“HOLY…SHIT…”

I jumped at the sound of Priyanka’s voice.

The girl turned slightly to the side, jolting as the dry IV line tugged back at her. She jerked her bound hands forward, ripping the empty bag from its strap.

“Here, let me do it,” I said. Easier said than done. My ankles were locked together by loops of zip ties. I had just enough range of movement to get my knees under me and inch over to her.

The chain linking my handcuffs clicked and strained as I pulled off her tape in one go, ignoring her sharp “Shit, ow!”

“That’s what hurts?” I said in disbelief. The man’s helmet light was still glowing against the wall beside her. I’d made sure not to fry the device, thinking we might need to use it. Now it only illuminated her collection of cuts and bruises. Seeing them seemed to wake up my body to the reality of my own injuries. For a second, the pain took my breath away.

I shook my head, trying to clear the throbbing as I removed the IV line from Roman’s arm.

“I’m adding it to my list of complaints,” she muttered.

Roman let out a soft sigh as the needle slipped free, but he didn’t immediately rouse like I’d hoped.

I tugged down the bag of yellow fluid, turning it toward the helmet’s light to try to find some kind of label. About a quarter of it was gone. It looked like he’d gotten a higher dose than both Priyanka and I had, and I didn’t know how long he’d be out, or if we’d have to try to break out of the truck without him.

It would be easier. I couldn’t stop the thought from welling up in my mind. One less person to potentially have to run from. One less reason to question my gut.

But also one less person to fight off the people who had taken us.

I released a hard breath. Who was I kidding—I was never going to leave either of them behind to the mercy of these people. For one thing, I wouldn’t be able to look myself in the eye again. If there was even the slightest chance they were innocent bystanders, then I was going to give them the exact same chance I had to get out of here.

“Where the hell are we?” Priyanka asked, the words slightly slurred.

The thick curtain of her wavy black hair fell over her shoulder as she propped herself up on her elbow and, finally, pushed herself fully upright. The drug was clearly still working its way through her system; she had that slightly glassy look of someone whose brain was caught up in a fog. Which meant that I had an opportunity.

In another time, and in a very different world, I would have felt guilty for trying it, but this was life or death. And I was going to make it out of this truck alive no matter what.

“I’m a little more concerned about who took us,” I said evenly. “Did you recognize any of them?”

“Why are you asking me that?” she said, reaching her bound hands up to touch a spot on her cheek where a new bruise was forming. It was the size of a fingerprint. “Shouldn’t you have some sort of catalog of bad guys we can work through? Who are the idiots who are always out screaming on highways and at speeches with signs?”

“You mean Liberty Watch?” I said.

“If they’re the ones who think that you Psi should make up some sacrificial army, then yeah, Liberty Watch.”

Ice prickled down the length of my spine.

“You Psi?” I don’t know how I managed to get the words out. I don’t know how I managed to smile when panic’s numbing fingers were stroking my face. “How hard was that hit you took?”

A heartbeat of silence passed between us before Priyanka reached up and pressed a hand to her face. “Yeah. Wow. My mind is a mess right now…I’m—” She sucked in a breath through her nose, glancing down at Roman. “I’m…I’m one of those…a prodigy.”

“Excuse me?”

“Oh…a Green? Whatever the government has decided the ‘correct’ label is,” she said.

None of this felt right. None of this. Were they not even Psi? I hadn’t seen them use their abilities—they looked young, but so did plenty of adults who weren’t affected by IAAN.

Do something, I thought, feeling my handcuffs’ lock again. Don’t let them get free before you do.

I leaned forward, bracing the bottoms of my palms against the ground, crawling forward, toward the dead man. Priyanka’s gaze was almost suffocating as she watched me. My breath caught with the effort it took not to turn and meet it head-on.

Keys—I needed the keys to the handcuffs. I felt across the man’s charred chest for anything that might have once been a pocket. The smell of burned hair and skin made me gag until I finally had to hold my breath. The utility belt around his waist was in better shape, but the few pouches attached to it either had cigarettes stashed inside, or were empty.

What I was doing was horrifying, but my mind had switched back into survival mode. The only thing I could really focus on right now was getting out of this truck and staying alive.

