didn’t remember what he saw when they dosed him with whatever they’d been giving him for the last six months. Whatever the drug cocktail was, in addition to the pain, memory gaps were proving to be another side effect.

Of course, maybe it also had to do with the red-haired girl that had come a few months before—at least, he thought he remembered a red-haired girl there for some of the sessions. Maybe he’d just imagined her.

Hallucinations had also been one of the side effects.

If they made it look like we were dead, then she… He grimaced as his thoughts scattered. What would Ky have done? He still wasn’t sure how long he’d been unconscious after the explosion. Had she reached for him? Had he dreamed of her?

Or had there been nothing because something had snapped the tether between them?

The idea of that made him sick to his empty stomach.

I need to get up, he finally thought. No one’s coming. I need to eat something if no one’s coming.

It was painful, clawing his way free of the blankets, but the more he moved the easier it was to push the pain away, to ignore it—or maybe the pain in his head tripling meant the pain everywhere else was suddenly a lesser concern. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and sat there for a few seconds, swallowing down the acid that rose in his throat despite an empty stomach. Even beneath stocking feet, he could tell the floor was cold.

Footsteps stopped in front of his room out in the hall and he froze, holding his breath, squeezing eyes shut. Did I misjudge the time? Have they just been moving around all night and I didn’t sleep? Is it not morning? Did I just—did I sleep through the first dose? He’d never done that before, but anything was possible.

“Is it even safe to try to move them?” He thought he recognized the voice as one of the technicians that assisted Dr. Sterling, but he wasn’t sure.

“There’s no alternative,” another voice said. “We have to. They’re still important to the plan.”

“They’re invalids,” the tech’s voice said. “Moving them could be dangerous. We could lose them.”

“Then we’d better be careful about it,” the other voice said. “We’ve moved them before. Why should this time be any different?”

“We had more time to prepare last time. This timetable is impossible.”

“All things are possible when you have faith. Trust in that and we’ll get it sorted out. Dr. Sterling wants them ready to move by tonight.”

“We’ll have to sedate them,” the tech said slowly. “That’s going to be—”

“I’m sure he’s aware. Do we have any good alternatives?”

There was a brief silence followed by what Hadrian thought might be a sigh. “No. No, nothing that I can come up with. Are they bringing her back to help?”

“No. She’s needed elsewhere.”

“Her strength is—”

“Trust in God and the plan,” the second voice said, cutting off the tech. “Do your job and let her keepers worry about what she’s doing. Get them ready to move. They’re out of here tonight.”

Slowly, Hadrian eased back down to the mattress, his pillows, heart in his throat. What are they planning? What are they going to do?

He knew who the her they were talking about was—it was Aly, his friend Aly, and imagining what they could be using her for shook him to his core.

She’d been the first one to break of the four of them that had remained.

Then again, none of them were whole anymore anyway, not since losing Ky. Not since what had happened to T.S. Really, the most surprising part was that Aly had held it together as long as she had, had kept the faith as long as she had.

Then, suddenly, it was just him and Ridley.

And then, finally, just him.

His lips thinned as he burrowed into the blankets again. The door hadn’t opened yet, but it would soon enough. As soon as the tech figured out dosages, as soon as the tech sorted out exactly what they needed to do on an accelerated timetable to get him ready to move, that door would open.

He wasn’t sure where he’d wake up, but he had no doubt that T.S. would be with him. They never moved one of them without the other. They’d done something to tie them together after the escape attempt, something that had never quite been undone. First it had been the four of them tied together—he and Aly and Ridley all tied to T.S. They’d made Aly figure out how to do it. He still remembered holding her while she sobbed, terrified that it wouldn’t work, that somehow she’d kill the boy she loved in trying to make sure he stayed alive.

The fact that she wouldn’t be there when they were moved was a little terrifying, to say the least.

They didn’t mention Ridley. Why didn’t they mention Ridley? So far as he knew, Ridley was still bound to T.S., too. Had something changed? A dim memory surfaced of a whispered voice, of an apology, of tears and the squeeze of a warm hand.

