I can’t beg or plead. Instead, I just watch while she attaches the tip of the tube to the bag and follow with teary eyes as the liquid formula flows down the thin plastic toward me. My stomach clenches, preparing for the assault.

“You need to be strong for your journey,” the doctor’s voice says from somewhere near the door. “You have a visitor arriving.”

Oh God. Roth. Our time’s up. My plan has failed.

The formula fills my stomach, and my muscles start to heave. I cough up spittle and defeat. In a last-ditch effort, I will myself to vomit, to reject the liquid and protest, but my feeble efforts are spiritless and empty.

“It’s easier if you just give in,” the assistant says. She drags one of the chairs from the dining table and sits directly before me, leaving me nothing to look at but her taunting face. I close my eyes.

“Just give in,” she whispers.

I’m still strapped to the chair. They think I still might retch up my meal like I did after my last force-feeding. But I don’t see the point. The doctors will just order another session, and I’ll have to go through it all over again.

So I simply sit and digest. Absorb my future and my fate. I wonder if they will let me see Ava before the end.

“You killed your leader’s son,” the bullish assistant says from her chair, sharp elbows on her knees. She looks a few years older than I am, an age I’ll never reach. “You deserve whatever’s waiting for you.”

It’s a waste of energy to argue my innocence. Her false viewpoints and inflexible judgments are cast in stone. What words could possibly be said that might reshape her way of thinking?

“Halton was his grandson, not his son” is all I say. She might as well hear the facts even if she won’t listen.

This shuts her up for a bit, and I’m left alone again with my burnt-out thoughts.

Most people confuse this fact about Halton’s parentage. His mother died from skin cancer when Halton was just a child, but his father—Governor Roth’s son—had disappeared long before this. About a year after Halton’s birth, as Father told it. No one dared to probe further as to why Roth’s true son would vanish from high-ranking society and abdicate his position as the governor’s heir. Ava and I suspected foul play. A transgression or scandal that we could use as blackmail if our family secret was ever discovered. But such thoughts quickly faded, knowing proof could never be found inside our censored state. Halton’s father became a fuzzy recollection, then an unremembered man.

The forgotten son, Ava and I called him.

What was his name . . .

Stop thinking about the past, I chide myself. You should think about what lies ahead.

“I’ve been wondering,” the assistant asks, rising from her chair, “will your country live-stream your execution?”

I can’t lift my hands to plug my ears and block her threats. A song rises up in my throat, and I start to hum, trying desperately to tune her out. It’s an old favorite of my mother’s, one I would sing with Ava when we were little.

“I hear Texas is bloodthirsty enough to make a real show of it. The final end to the twins.”

My song dies. I let my body go slack, and I give in.

“How do you think they’ll do it?” she ponders, inviting images of my father’s death to play inside my mind. “Whatever they choose, I hope it’s not quick and easy.”

Nothing ever is.

They gave me back my wristwatch. A prize for good behavior. I haven’t bothered looking at the time. Does it even matter anymore?

I hear the door open. I have the energy now to easily turn around and see who entered, but I don’t. I keep my back to the door, staring at the single pink flower of a blooming eagle’s claw on the wall shelf in front of me. It’s the same cactus I tried to give Halton in the greenhouse the night everything fell apart.

I don’t question its presence all the way up here, in the wrong climate, the wrong setting. It’s clear it’s a sign. I imagine it as Halton’s final message: My family won.

“Mira Goodwin,” President Moore says behind me.

When I make no indication I’ve heard him, he moves toward me, his footsteps heavy despite the plush wool carpet. “Ms. Goodwin, if you would follow me,” he says pleasantly. I remain seated, my legs crossed, my arms folded over my chest. “I see you have decided not to wash or change,” President Moore continues, his voice tight with displeasure.

A fresh set of clothes and unused bottles of waterless-bathing gels lie next to me on the floor. I won’t clean up and look pretty for the handoff. Did they really think I would?

“I trust you will follow me by your own volition and not make me call my officers,” he says. Looking away from the cactus, I glimpse the red uniforms of two Mounties waiting by the door.

I wait a few more seconds before pushing myself up from the floor. My bangs, overgrown and oily, hang low over my eyes, blocking my view of the man who caught me. I follow him out the door.

It’s a short march down the white, characterless hallway. President Moore stops beside an open doorway, motioning for me to enter first. With the two Mounties closing in behind me, there’s no other choice but to move inside the small, excessively bright room. As soon as I cross the threshold, the door seals shut, locking me in.

A clear glass wall greets me, a woman in a solemn black suit seated a few feet away on the other side. I immediately recognize her as the United States Secretary of State. Any hidden spark of hope I might have still had is extinguished at the sight of her and her kitschy boots. She’s a Texan, a Roth woman through and through—his rumored running mate for the upcoming presidential election.

“Both of you, take a seat,” Madam Secretary demands.

Both of you?

“Ava?!” I scream. She must be locked in a room like mine somewhere close by.

Pounding erupts on the wall to my right, the sound of fists fighting to break down a barrier. I slam myself against it, a wave of fury and relief sinking me to my knees.

“Ava!” I scream again, beating my own fists against the thick wall to make sure she knows I’m here.

The secretary watches our reunion, unmoved. President Moore appears behind her, his two Mounties on either side.

“Ava and Mira Goodwin,” she says, swinging her head left and right to get a good look at both of us. “I have orders from our president to take you back to New Washington.”

Ava must have said something Madam Secretary didn’t like. She raises her penciled-on brows and shakes her head.

“Girls, you don’t have the numbers,” the secretary informs Ava firmly. “The Common is nationally hated, considered a low-ranking guerilla group bent on killing the government and its people.”

The Canadian president smirks, taking a seat in his velvet chair, an I-told-you-so twinkle in his hard-hearted eyes.

“Your dual hunger strike was seen as nothing but a selfish stunt. A last-gasp effort to make headlines. I am speaking with you now only to gauge your strength for travel. There is no debate; you are returning to the States.”

She stands, and I stand too.

“You claim you want the killing to stop,” I say, my fast breaths fogging up the glass that separates us. “And yet you take us to our murder.”

“Both you and Ava will stand a fair trial and pay for your crimes as justice sees fit,” she responds, turning toward President Moore. “Mr. President, we are ready for the detainee transfer.”