“You ready for this, Woodson?” Sketch asks me.
We watch the world go from flashes of solid images, to a straight blur.
“I don’t know,” I hear myself say.
“You have to be,” she says. She grabs my hand and squeezes it, so hard that there’s a pinch of pain. I gasp, and then smile. She knows what I need, what makes me come back to life when I’m feeling so dead.
We are one hundred yards away.
I can see the door of the Initiative building now.
Sketch and Zephyr help drag me to the piles of blankets and rations. We sit close together, wedge ourselves inside, cover our bodies with as much as we can.
By now, we must be fifty yards away.
Sasha’s voice comes over the speaker. “It’s been a fun ride, boys and girls,” she says. Her voice cracks. “They’re filing out of the building. I wish you could see it.” She laughs, like she’s talking to an old friend. “This is gonna taste so sweet.”
Zephyr grabs my hand. I let him hold it. This could be the last moment we ever touch.
Ten yards.
“I imagine I won’t be seeing you on the other side,” Sasha says. I can hear her breathing quicken, hear the smile that lingers on the edge of her voice.
The train speeds up—a final lurch—as the tracks come to an end.
Sasha doesn’t stop. She guns the engine. “Do me a favor?” she asks. “Give ’em hell.”
We fly off the end of the tracks, a giant silver bullet aimed at the Initiative building.
CHAPTER 66
ZEPHYR
The world explodes around us.
The train is a roaring beast that’s come to life. It screeches and screams, and I can literally feel the building tearing apart around us as we crash inside.
Beside me, I feel Sketch and Meadow, jostling around.
I feel a bang against my head, a splash of pain behind my eyes.
The train keeps rolling. Destroying, taking out everything in its path.
And then, as fast as it started, it all stops.
CHAPTER 67
MEADOW
The train stops.
I can’t breathe.
I can’t think.
Get ahold of yourself. Invite fear into your heart, and then crush it.
My father’s voice. I cling to him.
There is commotion, all around. The sound of rubble, falling onto the top of the train. I don’t know if Sketch and Zephyr are okay.
I reach out, grab for them.
A hand finds mine, squeezes it.
We’re silent.
Voices outside.
Shouts and screams.
I am weak, weaker than I’ve ever been, and I know that soon the Initiative will come, open the door, and find us.
You’ll die soon, my mother’s voice calls to me. You won’t even make it halfway, Meadow.
I shut her out. I refuse to believe her.
The switch happens. My strength comes back to me as a rogue wave.
A split second of weakness, and then, I feel it in the deepest parts of me. Surging forth, until my muscles explode with power.
Right as the door is wrenched open, and Initiative soldiers are staring, wide-eyed, inside the train.
CHAPTER 68
ZEPHYR
Meadow is a blur.
She moves like the wind, a rush of silver and black.
A rifle barrel, aimed at every Leech soldier in her way. She takes four out before I realize I’m supposed to help.
Sketch is alive, and safe, and she’s up on her feet, screaming as she shoots.
I can’t find my gun.
The supplies are everywhere, spilled like blood. I scramble around, shoving stuff aside, trying to find it. But it’s nowhere, and all I can hear is a ringing in my ears as everything explodes around me.
“Clear!” Meadow shouts. I whirl around, see her and Sketch leap from the destroyed train car, into the building.
“Wait!” I follow after them. Everything is a blur, dust and rubble, bodies broken and ripped open on the floor.
I slip in blood.
Fall onto a body, lying faceup. I get to my feet, run forward, following Meadow’s shouts.
There are too many halls. Too many doors.
Too many Leeches.
They take out as many as they can.
Find the exit, find the exit, is all I can think. But there’s no chance to find it.
I crash into Meadow’s back.
She stands frozen, facing forward, and I realize why when I look up.
Leeches.
Reinforcements, from other parts of the building, aiming their weapons at us. I turn in circles, looking for a way out.
But there’s no hope.
We’re surrounded on all sides.
CHAPTER 69
MEADOW
I am in a cage that looks like it is meant for an animal.
Zephyr and Sketch are beside me. We are bound, wrists and ankles, with MagnaCuffs. These are impossible to break. Impossible to escape from, without the key. We’re in a small white room. Cameras on the ceiling are pointed at us, watching, like eyes.
I wonder if by now, they have contacted the Shallows.
I wonder if they will send us back.
I wonder why I still care.
At some point, my strength disappears again, and I am as weak as ever.
I feel as if I could topple over, with the slightest burst of wind.
“You think they’re gonna kill us?” Sketch asks. She slams her boots against the cage.
Again and again, until I want to scream.
It’s too loud, too much.
“Would you stop it?” Zephyr snaps at her. “You’re acting like a fluxing idiot! Of course they’re going to kill us. We just took out half their army with a train!”
“Shut your mouth, Zero, before I shove my boot up your ass!”
They start fighting like children, and our triangle begins to break. We are losing our calm, losing our sanity.
Hours pass.
We’re cramped, not able to stand.
I switch again, back to strength, and I want to move, to run, to put my hands around someone’s neck and feel it snap like a fresh-fallen twig. I stay quiet and still.
I wait, and I think of the ways I will kill the people who have captured us. I think of the way their hot blood will feel on my hands. I dream of their tortured screams.
I long for revenge.
Finally, the door to the room opens.
A woman dressed in Initiative black marches in.
CHAPTER 70
ZEPHYR
The woman looks strong and courageous, which isn’t a good sign.
She’s got an angular face, her dark hair pulled back so tight I’m surprised it doesn’t rip from her scalp. She looks at us with so much disgust that I know instantly we’re all fluxed.
She marches in with two armed Leeches at her sides. One of them pulls up a chair for her, swings it around so it’s facing the cage.