They’d sent him away, out of the Institute, but not like Aly. He’d said something about being sent to someone in the town up the road beyond the walls. He’d said goodbye.

Had they undone it when they sent him away? The draw was worse—he’d noticed that much—like he was carrying most of the weight of maintaining T.S., but that had happened before because of distance. It happened whenever Aly was away, doing whatever they were forcing her to do, had been worse when she’d had her accident.

That had nearly killed all four of them.

Wait. They didn’t mention Ridley. Last night they said—

Aly would never run. She couldn’t, not without T.S., and T.S. couldn’t do anything other than keep on breathing. But Ridley?

They sent him to a minder in the town.

Someone had gotten away.

Ridley had gotten away.

It had to be. There wasn’t anyone else.

Ridley had gotten away. Somehow, he’d run, probably with help, based on what he’d heard the night before. The Institute was hunting for him.

They’re afraid he’ll find someone. That he’ll tell someone everything.

They’re running scared.

His breath caught and his fingers tangled in the blankets. He’d seen this. He knew that he had, long ago, in one of those dark moments where he’d sobbed himself to sleep, wishing that she was still beside him, still there to soothe his tears and bolster his dying hope.

This is it. This is how it starts.

“This is how it ends,” he whispered to no one.

“This is the beginning of how it ends.”

As a warning, this is where things start to get very disturbing. In case you weren’t already there.

Four

A dim light shown through the kitchen window as she unlocked the front door. Behind her, Matthew watched from the car, engine idling, to make sure she got inside okay. Ky chewed on the inside of her lip again as she pushed the door open and slipped inside, closing and locking the door behind her. It wasn’t the kitchen light that was on, but one of the side table lamps in the living room. Reece was curled against the arm of the couch, legs tucked up beneath her, a book open against the throw pillow between her and the couch’s arm.

“You didn’t have to wait up,” Ky said quietly. “Figured you’d be in bed.”

“I wasn’t waiting up,” Reece said. “Just got a little absorbed.” She glanced at her watch and winced. “Though now I see why you thought I was. Everything okay? Matthew doesn’t usually have you out quite this late even when it’s not a school night.”

“No.” Ky shook her head. “Everything’s not okay. I—my world just turned sideways, Reece. I thought—there’s something I thought I knew that I was wrong about. Every decision I’ve made for years has been based on that one thing being true and it’s not.”

Her friend’s brow furrowed, a frown creasing her features. “Ky, you’re not making sense.”

“I know. I never told you guys about it. Not really.”

“About what happened before we met,” Reece said. “Before you started school here.”

“Yeah.”

“I always figured it was just something too traumatic to talk about,” Reece said, leaving her book on the couch and ducking past Ky into the kitchen. She filled the kettle and got down a canister of tea. “I thought if you’d wanted to talk about it, you eventually would.”

“Eventually finally came,” Ky whispered, gaze tracking her. She watched Reece put the kettle on and lay out a bit of sugar, watched her get down two mugs and add a sachet of loose-leaf tea to each. “You’re right, but it’s a lot. I didn’t think it was a burden anyone else needed.”

“Does Matthew know?”

“Most of it,” Ky said. “But that’s complicated.”

Reece leaned a hip against the counter, studying her carefully for a few seconds. Ky almost flinched under the scrutiny, would have if it had been anyone else. Reece had this way of looking at someone, though, looking without seeming like she was judging as she peeled back the layers that most people wrapped themselves in to hide parts of themselves from the rest of the world.

Part of Ky was still afraid what her friend would see, though.

“Okay,” Reece said quietly, still watching her. Ky wet her lips and drifted over to the stairs that wound up toward the second level, where their bedrooms were. She sank down onto the third step, meeting Reece’s gaze across the tile of the kitchen floor and the spate of carpet at the foot of the stairs.

“Matthew didn’t take me in right after my parents died.” The words tumbled out. It wasn’t where she’d intended to start but that was what came out of her anyway. “It was years before I met him. I met his brother first.”