If the handcuff keys had been on him, they’d either melted or had been thrown off him as the man had tried to save himself. The better bet was that they were with one of the soldiers up front.

“It’s bad enough that we have to announce our abilities with those hideous buttons, but why do we have to use the labels they gave us?” Priyanka asked. “Why did you government-Psi types keep that?”

My fingers trembled as they brushed the hilt of the small knife attached to the man’s utility belt. This could work. I just needed to wedge the blade between the small links and use enough force to break one of them.

My eyes fell upon the gun at his side, and when I finally glanced back at Priyanka, she was looking at it, too.

Then her dark eyes shifted, meeting mine.

Shit, I thought, my fingers tightening around the hilt of the knife as I pulled it from his belt. Say something, say anything…

But it was Priyanka who broke the silence. She clucked her tongue, her smile too easy to be completely natural. “What a shock, no response. Did your speechwriter not give you any canned one-liners to use?”

I knew a lot of Psi didn’t necessarily see the point of the work we were doing with Cruz and the interim Congress—but they also didn’t see half of what we were up against. It was always easier to be cynical than actually roll up your sleeves to help.

“Well, you’re clearly not a fan of my work,” I said, keeping my voice neutral. “But I guess that makes sense. Roman already told me you weren’t really there for the speech.”

That was a lie, but her lips parted in surprise all the same.

Dread braided with disappointment, until I could no longer tell one feeling apart from the other.

I wanted to be wrong.

I wanted to believe them.

It was like I could see the flurry of thoughts and excuses moving behind her dark eyes as she flicked away each option, searching for a best one. She finally settled on the one I expected: outright denial. “Clearly his brain was fogged by whatever drug they pumped into his system. We were there because we had to be, as members of the new class.”

It was tempting to keep digging, especially as the lies began stacking up like a house of cards. But one wrong move on my part, however slight, could send everything crashing down on me, escalating an already dangerous situation. A little suspicion would read as normal, but if Roman and Priyanka did have something else planned for me, pushing them too hard for answers would only make them close ranks and shut down.

I had exactly one guaranteed way of making it out of here and contacting DC: alone.

“Good point. He could have just misheard me, too,” I said. “Your families must be worried sick about you. Did you see if they were hurt? As soon as we’re out of here, we’ll find a phone for you to call them.”

Or we’d see if they made an excuse not to. Or pretended to put a call through.

“Ouch with that assumption,” Priyanka said. “Roman is my only family, and vice versa.”

Shit. The forced lightness of those words pinged against my mind as truth. Shame burned in my throat. I shouldn’t have brought families into this. God knew I didn’t ever want to talk about mine.

“Sorry,” I said with weak smile. “I’m a bit on edge. To answer your earlier question, though, I have no idea what group they could be. Antigovernment, anti-Psi, the Psion Ring…”

Priyanka held out her hands for me to cut the zip ties there, the rigid lines of her posture finally relaxing. I cut the ties binding my ankles together before taking care of hers. By the time her hands fell back into her lap, her expression was no longer shuttered; she lost that defensive glint in her eye, and, for a fraction of a second, her lips traced out a faint smile. There and gone.

But I saw it.

Who are you? I fought to keep my face blank, even as the hair stood up on the back of my neck. Who the hell are you?

“Well, you can cross the Psion Ring off that list,” Priyanka said. “It wasn’t them.”

“How can you be sure?” I asked.

The group was like a ghost; they had countless agencies trying to track them and reports of violence done in their name, but they’d never stepped out of the shadows. Many people assumed that they were some remnant from the Children’s League, but everyone affiliated with the League was accounted for, and most had moved directly into government work.

“Because,” Priyanka said, “we used to work with them.”

The truck swayed as it hit a bad patch of road. I stared at her.

“Oh, come on. I saw the expression on your face when you watched Roman take those guys out,” she said, looking down at him. “You’re not stupid, and you have a working set of eyes. It’s obvious we’ve had some kind of tactical training. I’m surprised you didn’t put it together yourself.”

Her tone was so baiting, I felt my temper rise and had to take a breath.

