I sink against the steps and close my eyes, savoring the cold of the stone. They might find me dead here in the morning. My mother will scream. John will furrow his brows in grief. And Eden …

Then the door suddenly opens a crack. I look up and find myself staring into the blue eyes of my older brother.

He doesn’t recognize me, at least not at first. His mouth curves down into a frown I’m all too familiar with, and for an instant, I feel like I never left home at all. I crack a feeble smile at him.

“It’s me,” I manage to croak out. My hands move aside from my wound to show him the blood soaking my shirt. “Could use some help, John.”

That’s when the realization hits him. He knows my voice, remembers the way I screamed for him when my train pulled away after I failed my Trials. His face drains of color, and his eyes widen in shock.

“Daniel?” he whispers.

But I’m too weak to answer now. I slump against the steps, trying hard to focus on them. I feel arms wrap around me and scoop me up. I shiver in the cold. Then I’m lying on a dining table lit by a flickering light, and staring up into the bewildered face of my brother.

“It’s impossible,” he’s saying over and over again. He runs a hand through his hair even as he takes a knife and cuts my shirt open. “I saw them take you away—they told us you were—you were—”

“Don’t tell Mom,” I whisper. “Don’t tell Eden.” A hoarse cry escapes from my lips as he wraps something tightly around my wounded waist. “I had no choice but to come to you. But if they know I’m here, they’ll kill all of you.”

John pauses in his work for a moment. He leans his head down toward me and rests it against my shoulder. It takes me a moment, through my delirium, to realize that he’s crying. I try to put my arm around his shoulders, tell him I’ll be all right. But even here, something cuts through my dream.

This isn’t real. Because John is dead.

I try to focus on the ceiling. It twists and morphs, and then somehow I turn into the one standing by the dining table. John isn’t here anymore—I’ve replaced him. And the figure on the table isn’t me, but Eden, a child version of him, chubby-cheeked and wide-eyed, in shock as blood seeps from his chest.

I frantically try to stanch my little brother’s bleeding, but it’s no use.

“Eden?” I call his name. “Eden. Look at me.” My hands are covered with scarlet. No matter how tightly I bandage his injury, the blood continues to pour. What has he done? He’s gone to save others—as always. But now he’s dying, and there’s nothing I can do about it. I look up and scream for help.

There’s no one here, though. It’s just the two of us.

 

* * *

 

I jolt awake with a shudder. There are smooth hands on my face, but it takes me a moment to realize that they belong to June. In the darkness, I can barely make out her eyes. She’s looking at me in concern.

“Hey, hey,” she says gently. “You’re okay. You’re right here.”

My body’s drenched in sweat and trembling all over. Apparently, I collapsed on the couch and drifted off to sleep while waiting for Eden’s message to come in, for him to tell us that he’s securely in Hann’s circle. The image of young Eden bleeding to death on the table is still fresh in my mind. I close my eyes in an attempt to blink it away, but it lingers like a stain against my eyes.

“I’m okay,” I finally whisper, nodding at June. “Just a nightmare. It’s fine.”

From her expression, I can tell June knows instinctively that my nightmare must have been about Eden. But she doesn’t press it. Instead, she nods and looks away toward the window. The metal of her epaulettes clinks softly.

I didn’t realize she was dressed in her full uniform. Her eyes are alert, glittering in the night.

“What’s going on?” I say, gradually shaking off my dream’s fog of terror. The room comes into sharper focus. Through the window, I can see the silhouette of Ross City’s outskirts. “Eden—did we hear from him yet?”

June shakes her head, and before she even starts talking, I feel the ominous pit stretch in my stomach. “Nothing. It’s zero-three-hundred hours. He should have responded hours ago.”

No sugarcoating. There’s no use in doing it, and June knows. I fight to keep my fears at bay, but she can see it spilling out onto my expression. I sit up straighter on the couch. “Any signals at all coming from the drone Eden has? Is he still in the same location?”

June looks at me with a grave face. “Daniel, there’s no more location signal.”

No more location signal. It can only mean three things: Eden chose to remove it, for his and Pressa’s safety. The drone itself doesn’t work anymore. Or …

Hann has discovered and disabled it.

EDEN

 

My mind whirls frantically as the guard motions for us to follow him.

Hann had taken the drone. He must have.

For an instant, I think we’re done. They’ve caught us, and there’s nothing we can do to stop Hann from killing us.

In front of us, the guard gives us an impatient wave of his hand. “Hann’s waiting,” he says.

Pressa glances once at the door and mouths a single word at me. Go.

I don’t know where our surge of courage comes from. Desperation, probably.

Pressa’s hand shoots out and seizes the guard’s wrist. Before he even has time to utter a shout of surprise, she yanks him hard inside the room and shoves him against the wall.

He gasps, then snarls at Pressa as he moves to grab her throat.

I strike him hard in the jaw before he can touch her.

If there’s anything I’ve learned from my brother, it’s how to throw a punch after getting jumped.

My hit lands true. The guard’s knees buckle, and everything in him goes limp as he slides slowly down to the floor.

Pressa gives me an impressed look. “Nice one,” she says.

I shrug. “The benefit of a brother who’s an AIS agent,” I reply.

We waste no time stealing out of the room and locking it behind us. Our clock is ticking now. There’s no going back. My steps quicken across the metal stairs leading to the upper levels of the building.

Here, I recognize the cavernous space that houses Hann’s construction site. Everything is cloaked halfway in shadows, as if silhouettes of guards are standing in every corner. We move slowly, startling at every stairway.

Finally, we arrive at the construction site I remember from when I’d first been held captive. The mazelike cavern full of rows of blinking machine lights is as ominous and mesmerizing as ever, the glow casting everything in the space in a dim blue hue.

I pull Pressa down beside me before she can reach the top landing of the steps. There, we crouch in the shadows, watching the two guards standing along the metal railing leading down to the main floor.

Pressa’s gaze sweeps the endless corridors of computers, her mouth slightly open at the sight. Then she glances at me. “How do we get down there?” she whispers, emphasizing the words soundlessly.

I glance at the guards. Their eyes are turned down toward the rest of the floor space. If we can just get past them, we’ll be able to lose ourselves in the maze of halls and make our way to the control platform located at the other end of the building.