“I—I didn’t realize he had a brother,” Reece whispered. “How did—”

“He doesn’t talk about him,” Ky rushed on. “Because we’re pretty sure he was killed when I escaped where we were, where they were holding us. I went to Matthew because I didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone else to go to and that was the plan. We escaped and we took what we knew to Matthew—that was the plan. But T.S. didn’t—I got out and he didn’t. So I told Matthew everything. Almost everything.”

“Everything about what?” Reece’s brows knit. “Ky, what are you talking about? You’re not making sense.”

“I know. I know. I’m just—it’s hard to know where to start.” She buried her face in her hands, taking one ragged breath, then another, trying to steady herself as her eyes began to sting. They might be alive. They’re out there. Maybe—maybe I can get them back. Maybe we can save them. “There’s this—there’s this place called the Institute, Reece. They took me from the foster system after my parents died in that accident and they—” she stopped, lifting her head as she drew another ragged breath, met her friend’s wide-eyed gaze. “I can step out of the normal flow of time.”

“What?”

“I have powers,” Ky said. “I can step out of the normal flow of time and move around and do things. I don’t—I’ve only done it a few times since you guys met me. Kind of handy when you’re running late.”

Reece kept staring, blinking rapidly. “Wait. Is that—is that how you’ve somehow beaten us to Commons when I knowyou left after we did?”

Ky nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, that is exactly how.”

“I should not believe you,” Reece said, tone matter-of-fact, holding her friend’s gaze even as Ky held hers. “But I also can’t come up with any reason why you’d lie about something like this, either. So—wait. How—why did you mention this after you said some place called the Institute took you out of foster care? How are those two things connected? Are they connected?”

“They wanted me because I could do that,” Ky said. “They—they’ve spent at least a decade, probably a lot longer gathering as many vulnerable kids as they can, kids with different…different powers like mine so they could use them.”

“For what?”

“They…” a tremor shook her and she curled her hands into fists. You can do this. You have to do this. Just breathe. Be strong. “They believe that they needed us to protect them when the end times come because they’re coming soon. Because they were going to make sure they come soon. We were supposed to be shield and their weapon.”

“Kids. Kids with powers. Like…supernatural powers.”

“They called us their Angelic Legion,” Ky whispered. “Their Angels.” She squeezed her eyes shut against the tears that welled up. One escaped, tracked down her cheek. A second chased it. “They would do anything to mold us into what they wanted us to be.”

“It sounds like a cult,” Reece said quietly.

“It is,” Ky agreed. “But it’s so much more than that, too.”

“They hurt you,” Reece whispered.

She nodded, unable to speak around the lump forming in her throat. Her fingers curled into fists against her knees. She heard Reece turn off the stove and a moment later her friend was sitting beside her and sliding her arm around her shoulders.

“It’s okay,” Reece whispered. “It’s okay, you don’t have to tell me more.”

“Yes, I do. Especially if things are about to go the way I think they can.” She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, forcing her voice to steady. She wiped her eyes and cheeks with the heel of her hand. “Matthew and I thought that they were gone after an incident four years ago. It was before I met you and Marie.”

“Before you started school,” Reece said. “Is that where—”

“Yeah, that’s where the scars came from. There was an explosion. I—I wasn’t far enough away. Part of me wished for a long time that I’d been closer. I thought I’d lost everyone else that I’d cared about, that I’d left behind on the inside there—in their hands.”

“The Institute.”

Ky nodded slowly. “I was never alone in there. There were a bunch of us that kept resisting them, not giving in. Matthew’s brother had infiltrated the place to try to get evidence so they could bring it down. They were pretty sure that the Institute was responsible for their parents getting killed. I don’t think they were wrong.”

“Why—” Reece stopped, then started again. “Why hasn’t someone done something?”

“I don’t know,” Ky said. “The theory always was because they managed to hide it so well and probably had some people willing to help cover it up. How else to cults stay under the radar?”

“This doesn’t sound small though. Someone must have noticed.”

