of disorientation, I feel almost fully myself. I can still sense pockets of darkness in my memories, but I feel like I’ve finally broken the surface of my own consciousness. And it’s only then that I realize I no longer feel even a whisper of Emmaline.
Quickly, I close my eyes again. I feel around for my sister in my head, seeking her out with a desperate panic that surprises me.
Emmaline? Are you still here?
In response, a gentle warmth rushes through me. A single, soft shudder of life. She must be close to the end, I realize.
Nearly gone.
Pain shoots through my heart.
My love for Emmaline is at once new and ancient, so complicated I don’t even know how to properly articulate my feelings about it. I only know that I have nothing but compassion for her. For her pain, her sacrifices, her broken spirit, her longing for all that her life could’ve been. I feel no anger or resentment toward her for infiltrating my mind, for violently disrupting my world to make room for herself in my skin. Somehow I understand that the brutality of her act was nothing more than a desperate plea for companionship in the last days of her life.
She wants to die knowing she was loved.
And I, I love her.
I was able to see, when our minds were fused, that Emmaline had found a way to split her consciousness, leaving a necessary bit of it behind to play her role in Oceania. The small part of her that broke off to find me—that was the small part of her that still felt human, that felt the world acutely. And now, it seems, that human piece of her is beginning to fade away.
The callused fingers of grief curve around my throat.
My thoughts are interrupted by the sharp staccato of heels against stone. Someone is moving toward me. I’m careful not to flinch.
“She should’ve been awake by now,” the female voice says. “This is odd.”
“Perhaps the sedative you gave her was stronger than you thought.” Anderson.
“I’m going to assume your head is still full of morphine, Paris, which is the only reason I’m going to overlook that statement.”
Anderson sighs. Stiffly, he says: “I’m sure she’ll be awake any minute now.”
Fear trips the alarms in my head.
What’s happening? I ask Emmaline. Where are we?
The dregs of a gentle warmth become a searing heat that blazes up my arms. Goose bumps rise along my skin.
Emmaline is afraid.
Show me where we are, I say.
It takes longer than I’m used to, but very slowly Emmaline fills my head with images of my room, of steel walls and glittering glass, long tables laid out with all manner of tools and blades, surgical equipment. Microscopes as tall as the wall. Geometric patterns in the ceiling glow with warm, bright light. And then there’s me.
I am mummified in metal.
I’m lying supine on a gleaming table, thick horizontal stripes holding me in place. I am naked but for the carefully placed restraints keeping me from full exposure.
Realization dawns with painful speed.
I recognize these rooms, these tools, these walls. Even the smell—stale air, synthetic lemon, bleach and rust. Dread creeps through me slowly at first, and then all at once.
I am back on base in Oceania.
I feel suddenly ill.
I am a world away. An international flight away from my chosen family, back again in the house of horrors I grew up in. I have no recollection of how I got here, and I don’t know what devastation Anderson left in my wake. I don’t know where my friends are. I don’t know what’s become of Warner. I can’t remember anything useful. I only know that something must be terribly, terribly wrong.
Even so, my fear feels different.
My captors—Anderson? This woman?—have obviously done something to me, because I can’t feel my powers the way I normally do, but there’s something about this horrible, familiar pattern that’s almost comforting. I’ve woken up in chains more times than I can remember, and every time, I’ve found my way out. I’ll find my way out of this, too.
And at least this time, I’m not alone.
Emmaline is here. As far as I’m aware, Anderson has no idea she’s with me, and it gives me hope.
The silence is broken by a long-suffering sigh.
“Why do we need her to be awake, anyway?” the woman says. “Why can’t we perform the procedure while she’s asleep?”
“They’re not my rules, Tatiana. You know as well as I do that Evie set this all in motion. Protocol states that the