THE SOLDIER SLAMMED INTO THE ground, sending up a wave of tarry mud. Max jumped away, but Cubby was forced to roll out of the soldier’s path to avoid being crushed. Every single one of us looked as stunned as the soldier did. The Blue boy clutched his arm to his chest, as if he had physically struck the man.

There was a second of stillness. Quiet. Then the moment splintered into chaos.

Startled gasps and the clattering of guns being drawn above us.

Cubby reaching for the downed soldier’s gun.

Roman shouting, “One!”

I didn’t think. Didn’t speak. Just reacted. I reached for that silver thread inside my mind, tightening my grip on it until I was strangling the power that thrummed inside the two floodlights directly overhead. The glass covers and bulbs shattered as they blew out, sending soldiers and Psi alike scattering.

Panic swirled through the voices above us.

“Code White!” someone shouted. “We have a Code White—get on the radio—”

“—radio’s dead—”

“—trying to hail them but the signal—there’s something wrong with the signal!”

The other kids ran out through the Pit, their arms raised toward the rest of the lights, surging the electric current through each of them. One of the soldiers screamed as the bulbs exploded, raining down shards of glass and sparks.

The pitch-black darkness was momentarily disorienting. I stumbled, then caught my balance as I swung back toward the others. They were a shade darker than the night; I couldn’t make out any of their features, but as my eyes adjusted, I could see them. Most of the kids had done as instructed and taken cover beneath the walkways where it would be harder for the soldiers to aim.

Like they were trying to do now.

“Two!” I shouted.

The girls next to me were Kin. Their arms brushed me as they lifted the soldiers into the air, following the lead of the others like them. The screams from the soldiers as they were knocked to the ground should have been unsettling. Instead, it was like I could feel their fear moving through me, gathering into a roaring current. It amplified the words growling like static in my mind.

We have the power.

We outnumber them.

We are in control.

And if we couldn’t fix a broken system, we’d shatter it and remake it ourselves.

Distant shouts—the few soldiers working inside the main building flooded out from a door on its second story that connected to the walkways. Before they could even pass over the cage, they were flying, too, and landing hard.

Some of the hired guns were trying to climb out of the Pit by going over the cage’s chain-link fence, only to be ripped off it by a small pack of Kin who descended on them with screams and fists. A dark shape up on the building’s roof got one shot off before being dragged forward. His rifle fell to the ground a second before the rest of him did.

Gunfire screamed in the air, only to be silenced as the kids overwhelmed the soldiers, prying their weapons away from them, making a game of shoving the soldiers to the other side of the Pit, just as they got up onto their feet.

“Come in! Anyone! Code White!”

I reached down for the gun half-buried in the mud at my feet. My pulse surged as I cracked the butt of it against the soldier’s head, sending him sprawling back down. There was a metallic click as someone removed the safety of their gun behind me. I whirled back toward the sound.

“Down!” Cubby said, then, with an unexpected calmness, fired at a soldier I hadn’t seen rushing up behind me.

He fell, howling, clutching his busted knee. Just beyond him, I finally made out the smaller shapes of the younger kids as they ran along the wall toward the main building. Max limped along behind them, clutching a gun.

“Three?” Cubby asked.

I nodded. “Three.”

“Three!” she shouted.

Her crew rushed to her side, clutching the weapons they’d stolen. Most of the soldiers were on the ground, their hands behind their heads, their faces down in the mud, but a few were still up and firing. I heard the solid click of someone reloading and spun. A group of teen boys ran past me, their legs churning at full speed as they ran after Cubby toward the fence that separated the Pit from the main building.

Bullets sprayed out from somewhere behind me. I threw myself down, covering my head, gasping in a choked breath. The boys seemed to leap up as the bullets tore into their backs. Blood streaked the air the instant before they fell.

Every last bit of feeling seemed to leave my body. The mud clutched at me, as if trying to drag me down, to smother me. I couldn’t get my hands beneath me. The Pit began to spin and blur.