“I didn’t think the Psion Ring actually existed,” I told her. And where’s your proof?

“Well, that would be because the whole point is to operate under the radar and covertly push for the things no one in the government is willing to give us,” Priyanka said, swaying with the movement of the truck. “More importantly, it’s Psi-only.”

Clever. I pushed back the strands of hair glued to my face, considering it. She’d picked the one group the government, myself included, knew next to nothing about. I’d hated the idea of the Psion Ring from the moment I’d heard about it. The last thing the Psi needed was a rogue element causing chaos.

“So you were there to do…what? Report back on what I said?”

“We were there for a fresh start,” she said, her voice taking on an edge. “To try to get our lives straight again after leaving an organization that got to be too much. Too violent. They were broadcasting your speech, remember? What information would I be gathering that I couldn’t get by sitting in my dorm room and turning on the TV?”

I could think of any number of things, actually. Security protocols, identifying the car we’d used, studying Mel or the agents and analyzing potential threats.

“At least then I could have been lying on my bed, eating Pop-Tarts,” she said. “Do you think we wanted to be there listening to you tell us what the government was going to take away from us next? It was a mandatory event. They all but dragged us out of the dorms.”

If there was one thing I’d learned about liars, it was this: they gave you way too many details. The Pop-Tarts were a nice touch, but she wasn’t the only one who could spin a detailed cover story out of nothing.

“Well, sorry to disturb your busy day,” I said. “Those dorm rooms were nice. Southgate, right? I got a tour from the dean right before my speech. That’s where they finally found the missing mascot head, right?”

Lie, lie, lie. Southgate wasn’t the one dorm they’d reopened—it wasn’t even a dorm at all. As far as I knew, the mascot’s head had never gone missing, either.

There was a silence that stretched a second too long before Priyanka looked me in the eye and said, smoothly, “Yeah. They found it in the oven of the third-floor kitchen.”

Liar.

It should have filled me with some small feeling of victory, but it only set my nerves ablaze. My skin felt like it was slowly being cut away the longer she stared back at me, as if daring me to call her out. To see what would happen when I did.

My grip on the knife was slick with sweat. I tightened my grip on it again, drawing it closer to my body.

“I’m glad you got out. Of the Psion Ring, I mean,” I said. “I’m a little surprised that a group that basically sounds like a terrorist organization simply let you go, considering the secrecy surrounding it.”

“We had to fake our own deaths to get out,” she said sharply. “And go ahead, call them what you want. At least they’re trying to do work on behalf of the Psi.”

“No, they’re ruining our work,” I said. “You can’t burn a house down when we’re all still inside it. You have to come in and sit down at the table if you’re going to create lasting change. The Psion Ring has only succeeded in scaring people, which makes the job of the good guys that much harder.”

“You really believe that, don’t you?” Priyanka said.

I didn’t want to fight with her about this, and I didn’t have to justify myself, either. I worked with the government because even with its flaws, it was still our best bet for protection and security.

I held up my cuffed hands, feeling strangely hollow as I forced myself to shrug.

Finally, Priyanka’s gaze fell back on Roman. She blew out a long sigh, then started again, her voice softer. “Look. While I will confess I am not unfamiliar with certain criminal elements in this country, these guys honestly just seemed like your run-of-the-mill, stereotypical bad guys. They were clearly trained, so maybe ex-military? Former PSFs hiring out their services to third parties? I mean, would it kill you to just…?”

“What?” I prompted.

“My stupid, heroic Boy Scout of a best friend survived a bomb blast and still ran toward you, not because of who you were, but because he thought you needed help. And yet, it feels like you think we’re the bad guys,” Priyanka said. “Can we please just focus on getting out of here?”

An unwelcome flicker of guilt moved through me. The rawness of her voice had been…

I looked away. If it turned out this was all true, I could feel guilty and apologize later. For right now, I needed to smooth things over. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m just trying to make sense of what happened.”

“What’s…happening…?” a soft voice interrupted. Then, stronger, “Priya?”

Both of us startled as Roman rolled onto his back. He blinked fiercely in the dim light.

“I’m here,” she said as she leaned over him. “You okay, bud?”