“Someone probably did,” Ky admitted. “They either just didn’t care or someone found a way to make sure their mouths stayed shut and the Institute stayed protected.” Sometimes both. She drew another shaking breath, trying to fight down the memory of a look and a dismissal, one that she’d buried long ago so she wouldn’t have to feel the sting of it anymore.

And yet, there it was again and the pain and shock was as sharp as it had been in the moment. She hated it.

“They hide behind the veil and shield of religiosity and good works and because the flavor is palatable to so many, they get away with the shit they’re pulling. With what they’re doing to people who don’t even realize they need to protect themselves until it’s too late. And then what the hell kind of fight could anyone put up, right?”

“I guess,” Reece said faintly, leaning forward, titling her head to try to peer up into Ky’s face. “What happened tonight? A case? A case about—about them?”

“Yeah,” Ky said. “Literally the most important case personally to Matthew that he’s ever opened or worked. Like I said, we thought they were gone and that we were never going to be able to get justice for any of them.” The words stuck in her throat and her heart felt it was beating too fast. Reece threaded her fingers through hers and squeezed, hard. It helped. “But they’re not gone. They’re not dead. When I texted you last night I didn’t know what we were about to walk into and when I—” She stopped, blinking back fresh tears. “When Damon called him at dinner, neither of us had any idea. Damon didn’t even have any idea. But we walked in and all of a sudden it was Ridley there on the couch. It was Ridley.”

“Ridley,” Reece repeated slowly. “Ky, I don’t—I don’t remember you ever mentioning someone named Ridley. But then you never talk about anyone so I—”

“I—I know. I know. That’s part of why this is hard. He was my friend—he was all of our friend—when we were there. When the Institute had us, he was part of this little group of people that figured out all kinds of shit about that place and god the Institute hated us for it. But they never dreamed we’d do a damn thing about it, you know? We were kids. We were stupid kids who thought that we could bring the whole thing down around their ears if we just—if we just got loud enough and resisted hard enough. But it’s never that easy, is it? Of course not. Of course it’s not.

“But T.S.—that’s Matthew’s brother—he always kind of had this plan. He was going to get as much information as he could from the inside and then we’d find a way to get out and get that information to Matthew. We thought—hell. We were so stupid and I know that now. We thought that if we could show people what was going on, if somehow we could show them the truth, they’d care and the whole thing would just come down around the Institute’s ears. He and I tried to escape one night and—”

“It’s okay,” Reece said. “You don’t have to tell me if it’s too hard.”

Ky scrubbed the tears from her eyes with the heel of her hand. “Thanks. I—I made it out. Got to Matthew. For a few years, we worked on his plan for me to go back and get them out. And when I say we worked on the plan it was mostly me working on the plan and him trying to keep me from doing anything incredibly stupid. Then when the moment came, somehow the Institute was ready for us. They knew I was coming and set a trap. After that I—I thought everyone was dead. I thought they were gone and that I’d failed them.”

“But you didn’t,” Reece said, her brow furrowing even deeper. “Because you said that when you got to Damon’s there he was.”

Ky nodded slowly. “Yeah. Ridley. Alive and—and I don’t even know how to describe it. But I’d thought that the Institute was gone and they’d never threaten me or anyone I loved ever again and now I know that’s not true.”

“Because he was there.”

“Because he was there,” Ky confirmed. “We drew it on a map. I need to plug everything into Google Earth to see what I can figure out. Matthew’s freaked. I think he thinks I’m going to go off half-cocked.”

“Are you?” Reece asked.

“No,” Ky said, finally pushing to her feet and heading toward the stove, to the kettle spitting steam. “I intend to go off fully cocked. He knows it, too. He just hasn’t come to terms with it.”

“What, exactly, would he be coming to terms with?”

“That this is our chance,” Ky said, bracing herself against the edge of the cooktop. “We thought we’d lost it but now? We have our chance to find a way to stop them. It’s real this time. And this time? I’m not leaving anyone behind. Not again.”

Not again. Never again.

