She nods, like she finally believes it.

“My parents . . .” I sigh, suddenly remembering their existence. There’s a high probability they’re hiding in a Strake dorm room in the dark. Empty stomachs, frantic minds. Two Loyalists in a city full of the Common. A seed of guilt buds wherever my conscience lives. “My mom . . . she’s sick . . .”

I’ve never said that out loud.

“I’ll look after them,” Blaise promises, his fire-toothed boogeyman mask grinning wide. “Besides, I think they liked me.”

Mom and dad could warm up to him, I tell myself. Like I did. They’ll have to. He might be all they have left if things go bad for me and I don’t come back.

The notorious enigma hermit pulls off his mask, showing me his face in a gesture of respect. He trusts me.

And I trust him.

“Let’s get cracking,” he says, stepping back from the car with the Whiz.

“What we live for,” I reply, repeating the line he lectured to me the night our forces aligned. “Subvert the powers that be.”

“Don’t die,” Blaise says, his eloquent way of saying goodbye.

“You too,” I reply. “Either of you.”

Before I can analyze what’s ahead of me or dwell on what I’m leaving behind, I start Duke’s engine and hit the gas.

“It’s just you and me now,” I say out loud to Duke, happy to not be completely on my own.

We’re pulled over on I-35 South, the road to Mexico. Where exactly in Mexico we’re headed, I’m not sure yet. I figure I need to worry first about crossing the border wall without dying.

Five minutes, then it’s go time. But I’ve been waiting for a moment to be alone with Ava’s words, and now’s my chance.

I pull her goodbye note from my pocket.

Maybe she’ll say something rousing and encouraging. Maybe she’ll tell me she’s started to fall for me the way I’ve fallen for her.

Maybe she’s better at expressing herself with a pen, because in person she’s unreadable. She keeps her cards close.

I settle into Duke’s cushioned front seat, ready for the letter to shed some light on Ava’s cavernous inner world.

Unfolding the creased paper, I break into a smile.

Ava didn’t write me a goodbye letter. It’s even better.

She gave me a map.

And it leads me straight to her.

THEO

It’s not real.

The realization fires my mind awake, and I’m wrenched out of my sleep, away from the flames.

I’m burning up, soaked in sweat. My shirt and boxers stick to my skin like I popped the water mattress in my flailing attempts to run from the blaze.

Andrés, the militia captive, was screaming inside the inferno. And I was standing with him, next to him, my whole body consumed in red and orange and blue.

In the night terror, Valeria found me out. She unmasked me and saw plain as day what I am. A Wright, a rebel, who should meet his end in flames.

Chills rack down my spine, the goosebumps on my thighs and arms almost painful.

It wasn’t real.

The grand execution she has me planning will never happen.

Andrés and I are going to make it out before then.

This will all end in escape.

I keep those words on my lips, whispering it like an ASMR podcast as I close my eyes, forcing myself to shut down and get some rest.

The clock says I’ve only been dozing for an hour. I’ll need more than that to stay sharp.

But before I can drop off, a door opens, followed by a brusque voice.

“Get up.”

The Family Planning Director.

“Lights on,” she commands, and every lamp and chandelier in my dark cave ignites at once. I slam my eyes shut, rubbing out the sting of the flash.

When I open my lids, I find Director Wix standing over my bed.

I get up slowly, aiming to show her I might be a puppet with strings, but she’s not the one pulling them.

My heart skips about three beats when I reach for the crystal glass of water on my nightstand and see my knife. Mira’s blade. Did Valeria put it here while I was sleeping?

“Who said you could have your weapon back?” the Director questions, her hawkish face knotted with outrage.

“I did,” I answer, grabbing the knife before she can get her claws on it.

With a doctor’s clinical gaze, she scans my half-naked body. What does she see? An athlete? A Roth? Or just a second-born Glut she still can’t wait to eradicate?

A memory of the laboratory below the Governor’s Mansion tugs at me like a fisherman’s hook.

Mira went white as a sheet when we found the place her own dad must have created.

What were in those smashed refrigerators? What happened on that cold surgical table?

Darren was an expert at building secret rooms belowground. He had been brilliantly successful in concealing twins for eighteen years; what else was he capable of hiding?

The lab was something to do with Project Albatross, I’m guessing.

Wix threatened that the program or whatever experiment the Family Planning Division developed had already gone global.

Is that why we’re here in Mexico?

You won’t win, the Director promised Mira and me.

We’ll see about that.

I flex my forearm, both to show off the strength she failed to defeat and to make sure she gets a good look at my Common tattoo.

She clicks her tongue in disgust. “We’ll have to get rid of that. It will be painful.” She tries to whisper the last part in my ear, but she only reaches my chest. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Careful,” I warn her, “you saw what happened to the last person who threatened me.”

That Guard is probably dead by now. Or has one foot in the grave from thirst in the south Texas wasteland.

Tú eres el próximo, Wix. You’re next.

We stare each other down for a moment, then I brush past her to the mahogany wardrobe in the far corner to get dressed. But my State Guard uniform is gone. Pleased with that development, I grab a navy terry cloth robe instead, wrapping it around myself before turning back to face the Director.

“Where are we going?” I ask, dropping my knife into my robe’s front pocket for safekeeping. I won’t let anyone take anything from me again.

I wrap my fingers around the knuckle duster hilt, imagining the curved grooves to be the steadiness of Mira’s hand.

I’m going to stop them, Mira. Even if I go down trying.

The Director beckons for me to follow her to the locked door that flanks the right side of my bed. She scratches the wood in what I guess is a knock, and immediately the door snaps open.

“I trust you are well rested,” Roth welcomes me from the other side, arms stretched out like a cross. A petite servant with a plump, meek face is busy meticulously brushing his freshly laundered uniform, which now includes a sharp military cap embellished with a shining five-pointed Lone Star.

He looks healthier than I’ve ever seen him. And cheerful. Too cheerful for anyone’s good. He doesn’t even appear bothered by the translator mirroring his words back at him in Spanish.

“The meeting with the lieutenant was a success?” I ask, poking around for intel. “Knock out any more teeth?”

Governor’s thin lips crack a smirk. The chills are back, a shudder down my limbs, but luckily, it’s easy to hide my aversion to making the devil laugh beneath my plush robe.