Get up.

Cubby and several of the others charged back toward us, screaming as they fired at the soldier who had taken down the boys. They knelt beside the fallen kids, feeling for pulses, trying to shake them awake, and never once noticing the other soldier who took aim at them. I opened my mouth to scream out a warning, but it was too late. Another explosion of gunfire followed, and when it finally abated, Cubby staggered up from the ground alone.

Stand up.

The mud turned to snow beneath me.

Get up.

I tried to lift my head, but there didn’t seem to be an ounce of strength left in me. Those boys…why did I think this would work? Why did I believe we’d all get out of here alive?

Stand up.

A figure ran toward me, firing at someone or something I couldn’t see. For one wild second, I thought it was Liam. I waited for the gentle hands to lift me, carry me away from here. Instead, the figure stopped beside me and took a bracing stance, returning fire at someone. His gunshots were rolling thunder, keeping time with the frantic pounding of feet against the ground, heading toward the fence.

You can get up.

You have to get back up.

I could get back up. I could do it myself. Again, and again, and again. As long as there was breath in my body, I could get back up.

I slid my palms out from where they’d been trapped under me until they were in line with my shoulders. I spread my fingers, steadying myself as I pushed up off the ground. The figure beside me ran a hand down my back and along my shoulders—Roman.

His mask had slipped in the darkness, and there was only terror there.

“Are you hurt?” he shouted.

I shook my head, still unable to speak. I pressed my right hand to my left shoulder. I’m okay. Roman nodded, returning the gesture. It’s okay.

I could stand up. I could do it on my own.

A sheen of sweat had broken out over Roman’s face, and the telltale tremors were already starting to work through his body. We’d only have minutes before the pain overtook him.

I grabbed his free hand, relishing the hard clasp of his fingers around mine. Needing to make sure he didn’t somehow fall behind. Still here, still standing.

Priyanka was waiting for us at the gate, her body thrumming with power, her expression wild. Seeing that we were okay, she turned and started after the others, running for the building. I pushed Roman toward her.

“Go!” I said. “I’ll make sure the others are all right.”

“Five minutes,” he said, pressing his hand to his shoulder again.

I returned the gesture, feeling lighter. We are okay.

He navigated through the crowd of kids, disappearing into the building. One of Cubby’s crew was at the fence, rifle in hand, waving everyone in. At the sight of me, she stopped. I turned, trying to catch a glimpse of whoever was behind me.

Only soldiers. Mud-splattered and charging, yelling out their rage. Even without their guns, they still had Tasers. Batons.

“Was that really everyone?” I asked.

“You’re the last one,” the girl said, dragging the gate shut and throwing its lock in place. “Do it.”

I nodded. Priyanka hadn’t completely shut down the electricity in the Pit, she’d only temporarily turned it off. It took only three heartbeats to coax the electricity back into the fence. We turned to go just as the soldiers reached it and began screaming.

Someone, likely a Kin, had ripped off the decontamination room’s door, easing our path back into the building. The storage tubs had been ransacked, but I didn’t bother to stop long enough to see if my clothes were still there. We’d left our actual belongings in the car we’d parked a good fifty miles north of here, at the border between Texas and Oklahoma.

There was no sign of Priyanka and Roman as the remainder of us followed the trail of destruction down a set of stairs I hadn’t seen before, when we’d first come in.

Give them time, I thought, trying to ignore the sharp twist of worry in my gut.

“Where are we going?” the same girl called up to one of the others, just as we turned the last corner of the stairwell and saw for ourselves.

It was a massive garage.

The size of it must have encompassed the whole length of the Pit. There weren’t just the soldiers’ personal vehicles, but military-style trucks and vans they almost certainly used to haul kids in here.

Along the back wall were a series of lockers and a bulletin board filled with keys on hooks. The lockers had already been pried open and their contents—purses, backpacks, clothing—ransacked. Cubby was there, tossing set after set out to the kids waiting in a surprisingly orderly line for them.