This time, everyone comes home safe—and we get the chance to have a future without the Institute trying to shape it to their whims.

This time, they don’t get to win.

It took them over an hour to get to Damon’s, a trip that should’ve taken them probably half as long. Matthew grew more and more agitated the longer it took, the more traffic and things beyond his ability to control interfered. She’d seen it before, but this time it somehow felt different. As they got off the highway and down onto the surface streets, Ky cleared her throat and studied him from the passenger seat of his car.

“What about this is getting you knotted up like this, Matthew? This—the way you’re being is a little extreme for you.”

“I’ve just got a feeling,” he murmured. “That’s all. Something about this feels too familiar and I don’t like it.”

“Familiar like a past case?”

“Familiar like the only case.”

The one that mattered the most. The one that was seemingly dead. Her heart seized for a moment in her chest and she had to swallow hard before she managed to speak. “But they’re gone. There hasn’t been anything, right? Not since—”

“No,” he said. “No, there hasn’t been anything. Not a whisper, not a peep, not even a damn shadow that I could point to and say ‘Yes, that has to be them.’ There’s been nothing—every damn sign has pointed to them being gone since that installation went up and nearly killed you. No sign of them looking. No sign of them acting.”

“But something about this…”

“I wish it didn’t,” he whispered as he eased the car around a corner into the alleyway alongside Damon’s building and back into the tiny parking lot behind it. “It would mean that I’ve missed something and that you’ve been in danger this whole damn time and I didn’t see it.”

Ever since she’d come to him and confessed everything, told him about what had happened to his brother, Matthew had been fierce in his protection of her, in his efforts to keep him safe, as if all of the love and protectiveness he felt for T.S. had been transferred to the girl who’d escaped where he fell in the attempt—trading a brother for a sister.

“That’s why you wanted me to come along,” Ky said, watching his expression as he parked the car. “To check your gut.”

“No one would know better than you.”

A shiver wracked her but she nodded. “You’re not wrong. I hope your gut is, though. I—I’ve finally started healing.”

“I know,” he said as he turned off the engine. “Me too. But the way Damon described it, it just—the wound’s bleeding again.”

Ky chewed hard on the inside of her lower lip. I hope he’s wrong. “I guess we’ll see.”

“Yeah.”

Matthew only hesitated a moment more before he got out of the car and she followed with only a slight hesitation of her own, heart heavy in her chest yet somehow beating too fast and too hard at the same time. They took the back stair, bypassing the clinic set up in the old furniture storefront that occupied the building’s street level. Damon lived two floors above, with another tenant living between him and the clinic. He was still renovating—five years later—the other two apartments on the fourth and fifth floor of the old building he’d managed to buy at a tax auction years ago, or so the story went. Ky wasn’t sure if it was the truth or not, but it was the way Matthew told it. He and Damon had been friends since their shared childhood growing up north of Detroit—that much she knew.

It only took a few seconds after Matthew knocked for Damon to crack the door open and wave them inside. Two people occupied the living room, a girl in her twenties wrapped in a blanket in an easy chair and a boy of maybe the same age stretched out on the couch, his back to the door.

Something tugged at the back of Ky’s brain, though she couldn’t sort out why. The girl was vaguely familiar, but there was more thing about the figure on the couch that stirred a memory she couldn’t quite grasp. There was something, though. Damon gestured toward the girl.

“This is my cousin Julia,” he said, more to Matthew than to Ky. “Not sure if you remember her, Matthew.”

“Vaguely.” He looked at Julia, offering a faint, brief smile. “It’s nice to see you again Julia.”

Julia nodded slightly, her gaze sliding slowly toward Ky with a furrowed brow. The scrutiny felt heavy, but innocent enough. After all, she wasn’t someone that she recognized from before the Institute or even while she’d been there—it had to be someone she’d met after, if at all. If Julia hadn’t been looking at her like that, Ky might have guessed that maybe she just had one of those faces.

But no. There was something there, she just couldn’t place it. Then Julia did for both of them.

“I know you,” Julia said, her voice quiet.