Moving slow, dragging himself out of the pull of the drug, Roman tried to get his feet flat on the ground. The zip tie restraints around his ankles locked up where they were looped through the ones binding his wrists behind his back.

That one small tug of resistance was enough to send a shock through his whole body. Roman jerked, turning back onto his side with a thin sound of panic.

“It’s okay, it’s okay.” Priyanka’s voice rose as he continued to struggle against the restraints. “Roman, just wait. Don’t do it—don’t you dare—”

Roman’s body contorted into an agonized pose, his shoulders hunching forward, the muscles of his back and arms straining—

“I’m not popping it back in again!” Priyanka said. “Don’t—”

There was a sickening, wet pop as the zip tie that had locked his hands behind his back snapped, and his left shoulder dislocated.

I reared back at the horrifying sound. What the hell?

Priyanka gagged. “Jesus! Will you stop hulking out on me?”

Roman struggled to sit up, keeping one hand pressed against his shoulder.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Priyanka said. “You’re not going to do it right—let me—”

She braced one hand against his shoulder and set her jaw. I had a half second to look away before she realigned it. The only noise from Roman was a grunt of pain, and then a long sigh.

“What? You’re not going to chew through the ankle restraints?” Priyanka groused, watching him examine them. The truck swerved right, rocking all three of us. “Or are you done showing off?”

He looked down at the zip ties, cocking his head to the side. Considering.

“I…” I began, awkwardly holding up the blade. “Knife?”

“The man didn’t say anything about who they are or where we’re going?”

Roman’s dark head was bent over my handcuffs as he turned my wrists this way and that. His touch was soft, and it confused me, just for a second, into forgetting that his palms and fingers were covered in calluses, the kind that come from handling many weapons over many years.

I hadn’t noticed before, but the back of his right hand was covered in a web of dark scars. It looked beyond painful; I turned his hand slightly to get a better look, but Roman immediately tugged it back.

“Sorry,” I murmured. What could have caused something like that? Fire?

Roman kept his face turned down, even as he returned his hand to the cuffs.

“It was a stupid thing I did,” he explained quietly. “My fault.”

When I didn’t respond, he looked up at me through the strands of his tousled hair, bright eyes rimmed with full lashes. Even if his face betrayed no hints to his thoughts, those eyes had currents of emotion in their depths. The danger was that they kept drawing me in, even as my head was telling me to look away.

Eyes of a poet, hands of a killer.

Who the hell are you?

“We really owe you,” he said, nodding toward the dead man. “He must have had no idea what hit him.”

In the moment, it had felt like I had no other option but to attack the man, but now I wondered if I’d made a mistake in revealing what I could do. “He deserved it.”

My skin heated under the scrutiny of Roman’s gaze, but my head was a mess. He looked at me the way he did when he helped me out of the wreckage from the bombing. It was a potent combination of relief and gratitude, and I didn’t understand it.

Distance, I reminded myself.

I pulled my hands back, straightening the best I could. “Anyway, the only thing I got from him is that they changed the Op in some way. He did mention we still have hours ahead on the drive.”

I tried not to think about the context in which that little piece of information had come up.

“Op.” Priyanka snickered, repeating the word. “Op.”

“What’s your problem?” I snapped.

“I need you to stay very still for just a second,” Roman interrupted, his voice as quiet and steady as the stretch of road beneath us. “I can’t get the cuffs off without a key, but this should give you a better range of motion.”

He brought up the tip of the knife, wedging it between two of the narrow links connecting the cuffs. If he could keep his hands steady in this situation, even with the swaying of the truck, I sure as hell wasn’t going to let mine shake.

“It’s just funny to hear you say that,” Priyanka said, pitching her voice up higher. “Op.”

The metal links split and my wrists fell away from each other.

“You find yourself in handcuffs often?” I asked Roman, rubbing at the metal rings still circling my wrists.

He looked down at the knife’s blade, clearly trying to decide how to answer. “Are we still trying to relieve stress?”

My nerves were sparking, flaring hot and fast with no sign of burning out. So, yes.

