34

The guards lead me down the passageway, a hand around each of my wrists. My heart pounds. I don’t know why they came for me so late. If our cells had surveillance, Fred would’ve known, so I don’t think it’s about what I told him. It must be something else.

When we reach the examination room door, one of the guards sets his knuckles on the metal and raps three times. In the silence that follows, a muffled cry comes from behind the door.

I turn to steel.

It’s barely any sound at all, but every inch of me reverberates with recognition.

I know that cry, that voice. I know it so well.

The door opens, and I want to run to him, but I can’t because the guards have my wrists. He’s lying on a steel table. His black hair is untidy, matted with sweat. Wires crisscross his chest, connected to his skin by plastic suction cups. A nurse stands beside the table. She is tight-lipped, but her eyes shine.

Dr. Tennant looks up from his tablet and smiles. “Welcome, Clementine.”

I want to rip the wires off Logan’s chest and strangle the doctor and nurse. I want to scream his name. They’re going to hurt him.

“We brought your friend,” Dr. Tennant says. “Aren’t you going to say thank you?”

“Why is he here?” I ask. I’m shaking and my breaths are tangled. These doctors shouldn’t know he’s important to me—he’s just a boy on the Surface. Did Charlie tell them, or Cadet Waller?

I told someone he’s important only a few days ago. I told Fred.

“We thought you needed some persuasion.” Dr. Tennant sets his tablet down and snaps on a pair of gloves. “Logan here seemed like he’d do the trick nicely.”

“You can’t hurt him.”

Dr. Tennant ignores me. “Turn it on,” he tells a nurse.

She steps away from the table and moves to a red button on the wall. She presses it.

Logan’s body convulses. Screams bubble up from his throat. His chest lifts off the table and slams back down again. His head knocks against the steel. His arms would be flailing if he weren’t strapped down.

“No, no, no, no, stop!” I’m crying.

Dr. Tennant holds up a hand, and the nurse releases the button momentarily.

Logan’s body falls limp.

“What do you want to say, Clementine?” Dr. Tennant says.

“Stop hurting him!” I wrench against the guards, but they hold me tightly, twisting my arms behind my back. I feel them clamp irons around my wrists.

“Up the amps,” Dr. Tennant says.

“No…”

The nurse presses the button again.

Again, Logan’s body convulses, but he doesn’t scream this time. He jolts this way and that, again and again, and I’m sure they’re going to kill him, if he’s not already dead.

“Stop it!” I yell. “Stop it—stop—please.”

“What will you do?” Dr. Tennant asks. “What will you do for Commander Charlie?”

I’m a glass statue about to shatter. Logan won’t stop convulsing and hitting the table hard—his brain’s going to explode—and I have to do something. I will do anything to make them stop.

“Clementine,” Dr. Tennant says.

“Anything!” I scream. “I’ll do anything—I’ll say anything—I’ll obey—I won’t fight Charlie. Just please don’t kill him!”

Dr. Tennant gives the signal, and the nurse releases the button. Logan falls limp.

“Very good,” Dr. Tennant says, smiling. “You know what this means, Clementine? You’re going back to the Core. But if you go back on your word and don’t obey, you will be killed.”

“What about Logan?” I ask, still trembling.

“We’ll see what Commander Charlie wants us to do with him,” Dr. Tennant says. “Take her back to her cell,” he says to the guards.

The guards pull me away, giving me no time to even touch Logan. The door slams shut behind us.

I can’t help thinking I shouldn’t have given in. I shouldn’t have said I’d do anything.

The bomb’s still going to go off, and it still might kill him.

*   *   *

Back in my cell, I curl up in a ball and cry into my arms. I don’t know what to do. I’m weak and helpless here, and it’s not going to change when they let me out. Charlie’s going to keep trying to subdue me.

He’s still going to murder half the world.

I’m wiping the water off my cheeks and trying to fix my screwed-up breathing when something clatters against the bars of my cell.

I jump. Hold my breath.

After a moment, I cast my eyes to the ground outside my cell. There’s a small, flat rock on the floor, about half the size of my palm. Someone must’ve thrown it.

I look up and see Fred peering through the bars of his cell.

“Did you—” I ask. Did you throw that? Did you tell the doctors about Logan?

“Pick that up, girl,” he hisses.

I almost shake my head. How do I even know if I can trust him? Everything he said about Marden and Charlie and the moon might be a lie. I don’t know whose side he’s on.

But my curiosity gets the better of me. I reach through the bars and snatch up the rock. There’s something on it—a sketch or words, maybe. Fred must’ve used another rock to scrape into this one.

The ceiling lamp outside my cell is dim. I tilt the rock and squint to see what’s written on it.

It’s blip mathematics:

I know this equation. It’s Yate’s Equation. The full thing is five times this long, one of the most complicated equations to solve. But I memorized how to do it a long time ago.

“Can you solve it?” Fred asks.

“Yes,” I say.

“Good,” he says, and I can hear the relief in his voice.

“Why?” I ask.

“It’ll disable the bomb,” he says.

I gasp.

“Thought I was being clever, you know,” Fred says. “Not many people can solve it.”