Ky chewed her lip, nodding slowly. “I know you, too, but I can’t quite remember where from.”

“We worked together.”

It hit, then. Oh. No wonder. She’d only worked at that summer camp for a few weeks before it had just been too much. The job had started in May and Ky had left by June, completely spent and nearly a wreck. It had taken the rest of the summer to recover. It had been in the wake of losing everyone she’d left behind at the Institute and while the distraction should have helped, all it had done was make the old pain worse. “That’s right. I—I’m sorry. That was a bad time for me.”

Julia smiled as she stood from the chair, dropping the blanket onto the seat. “We all have our moments.” She crossed to the couch and sank down onto the edge, leaning over the sleeping figure there. He startled slightly, starting to roll over, a bandage-swathed arm briefly visible. Bile rose in Ky’s throat as she threw a look toward Matthew and Damon.

Matthew was frowning—he must have seen the bandages, too. His gaze turned to Damon, a brow arching.

Damon just shook his head, a flash of worry and pain crossing through his expression. “They really need to talk to you, man.”

“Hopefully, you can help us,” Julia said. “Damon said you might be able to.”

By the time Ky turned toward the sound of her voice, Julia had started to help the young man on the couch start to sit up. His unruly dark red hair stuck up in a dozen different directions, a mop of soft spikes over a narrow but not unhandsome face that framed haunted, sunken green eyes. Ky’s heart crawled up into her throat and seized up as her gaze met his.

Ridley.

“You’re supposed to be dead,” they said in the same breath.

Ky shook herself, swallowed hard against the sudden pressure in her throat, sank down into the chair Julia had abandoned. Was she shaking? She wasn’t sure.

If Ridley’s alive, what does that mean? Are—are they all still alive? Were they still out there, still skating under the radar, hiding from us even as we were hiding my survival from them just in case? The explosion at the facility in Illinois was designed to kill her and she and Matthew had leaned into that—just in case they were wrong, just in case the Institute was still out there. But there had never been any sign of any of that.

Until now.

“I thought you all died,” Ky said. “All been killed.” Sacrificed like it might appease an angry god. Like it would stop us. But it did, didn’t it? They just—they fooled us. They bought themselves time. But to do what? Now what awfulness is coming? The same? Something different?

Why did I ever let myself begin to believe that it was over?

“No.” Ridley’s voice came as a hoarse whisper. He leaned into Julia, one of his hands splaying over her thigh even as she wrapped her arm around him. He was shaking as he stared back at Ky, as shocked to see her alive in front of him as she was to see him. “But I wish I was, now. Jesus pancake flipping zombie Christ on a pogo stick.” His chest convulsed and he squeezed his eyes shut, burying his face in his hands. “Hadrian. Forgive me. Oh god, Hadrian, forgive me.”

He’s talking like he’s—like he’s—   She wanted to scream. She wanted to hurt something. She wanted to fly into a thousand pieces that would never be mended. “Ridley?”

Matthew put his hands on her shoulders. The shaking was bad—her shaking was bad—and she felt sick to her stomach, bile slicking her throat and souring the back of her tongue. Please. He can’t be dead. He can’t be dead. Please don’t tell me he’s dead, Ridley. Please tell me I haven’t lost him. The note of desperation, of desperate, needful hope was in her voice as she leaned forward toward Ridley. “Ridley, is he alive?”

Ridley nodded, finally looking at her again even as Julia’s arm tightened around his shoulders. “Four months ago, at least, when they cut me loose.”

There were so many questions, each flooding in louder than the other. One came out. “They let you go?” They don’t just let people go. No one leaves unless they’re being sent somewhere else, to another facility. Something.

“Not really,” he winced, then rushed on. “Kind of. I graduated. They sent me to someone to watch me. To wait. They were finished with me until the end, until they were ready to use me.”

Her stomach convulsed and for a second, she squeezed her eyes shut. The end. Then nothing’s changed. Then that’s still—

Her hands curled into fists on her knees, nails digging into her palms. The pain was enough to bring her back to herself, to the moment, and the feel of Matthew’s hands tightening again around her shoulders was enough to ground her, at least for now.