“Don’t keep the cars for longer than a few hours,” I shouted over the roar of engines revving and the excited, terrified chatter of the kids. “And don’t stop for anything!”

A few shouted back, acknowledging the instructions. I spotted Max helping another teenage girl load some of the smaller kids into an SUV. He waved to them as the girl climbed into the front seat, and a boy climbed up into the passenger side.

Most of them were traveling together, it seemed. Good. But seeing them pair off and cluster in groups made me stop and look back toward the entrance, waiting.

Come on, I thought. Where are you guys?

Cubby made quick work with the rest of the keys, leaving two smaller sets for us. She tossed both at me as she passed by, grinning. “See ya in the next shit hole, Rook.”

The keys weren’t for an actual car, but two of the motorcycles parked in their own section along the far eastern wall. Max ran to my side, dodging out of the way of a green Jeep as it roared by.

“Do you see them?” he shouted.

Seconds passed. Minutes. More.

“Maybe I should go look for them—?”

“No, there they are!” Max took off like a shot, weaving through the remaining vehicles. I saw them a second later, Priyanka all but carrying Roman on her back. The veins and tendons in her arms stuck out, and she vibrated like a kettle on the stove.

“I got it,” she said, seeing my face. “I got it, I got it, I got it!”

“Great—”

“Are we riding these? I love these, oh my God, I love it—”

I clapped my hands in her face. Priyanka turned to me, her pupils dilated and her face bright with eagerness. She had Roman’s full weight across her shoulders and hadn’t so much as broken a sweat.

“Are we going? Are we doing this?” she asked. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

I felt Roman’s neck for a pulse. His eyes opened to slits, and, as Priyanka set him back down, he pressed his right hand to his shoulder. In it was a syringe.

“Raided their med bay, it’s all good,” Priyanka said. “I’ll take it once we get the hell out of here, I’ll come down, I promise, I’m in control, I’m fine, just let me fly—let me fly.”

“If you can handle it,” I told her, squeezing her wrist, “then that’s the plan.”

Roman took one look at the bikes and managed to get out, “Can’t.” His brow wrinkled in obvious agony.

“Can.” Max held up one of the soldier’s belts. “You remember how to ride?”

That last question had been directed at Priyanka.

“I remember beating you in every, every, every single race,” she said, taking the belt from him. “Load him up behind me, and let’s blow this joint.”

Priyanka sat down on the first bike, leaving Max and me to maneuver Roman’s unconscious form behind her. I looped the belt over their chests, securing it with a little prayer.

She kicked off and headed toward the door before Max and I had even climbed onto ours.

“This is…” he began.

“Don’t think,” I told him. “Just go.”

The words were drowned out by the roar of the garage’s door as the others finally got it all the way open. The kids honked as they drove out, smashing through the chain-link gates that had seemed so formidable when we first drove in. The fencing splintered and snapped, tossed out into the dirt as the first trucks and SUVs mowed through it. A cry went up from the cars behind them as they flew forward. The sound rippled back through the mass of us, feeding an electric sense of hope.

After the last car was out, Max hit the gas, bringing the motorcycle alongside Priyanka’s. We sped up, and the world suddenly opened for us. With the exterior lights out, all I could see was an infinite sky, studded with stars.

If they wouldn’t see us as human, I thought, we’d make sure they understood we were something more.

The car was waiting for us right where we’d left it behind a rundown, deserted strip mall at the edge of Oklahoma. I’d lost track of how many we’d had to steal at this point; it had taken two just to put this plan into play. We’d stashed a car here and then taken a second one back into Texas to leave at the gas station where we’d been taken into custody.

We took turns changing out of the uniforms, leaving them and the bikes for someone else to deal with. At some point, Max had wandered away from us, walking toward the cheerful sign that had greeted us as we crossed state lines.

“Are you accepting Oklahoma’s invitation to ‘Discover the Excellence’?” I asked him, watching as he paced back and forth, his head tilted back. In the distance, I could have sworn I heard helicopters. “We should get going.”

