The red prison jumpsuit looks good on her.

All up and down the hall, Guards tear open cell doors using physical metal keys. By Emery’s orders, the whole capital was fitted with actual locks after Roth’s unprecedented citywide lockdown that trapped citizens inside their own homes.

Electronic lock systems are a thing of the past, as are corrupt and avaricious cabinet members, like Secretary Adair.

“We have to get to cell one-five-one before the Guards do,” I say, quickening my steps.

Without another word, Mira and I split up. Divide and conquer, like we’ve always done.

Keeping my head confidently up like I’m here with an official purpose, I pass two stressed-looking Guards, hands on their taser guns.

I pause when I reach cell 148. The steel-reinforced concrete box my father was locked inside when he was murdered by Roth. I linger, closing my eyes and reaching out my heart, but do not feel his presence.

Wherever my father is now, he’s someplace much higher, and free.

I move on to cell 151 and find the door is still closed—I got here first—but the Guard’s only four cells away. I have to act fast.

Pulse racing, I open the small square window in the center of the solid door. Blackness. No emergency lights in the six-by-eight-foot room.

“This is Ava Goodwin,” I say hurriedly, lips pressed against the fortified glass. “My sister and I leave tonight on a mission to kill Roth. No one has come closer to achieving that than you.”

I hear a slow shuffling to the door. A show of resilience against the stifling heat, which makes every physical exertion feel like moving a mountain.

Good. She’s still a fighter.

The dark outline of a willowy figure fills the window. I can just make out two unkempt French braids, sharp cheekbones, and long, sweeping eyelashes.

Skye Lin.

“You have fifteen seconds to decide if you want to join us or remain here,” I say.

Three seconds of silence, then, “Emery is really letting me out?” Skye’s voice is weak and hollow, like I’m the first person she’s spoken to since her incarceration. “I don’t believe she would forgive me.”

Emery was Skye’s mentor when she was young, and she took Skye’s betrayal of the Common like a gut shot. An unhealable wound. Our leader hasn’t set eyes on Skye since the night she ordered her arrest.

“No, I’m letting you out,” I answer.

I’m not offering forgiveness for her past treachery, only the chance to finish what she started.

Skye smiles, but it’s a gesture devoid of pleasure. It’s heavy, mournful. Yet intrigued.

I will take full responsibility for Skye if she chooses to come with us. She isn’t a danger to anyone outside of governors and Family Planning Directors, the same people that we are hunting.

Adding Skye to our team, a seasoned assassin with a murderous skill set none of us possess, was the brief vision I saw back at Emery’s office. Left alone in this cell with nothing but her thoughts and regrets, the need for revenge must burn through Skye’s veins.

And, I’m betting, the desire to avenge herself.

Guards close in on both sides, two doors away now. I wipe the sweat from my brow, ignoring the sudden rush of lightheadedness caused by the intense heat.

I stand on the balls of my feet, ready to move fast, whichever way Skye decides.

Just as I think it’s too late, Skye presses her right hand flat against the window. I see cuts on her palm, slashes that follow the creases of her skin to minimize noticeability.

But I see them, and her pain.

Skye’s last words in Roth’s bunker come rushing back to me. Please. Shoot me. I can’t go back to Guardian Tower.

“Yes . . . I will join you,” Skye says. I wait for her to say more—to give an explanation, a declaration, something—but then realize nothing more is required. Locking eyes through the thick glass window, we understand each other without any extra words.

Right on time, Mira races up beside me, breathless and gripping a large metal key—her part in this break-out operation. She raises a questioning eyebrow. Is she coming?

I nod and Mira places the key into the lock. Together we pull open the heavy door.

“Skye Lin, General Pierce has asked me to escort you to the Common headquarters,” I proclaim, loud enough for the nearby Guards to hear. “Place your hands in front of you and come with us.”

People see what they expect to see. The Goodwin sisters are trusted Common members, so that’s exactly what they see happening now. Ava and Mira Goodwin doing sanctioned work for the greater cause.

Skye presents her wrists for handcuffs, and just like that, Mira and I walk our final recruit across the hallway, down the elevators, and out Guardian Tower’s front door.

And soon, clear out of Dallas.

PART II

THE SEARCH

THEO

I really am a puppet now. And the saddest part about that depressing fact is that I don’t even have any strings. There are no zip-ties around my wrists. No taser gun pressed into my shoulder blades directing me to obey.

If I’m ordered to wash up, I do it.

Cut your hair, I do it.

Put this on, I do it. Sit here, I do it.

Keep your mouth shut, I do it.

And don’t even think about running again.

That one, at least, I don’t obey.

Escape is a desire that never leaves my mind. In any new room, hallway, vehicle, or country I’m hauled off to, I’m continually devising an exit plan. Daybreak to midnight, even in my rare moments of fitful sleep. Plot, scheme, prepare. Ready to make a run for it at all times.

Patience is an action of its own, I’ve begun to learn.

If Roth believes he’s broken me, diminished me into his little marionette, I figure I will be given more freedom within my prison. If I act the role of a convincing convert, the cuffs will stay off. The number of my muscled and heavily armed entourage will dwindle down to none. I will be trusted.

Eventually, left alone.

Then the window of opportunity will bust wide open.

I will make a clean getaway. No obstacles barring my path but the miles between me, Dallas, the Common. Mira.

So far, this current tactic of biding my time and playing yes-man has won me greater mobility, and at present, a Pacific-blue leather chair next to Roth inside the reception room of a lavish palatial estate that could only have been designed for a king.

Or a lord, maybe.

A water lord?

If the dozen men dressed in expertly tailored designer suits posted throughout the room holding gold-plated rifles are any indication, I’d say yes. Each guy has on his own distinct colored silk shirt, elaborately patterned, but all have on identical crocodile belts fastened with a gold S.

The Salazar cartel.

Even all the way up in Canada, I’ve heard of them. Everyone has. Not only is their capo the tenth richest person in the world, her grisly gunfights with rival cartel and Mexican security forces make international headlines almost weekly. She became infamous when she had her cartel abduct and butcher the entire family of a police officer who arrested one of her lieutenants—his infant grandchildren, aunts, uncles, second cousins, in-laws, everyone. All to send a message.

I lean back and eyeball Governor, as he instructed me to call him, on the other side of a highly decorative, and frankly erotic, painting I suspect could be an actual Gustav Klimt. His formal blue service uniform looks drab in comparison to our ritzy hosts and surroundings, even with all its badges and ribbons.