It’s here that I, too, seek to feel whole. It’s the only place I can hope to find respite. To know every sacrifice has been worth it. Or will be.

“Last week I witnessed a seven-year-old boy meet his sister for the first time,” Ciro says as we enter the extensive lobby. He has to shout above what sounds like the high whirs of a windstorm. “Half sister, of course, but it’s all the same. Blood is blood.”

Turns out there were thousands more out there like Theo. Children of perfectly—or disastrously—timed affairs.

Straightaway, I move to one of the four industrial-sized fans—the source of the rumble—their circular, bladeless design making them look disturbingly like faceless heads. Besides us, they’re the only other occupants in the room.

Today, the orderly lines of chairs are empty. They were empty yesterday. Empty the day before.

“More will come,” I say, turning from the hot air that blows back the loose flyaways of my messy bun. I’ve let my hair grow out since I stopped running. Dyed-blonde tips, with my natural red roots. I’m still trying to figure out who I want to be. “More will come looking for their sons and daughters.”

Freed people from prison farms all over Texas, thousands of second-born orphans, live at the Center, waiting for someone to claim them. Haven and the Common Elders look after the youths in the meantime, but a hospital isn’t a home.

“And sisters and brothers,” Ciro adds as he collapses into a chair. Though he still shouts over the fan, I catch the soft wistfulness in his voice.

All at once it hits me why Ciro visits the Center. Why he even requested a key. He must search for solace here, the same as me.

Ciro misses his family. He wants to be around other siblings, those who understand the bond.

“Still no word from your sisters?” I ask, dropping into the chair beside him, looping my arm around his. “Or your parents?”

Ciro barely manages to shake his head. His hands, usually as animated as his words, sit limp in his lap. He sighs. “The worst part is the not knowing.”

The way the Canadian president likes it.

After our takeover of Dallas, Ciro’s face made global news, revealing his pivotal role within the Common. Since then, his parents and three sisters are unaccounted for. As illegal migrants in Canada, anything could have happened to them. But my shrewd guess is that President Moore took them. Had the wealthy family arrested and imprisoned. Just to prove he could. They’re probably in the same cell he threw me in.

My stomach clenches, remembering the biting pain of the feeding tube.

“We will find your family,” I tell him, squeezing his hand with as much conviction as I can muster. Just like we’ll find Theo. “Never cross a Cross, right?”

Ciro smiles, a real one this time. It makes him look young and hopeful. “You’re right, Ms. Goodwin. And good will win.”

A loud crash from the other room sends us both to our feet. I reach for my knife that isn’t there. You gave it away, I remind myself. To Theo. Maybe he’s using the blade this very moment to finish off the governor. To make his escape back to us.

“It sounded like shattering glass,” Ciro whispers as we advance down the short hall, our hands hovering above the guns at our hips, ready.

When I spot the broken window of Haven’s office, I start sprinting.

The moment this building was claimed by the Common, I scraped away the vinyl letters beside the door—“Director of Family Planning”—with my own sharp nails. Now, in its place, someone has slapped up a metal plaque with five letters still dripping with red paint.

GLUTS

My hand dives for my gun, my feet poised to run after whoever did this, but Haven’s voice stops me short.

“Mira.” The novelty of hearing my name spoken aloud, in Dallas, is still fresh and jarring. This is the city in which I spent eighteen years “playing” Ava. I was only ever Mira belowground, in our family’s basement.

“Haven,” I say, advancing toward my mother’s twin. She flinches, like she’s still adjusting to owning her real name. She only just learned it the night she reunited with Rayla. The night my grandmother died.

“Did you see who did this?” I ask heatedly, fuming at the violation of the office, of us. I snap my head back and forth, for the first time cursing the lack of surveillance. Having no cameras is a double-edged sword.

Haven points to the ground on the other side of the smashed window. Ciro and I follow her into the room and see a girl splayed across the bamboo flooring. Her raven hair covers half her face, but I recognize her at once: Mckinley Ruiz, my former classmate, Halton Roth’s onetime girlfriend. Even passed out, she somehow maintains her snooty expression. The last time I saw her she was laughing as I was sentenced to die on the Capitol steps.

“She didn’t see me coming,” Haven says calmly, like this show of violence doesn’t faze her. She holsters her pistol, tossing her silver-streaked red mane behind her shoulders as she kneels. “Knocked her on the back of the head. Twenty minutes before she wakes.”

I toss Haven a pair of zip-ties. “Where are the Common Guards?” I ask, exasperated. Mckinley should never have made it this far.

“No Guards,” Haven answers, shaking her head like she’s seen enough Guards to fill two lifetimes.

Ciro disappears, then returns with the plaque, the sound of glass punctuating his every step. He holds out the thin sheet of metal at arm’s length, as if the five-letter word could reach out and strangle him.

Ciro’s a fourth-born. Three times more undesirable than even a twin, some would argue.

Before I can take the plaque from him, he throws it down and stomps his heel again and again, denting the metal, smearing the letters until the slur is no longer legible.

Chest heaving, he looks to me, then Haven. He sways, like he’s exerted the last of his energy. My aunt grips his shoulder, her quiet sturdiness his new leaning stick.

“Glut is only a word,” Haven tells us, her bright emerald eyes shining into mine. “It only has meaning if we let it.”

I nod, trying to allow her words to resonate, but an echoing storm of boots yanks my focus away.

More vandals? Attackers?

We stand behind our weapons, squaring up for a fight, but it’s Ava and Barend who come rushing in. They wear matching scowls, their urgency and outrage radiating like a force field. I step back, my mind reaching for the worst.

“The Texas Guard is here,” I say, much calmer than I feel. I listen for the sirens, harnessing all my fear into my grip on my gun.

Ava shakes her head and flings back her oversized hood, not a lick of perspiration spoiling her shimmering red locks. She must have used Owen’s air-conditioned car to find me, I think fleetingly. I was sopped in sweat thirty seconds into my slog across downtown.

Is that where she goes when she leaves me? To Owen Hart?

“It’s Alexander,” Ava says, spitting the name. She wastes no time with inquiries about the smashed glass or the unconscious girl on the floor. “He’s leading an unauthorized search mission without us.”

“If we don’t leave now,” Barend announces, “we won’t make it to Guardian Tower in time.” Clad in a Common Guard’s uniform, he barrels for Ciro, hooking him protectively with his arm. “Let’s go.”