Priyanka held up her hands. “Could we now turn our attention back to the situation at hand? How many people do we think are in the cab of the truck?”

“I heard two voices respond to the guy back here,” I said, crossing my arms over my stomach.

Priyanka rose to her full, impressive height, knocking into one of the empty racks that lined the roof of the truck. “Ow, dammit. All right, then, spark plug,” she said, her hand rubbing her head. “You’re up. Can you stall the truck?”

“What did you just call me?” I asked.

Roman sighed, giving Priyanka a look. “She means that you’re classified Yellow. A surge of power could stop the truck’s engine, right?”

I nodded. “But if they’ve insulated the cab, too, it’s going to be a problem for us.”

Roman’s mouth flattened for a moment, his brows drawing down in thought.

“You’re a Yellow too, right?” I pressed. “I didn’t imagine your button?”

In spite of everything, including my fears about them, it would almost be reassuring to have another Psi like me here. It would help explain why I felt a small instinctive tug toward him, even now. Yellow-classified Psi could connect to each other as they felt out the same electrical currents—one flicker of power brushing up against another.

Some days, that passing sensation felt like the only reassurance that I wasn’t alone.

“You didn’t imagine it,” he said. “But you have the better control by far, and I don’t know how useful I’ll be. How do you want to play this?”

I rubbed at my face, thinking. Control would be key here. It meant the difference between stopping the engine and exploding it, which could kill all of us. “I can take care of the engine. It’s going to come down to using the element of surprise. One of you can get the door open; the other is going to need to be ready to fire at any of the soldiers who come back to investigate.”

Roman nodded, his gaze sharpening with focus. “I’ll take care of them before they can get out of the cab. Priya will get the door open. Does that work for everyone?”

I was surprised when Roman flipped the knife in his hand, catching it by the tip and passing the handle over to me. I took it, swaying with the movement of the truck, and realized a second too late he’d only done it so he’d have both hands free to take the utility belt off the dead man.

Including the gun.

Shit. Why hadn’t I grabbed it the second he’d freed my hands?

“Could I possibly do more than get a door open?” Priyanka said. “Just so I don’t, you know, fall asleep waiting for you guys to save us?”

Roman cast an anxious look in her direction. “It’ll be enough for now. Don’t rush the horses.”

Priyanka gave him a look. He let out a sound of exasperation.

“What is it in English?” he asked.

“Don’t be in such a rush,” she said. “Or hold your horses. I like that one, though. A point to Mother Russia.”

I’d been right. English wasn’t his first language.

He nodded. “I just mean that it’s better to be careful and not overdo it if we don’t have to.”

“Okay, but counterpoint: Is it even possible to ‘overdo it’ with assholes like these?” Priyanka asked. “Can’t we also use the opportunity to send a message straight up to the top? To whoever might be running this show?”

“We just need to get out of here alive.” His tone had a note of pleading.

“And find out who’s responsible for grabbing us,” I added, watching them both for their reactions. Their expressions betrayed nothing.

“I hate it when you use that earnest look.” Priyanka blew out a frustrated sound. “It always makes me feel like I’m about to tell you that your puppy got hit by a car.”

“Priya.”

“All right,” she relented. “I’ll get the door open—but I want the knife when she’s done with it.”

My heart gave another hard kick. I tightened my grip on the hilt. “Wait—”

“God, what’s the problem now?” Priyanka demanded.

Everything, I thought. It would leave me without a weapon, but I was never defenseless. I had my power. “Nothing. Never mind.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Roman shift toward the front of the truck. I turned to find him staring down at the gun in his hand, a pensive look on his face.

As if feeling my gaze, Roman looked up, and I quickly knelt on the rubber mat. Pressing the blade of the knife to it, I sawed at the heavy material until it broke through and clinked against the metal truck bed below.

The engine’s power surged across my senses, the voltage registering like lightning in my blood.

Roman checked the cartridge of the gun, his frown deepening.

“How many shots do you have?” Priyanka asked.

“Three.” He moved past me to press his ear up against the wall dividing us from the cab. “You’re sure you heard two voices?”

It was my turn to give a bad answer. “He asked a question and two voices responded. That’s all I’ve got.”

