Bullshit! Well, you did baton shock the guy and steal his gun . . .

But it doesn’t stop there. I almost jump out of my skin when I see Rayla Cadwell’s pale face pop up on dozens of the crowd’s devices. She’s live on national news. Live!

“What in the actual hell . . .”

“Cut out your microchips!” Rayla tells the nation. Her tattooed arm’s held out in front of her, her sweaty fist clenched into a ball. The rebellion’s salute. She then uses a knife to dig into her right wrist, removing her own microchip. No way that’s an authorized chip.

“Disrupt the way things are run!” Rayla says. “Show those in power we won’t be tracked or controlled any longer. The power is now in our hands.”

Mouth open, I watch several people actually cut into their right wrists with whatever sharp object they have on them. What really has me bowled over is the sight of government employees resisting. Gluts, yeah, I get it. But people who work for the government? This is crazy.

But before they can rip out their chips, the progovernment half of the crowd rushes forward, tackling the newly minted rebels to the ground. Then the real Guard show up.

“Disperse immediately!” a Michigan State Guard orders from a voice amplifier. More soldiers swarm the main street, swiping devices from people’s hands.

Despite the Guard’s best efforts to censor the news, several large screens suddenly light up against building facades, all displaying Rayla’s message front and center.

“The Common’s gained intel Ava and Mira have been detained by the Canadian government. The twins have staged a hunger strike. Even inside a prison, my granddaughters will still not obey.” Cheers erupt throughout the crowd. “And neither will we. We will not simply stand by, unquestioning.”

Rayla pleads into the camera. “Save the twins!”

The woman is a tank—nothing can take her down. She looks like she’s ready for imminent battle, not in hiding, recovering from a gunshot wound. I can’t help but be impressed.

I blink, and the newscast has suddenly cut into split screen, making room for the last person I thought I’d see next to a Common leader’s face. Governor Roth.

The battle lines are drawn: Rayla’s on the left, Roth’s on the right.

The governor’s an intimidating man for sure, his military uniform stacked with a ridiculous number of medals, his cocky face a masterclass in authority. He’s a man I wouldn’t want as my enemy.

“A cowardly traitor such as you should be locked inside a prison cell, not broadcast on national airwaves,” Governor Roth growls at Rayla. Wild shouts of joy come from half the crowd.

Unfazed, Rayla smiles. “I thought I might see you here, Howard.” This is exactly what she wanted. Roth took her bait clean.

In the corner of the screen, the dapper young newscaster looks just as shocked as I am. Eyes wide, voice frozen in stunned silence. He can’t believe his luck—ratings gold just fell into his lap. He simply has to sit there and let it happen.

“My daughter and my son-in-law are dead,” Rayla fires off. “Next you’ve set your sights on my granddaughters in Canada. You’ve openly announced your intention to deport the twins back to Texas, where you will murder them without due process of law.” Her ferocity leaps off the screen.

Rayla’s anger is magnetic; the people around me hang on her every word. “Who will stop the government’s bloodshed?” she demands.

The Common’s side of the crowd erupts in a pissed-off, unified roar. “We will!”

“Disperse immediately!” a Guard’s electronic voice cries, trying and failing to drown out the anti-Roth shouts. A tear gas grenade goes off, and I pull my collar over my nose, stinging eyes still glued to the sparring match like everyone else in this fired-up crowd. We’re not going anywhere.

“My grandson is dead,” the governor strikes back. “Whose son or daughter will be next? Your criminal gang is on a rampage that will soon spiral out of control. You seek to bring chaos, but I will bring order. I am officially announcing my bid for the presidency of the United States.”

That’s when things get really crazy. A gaggle of protesters wearing those seriously sinister Goodwin masks explodes into the street, shouting at the top of their mutinous lungs. “Cut out your chips!”

Next thing I know I’m knocked to the ground, heavy feet crushing my hands and legs. In front of me an abandoned tablet flashes a list of wanted photographs: Rayla Cadwell, Emery Jackson, Xavier King, Owen Hart . . .

“What!” I exclaim. Things just keep getting worse. But before my new fugitive status can sink in too deep, an armored truck rolls up and a legion of soldiers spits into the street, guns raised. Time to go.

“An eye for an eye will make for a blind world,” I hear Rayla threaten. “But we will blind you first. We are many, and we are coming.”

Then all screens cut off, and military floodlights wash the street in bright light. Chaos out in the open—there’s nowhere to hide. Get out of here now!

A Goodwin mask falls seemingly out of the sky and onto my chest. Two split seconds of hesitation and then I put the damn thing on. It’s safer to hide your face, I do a good job persuading myself. I jump to my feet, ready to bolt. It’s just to blend in.

But I think I just joined the rebellion.

MIRA

I’ve lost track of time.

The Mounties took the wristwatch my father gave me all that time ago when he told us to run. I wasn’t fast enough, Father. It was all for nothing. Now I can only lie here and wait for the feeding chair.

Ava and I have gone on a hunger strike before. We were sixteen and applying for college, and Strake University was our only application. Father demanded Ava go to medical school, believing if we became the future Director of the Family Planning Division, we’d always be safe. Ava didn’t know what she wanted, and I certainly didn’t either, but we wanted our right to choose. We must be perfect was always drilled into us. If we weren’t, we knew we could lose everything. This left very little room for teenage rebellion. But that one day we did rebel, in our own quiet way. We managed no food or water for a full ten hours before Father entered the basement with a fast-food peace offering. That night we gathered around the fold-out dinner table in the basement, our dual protest starting a conversation.

I miss my father so much. I’d do anything he demanded of me now, anything at all to make him real again and not just a memory.

I keep my eyes perpetually closed and seal myself off from the hallucinations that have come to populate my cell since I decided to stop eating. Blurry visions of Ava appear now and then, but I’ve come to dread these visits. It hurts too much to watch her disappear; it’s like I keep losing her again and again. Like heartbreak on a loop. Where’d you go, Ava?

The worst agony of my imprisonment is not knowing where she is. Or if she is. There’s a powerful rage intensifying deep inside me where Moore and Roth cannot reach. It’s dormant, but it’s flammable, waiting for a torch so I can burn everything down.

If only I could move.

Exhausting the last of my energy, I open my left eye.

I’m still lying where the doctors left me—curled on the carpet in the center of the floor. They stopped bothering to drag me to the bed I refuse to sleep in, knowing I’ll put up a fight and just wind up here anyway. It’s a small victory, not doing what they want, just lying on the floor that smells of peroxide and vomit.