Or maybe that was just the sound of the wind turbines. We’d passed by hundreds of them, all sticking out of the ground like petal-stripped flowers. They’d felt appropriately skeletal, for a part of the country that seemed as dusty as old, disintegrating bones.

“Everything…all right?”

Roman had woken up just before we’d reached the car, but he still didn’t look well to me. His skin had a chalky quality to it, and he swayed slightly as he came toward me. Instinctively, I reached out to steady him. He shot me a slightly rueful look, but accepted the help.

Now that I’d burned through the heat of anger and fear, what I’d found inside me again was quiet. The kind of quiet that didn’t keep you at its mercy, but clarified everything. The comfortable kind of quiet you’d find walking next to someone who no longer needed words to know your heart.

“I think we should lie low somewhere safe for a little while and regroup,” Priyanka said, coming up behind us. The sedative was starting to take effect, and her feet were dragging through the dust. “It’ll give Max time to prepare for fishing. If anyone has any suggestions on where that mythical place might be, I’m all ears.”

Oklahoma…As far as I knew, there wasn’t anyone in the old Children’s League network that lived out here. But—I couldn’t believe I hadn’t thought of it sooner. Ruby’s friends Sam and Lucas had moved out to Kansas after Ruby had disappeared, falsified identity documents in hand. They’d left an address with us to memorize, in case we ran into any Reds who needed their help.

I just wasn’t sure I could bring myself to interrupt what little peace they had.

Desperate times, I thought. When were they not, though?

“I know a place,” I said.

After the hell the last few days had brought, the next few hours unfolded with surprising ease. Once I was done driving my leg of the trip, I passed the wheel—and Sam and Lucas’s address—to Roman. In our exhaustion, we just kept heading north, until the sun was up and we were in Kansas.

“Wake up, Dorothy,” Priyanka said, giving me a slight shake. I sat up from where I’d been sleeping against her arm in the backseat. “We’re over the rainbow and in Kansas.”

For one disorienting moment, I heard a different voice.

I’m Gabe. This is Dorothy.

“Don’t call me that,” I said, rubbing my face.

“Aw, but Dorothy suits you, now that I think—”

Dorothy—Guess we…shouldn’t have left Oz….

“Priya,” I said, letting an edge of that old pain into the word. “Don’t ever call me that.”

“All right,” she said softly.

“That has to be it, right?” Max said, pointing through the windshield. A small farmhouse with some kind of detached shed or barn took shape in the distance. As we turned up its long driveway, I saw a few cows grazing, a handful of overexcited goats, and a separate sty for the two pigs.

“Looks all quiet on the home front,” Priyanka said as Roman parked the car.

I stepped out first, trying to see through the house’s windows. Thick white curtains completely blocked out the interior. The others waited by the car as I stepped up onto the porch and knocked.

No answer. I pressed my ear against the wood, trying to listen for any movement inside. Clearly someone was home. There were fresh footprints leading from the house to the pigs’ trough, as well as to the chicken coop on the other side of the barn. A lone rooster strutted by us, heading toward the small, noisy structure. His path overlapped with another set of tracks, this one heading for the barn door.

“Zu…” Roman began, reaching for his gun. I waved him back, motioning for them to stay where they were. Sam and Lucas probably didn’t get many visitors. We could have scared them into hiding, uninvited and unannounced.

I reached for the barn door, angling myself back as I walked it open. When no one jumped out, I stepped inside, slowly searching the darkness.

Only to be met with the hard jab of a gun’s barrel against my back.

“Keep your hands up,” a familiar voice said. “Back up nice and slow—”

Recognition lit through me, surging until I thought my heart might explode. Somehow, I managed to turn my head to look back at him.

“Christ!” Beneath his beard, his face paled. He lowered the shotgun. “I could have killed you! You about scared the life out of me—”

I launched myself forward, and threw my arms around Liam’s neck.