“It’ll turn the bomb off?” I ask. “It’ll make it stop?”

Not that this helps me much. I’m still stuck in here. Charlie’s not going to let me near the bomb.

“It should,” Fred says. “Charlie might’ve changed the code since I set it up. But it’s the best I can give you. Screwed everything up for you, didn’t I?”

I clench the rock inside my hand. The sharp edges dig into my skin, but I don’t care. “Why’d you do it?” I ask. “You told the doctors about Logan, didn’t you?”

“I’m sorry.” His voice cracks. He leans his forehead against the bars. “Charlie promised to let me outta here if I helped him break you. I didn’t know about his plan for the bomb, or this war of his.… I’ve been in here for ten years. You must understand.” His gaze lifts to meet mine again.

I turn my head away. But I do understand. I just promised I’d do anything for Charlie if those doctors would stop hurting Logan, didn’t I?

There’s a clang down the passageway.

My body tenses. More guards again?

“Hide the rock, girl,” Fred hisses. “Throw it away.”

I crawl into the back corner of my cell and hide it in the darkness. I turn around, and my heart stops.

Logan’s eyes are downcast. His wounded leg and his good one drag on the floor as the guards haul him across the stone.

The lock clicks and the door of my cell opens. They throw him forward. He lands on his hands and knees, breathing heavily.

He is here with me, finally.

The door swings shut. The guards walk away.

I don’t know what this means, Charlie throwing Logan in my cell. Is he going to save him? I want to believe that. But more likely, it’s a cruel joke. He’s giving me what I want so he can rip it away from me again.

Logan’s hair flutters with every breath. I focus on that, and the way his lips part. Little things, but I ingrain them in my memory. I won’t abandon him again, and I won’t forget him. Not ever.

I bite my lip. I reach out and touch my hand to his cheek. “Logan?”

His hand finds mine and grasps it. Tears touch my eyes. I don’t fight them.

“Are you okay?” I whisper.

He moves his head so his hair brushes my forehead. A smile tugs at his lips. “I’m all right,” he says. “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

“Don’t say that if it isn’t true.”

“I don’t lie to you.”

I press my lips together. He grits his teeth like his eyes are burning and his body is on fire, but he’s trying to stay strong for me. Like he’s shattering, but he doesn’t want me to think he’s weak. But I don’t think that—I’d never think that. Just because the Developers thought I was Promising and he wasn’t doesn’t mean he isn’t strong. He’s the strongest boy I’ve ever met.

He moves his leg a little and lets out a choking sound he can’t keep back. I move a hand to his leg instinctively, but when I touch it, he shakes his head.

The doctors and guards must’ve hurt him before I even saw him. I want to murder Dr. Tennant. I want to strangle him in his sleep.

I want to hold Logan forever and kiss away his pain. I want to say I’m sorry for leaving and I love you and Please don’t leave me and I won’t leave you ever again.

But I’m such a wreck all of a sudden that when I open my mouth all that comes out are three words. Three vruxing words that aren’t good enough, in a whisper that’s much too small: “I missed you.”

Logan’s lips breathe in my ear: “I missed you too.”

“I didn’t want to leave you.”

“I know.” His fingers find my collarbone and run along my skin, gently. I guide his hand to my cheek and hold it there. My tears trail onto it.

“Is it worse out there?” I ask, thinking of the acid shield Charlie claims is breaking down. I don’t think he was telling the truth—after everything Fred told me, I’m sure he wasn’t—but I have to know for sure.

“Officials have been killing a lot more people,” Logan says. “They don’t even take kids to quarantine anymore; they just burn them in the streets.”

A stone cuts into my throat. I try to swallow it down, to no avail. “That’s horrible.”

“Yeah, it is.”

A cough racks Logan’s body. He pulls his hand away from my face and wraps an arm around his stomach.

“Water?” I ask Logan, forcing down my worry.

He nods, squeezing his eyes shut.

I turn to the back of my cell. I have a water skin left there from earlier. There are only a few drops left in it, and I’m thirsty myself, but I don’t care. I grab the leather skin and press it into Logan’s palm.

He sips the drink gratefully. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand and gives me the skin. “Thank you.”

“They’ll bring more in the morning. You can have my portion.”

“I won’t take it from you, Clem.” He laughs shakily.

“I’ll force it down your throat.”

“You haven’t changed.” His voice is soft as he studies my face. His eyes trail over where the scar on my jaw used to be. He looks away, like it pains him to see something different. “Well, in some ways.”

I brush his arms with my fingers. There are bruises on his wrists. Black and blue, darkest where the doctors must’ve stuck needles into him.

I’ll hurt them. I’ll murder them.

“Why are you in here, Clem?” Logan asks, his forehead creasing.

I stare at him.

He doesn’t know. Not about Charlie’s bomb, or his plan, or his moonshine excuse. Or the acid generator.

Of course he doesn’t know. No one in the camps knows.

I take a breath and slip my fingers through his. His hand feels cold.

“I have to tell you something,” I say.

“Okay,” he says.

“It’s bad.”

“Just tell me.”

I open my mouth, but before I can say a word, the gunshots start.