Roman nodded.

“Ready?” I asked.

He took the knife from me and cut a section of rubber away from the wall.

Get out, find some kind of ID on these people, get away. With that last thought, I let my mind connect with the engine. Its knot of electricity was so powerful, it burned away the rest of the world.

I grounded myself on the rubber mat. “All set here. Can we get this show on the road?”

“All right,” he said. “Once we’re out, head west. Don’t stop running for anything.”

“And if we get separated?” Priyanka prompted.

“Like hell we will” was his only reply.

“Stay on the mats,” I told her. “Just in case.”

Priyanka gave me a bland look as she stepped over the man’s body to take the knife from Roman.

The image of the Defender, his whole body seizing as I sent the charge toward him, flashed behind my closed eyelids.

“Just in case,” I repeated, when I realized the others were waiting. My fingertips pressed into the ridged floor, searching for that powerful connection again. “Tell me when….”

Priyanka positioned herself at the door, the soldier’s knife in one hand, the other on the latch to the truck’s gate. At the edge of my vision, I saw her nod.

Roman waited a beat longer before shouting, “Now!”

I fell into the blinding-white power that flooded through my mind. I called it out, pulled up and up and up, feeding it back tenfold until the engine stalled out with a metallic bellow. The truck swung left, the wheels on the right side lifting off the road as the driver tried to regain control.

Roman braced his back against the side of the trailer and fired two shots into the wall that separated us from the cab.

The wheels locked, skidding in the opposite direction.

“Holy sh—!” Priyanka’s voice cut off as she was thrown against the door.

The world rocked up and down, around, around, around. I released my hold on the current, breaking it. The last of its power caressed my spine, purring against my senses.

With a bone-jarring finality, the truck slammed down on all four wheels and rolled forward slowly, coming to a stop. Roman raised his brows at me. I raised mine.

“Well, that was some demon’s idea of fun.” Priyanka shook out her whole body, recovering enough to shove the truck’s gate open. Dusky light poured in from behind her, revealing a landscape of flat green fields and little else. “Come on, before—”

I felt it a split second before the others did—the spark as the engine reignited. The truck suddenly shot forward, and Priyanka fell.

“No!”

Roman’s shout was drowned out by the hail of bullets that tore through the wall separating the trailer from the cab. They pinged against the exposed metal, roaring as they shredded the rubber. The air filled with black and metal ribbons, the stench of hot rubber clogging the already thick air.

Priyanka had grabbed the metal edge of the trailer, her legs pumping under her, as if trying to run at the accelerating speed of the truck. With a gasp, she hauled her elbows onto the trailer’s lip, one hand reaching for the door’s strap. There was a scream of gears as the truck swerved hard to the left, knocking her back down.

Bullets whistled and banged around my head as I saw her pulled farther beneath the truck, until only her white-knuckled fingers were still visible.

Priyanka wasn’t being dragged, I realized. She was using whatever strength she had left to hold her tall frame between the scalding hot metal of the axles and undercarriage and the bite of the road.

“Kill it!” Roman shouted, throwing himself flat on his stomach as the spray of bullets poured through the wall. He flipped over, trying to use the holes left behind to aim at the figure moving there, climbing over the two bodies between him and the wheel.

Three. There had been three of them, not two.

One more bullet.

“I can’t,” I called. “I’ll electrocute her, too!”

I crawled over to the edge of the truck. Priyanka had tucked her long legs up under the lip of it, bracing her feet against something I couldn’t see. Her hands and the top of her head were the only thing visible. The road streaked beneath her, ready to tear her apart.

Priyanka set her eyes on something past me, her face going blank. I was close enough to see her pupils flare as she took in her next gasp of exhaust and air. Her adrenaline must have been off the charts.

Sound exploded out from the cab of the truck and the relentless grind of the wheels slowed with a few sputters.

“Grab my hand!” I called, reaching out to her. “Priyanka!”

I wasn’t sure she even heard me. I barely heard myself over the road, the screaming radio from the cab, the thrum of blood in my ears.

“Priyanka!”

I reached for her hands just as she released her grip and the dark, tattered road snatched her.