Ridley was still talking. “That’s how I got out of there. Then Julia got me away.” He paused, voice getting quiet for a few seconds. “They told us you were dead.”

“They didn’t want any of you to have hope,” Ky said. “Damn it all.” They needed to find a way to stop me from coming after them again—as long as I could feel them, as long as I believed they were out there, I’d never stop trying to find them. The Institute must’ve known. But how—if he’s alive, how—

They told them you were dead. They didn’t believe the first time, but the second? How could anyone have believed you’d live through that?

She sure as hell hadn’t believed any of them had survived it, especially after not being able to feel him anymore. When she hadn’t been able to feel the connection between her and Hadrian anymore and that went on for months, she’d had to accept that they were gone. There had been no evidence to the contrary.

Until now.

“I’m sorry, Ky,” Ridley said. His trembling had begun to ease and he leaned into Julia’s embrace as if she was a grounding force—probably was, truth be known. The pain in his eyes mirrored the pain Ky knew was in hers. “I’m so sorry.”

Their stories were so similar, hers and his. He’d been taken by the Institute the same way she had, only a few months after losing his parents. Their stories were the same as dozens of others in the hands of the Institute. It was a pattern one that no one ever seemed to identify, to unravel. For a long time, she’d wondered how and why. It wasn’t until she’d escaped that she’d really started to understand how it could be possible, how awful things could happen every day and people just looked away. Sometimes, it was just too much, too big, too hard to try to tackle. She didn’t agree, but she’d started to understand how it could happen.

Some horrors were just too much to fully comprehend.

The pain in his voice unknotted something inside of her. “Oh, Ridley,” she sighed. “No. Don’t be sorry. Please, don’t be sorry.” There wasn’t anything you could do. Nothing any of us could have done other than—other than things they made sure we couldn’t do. She caught her lower lip between her teeth, bit down. “What happened to your arm?”

Rage flashed through his eyes. “They microchipped me, Ky.” Anger crept into his voice and in a second, it was like hearing him as he’d been when they were young teenagers, full of rage and resentment for the people that were routinely abusing them, trying to mold them to their own ends. His burning outrage had been something that they’d been in a constant war with, trying to keep it from bubbling over so he wouldn’t get hurt and so their collective planning wouldn’t end up under a microscope. “Like a fucking animal. They microchipped me so they could find me if I ran. I dug it out, threw it out the car window.”

They tracked him. Ky’s hands curled into fists against her knees again. Like an animal—like a lost dog. Someone they couldn’t trust but definitely had use for. They needed to find him in case they needed him—when they decided they needed him. Their goal hasn’t changed. They still mean for it to happen—they’re going to make it happen and use people like us to protect themselves from what comes next.

Whatever they believe comes next.

They can’t be far. Where are they? They have to be close, right? Ky’s voice came as a breath. “Where?”

Julia started to answer, but Ridley cut her off, answering before she could. “The only installation I know about is outside of Andover Commonwealth. He might still be there. I don’t know.”

Of course Ridley had understood that she wasn’t asking where he’d thrown the microchip out the window—he was probably the only person in the room that did. No, she’d wanted to know where they could find the Institute, wherever they’d set up shop, wherever he’d been held before they handed him off to someone else. It would never be far, not if they’d microchipped him. Moving him too far away, sending him too far away would have been too big of a risk.

“I need a map,” Ky said.

Matthew startled, finding his voice. “You can’t be serious.” His eyes were wide as he stared down at her, a storm of emotions flashing through them like lightning spreading through a summer sky.

“I thought he was dead Matthew! Get me a damn map. You want to take them down as much as I do.”

We’ve wasted so much time. We have to find them. We have to stop them.

And if any of our friends are still alive, we have to get them out of there. I can’t just stand back anymore. I have to do something.

Come hell or high water, they would.

Matthew stared at her for a few seconds more.

Then he went and got the map.