Brenne cradles Vin in her arms, trying to staunch the flow of blood, but it’s everywhere. Too much red, staining her hands and clothes. Fouling the air with a musky, copper smell. Her eyes dart to mine, urging me to help.

“Hold pressure,” she says when I reach her. “Here. Put your hands on mine.” She guides me to the right spot – a blood-soaked wad of cloth pressed into Vin’s right upper arm. “Press as hard as you can.”

My stomach flips when I feel his blood, slippery and warm beneath my fingers. I almost let go when he gasps in pain, but Brenne holds my hands in place. “No! Firm pressure to the wound. If you let go, he’ll bleed to death. Got it?”

I nod, remembering what she said about her father being a medic. She knows what she’s doing. That thought gives me a glimmer of hope.

“Can’t explore the wound without a tourniquet.” Her gaze slices past me to Lily, who’s running toward us with the med kit. Astrid trails behind her with a blanket and more supplies. “Hurry!”

When they reach us, Brenne digs through the kit to find a tourniquet, which she loops around Vin’s upper arm. She whispers something into his ear, then tightens the strap, prompting another sharp intake of breath. Sweat beads on his forehead and he groans softly, the sound escaping his lips like air from a tire. He shivers as we wrap the blanket around him, eyelids fluttering.

Astrid kneels to hold his hand. When our eyes meet, I hear her thoughts: His skin’s so cold. He’s going into shock.

“Hold on, brother,” I tell him. “You’re going to make it.”

Brenne rifles through the med kit, lips pursed in frustration.  “Coag bots… plasma knife… stim injector. Damn! Everything’s useless thanks to that fragging EMP. Wait –!” She opens a pack of metal instruments. “Primitive, but these will have to do.”

Lily spreads out another blanket and we ease Vin onto the make-shift surgical field. When we have him on his back, Brenne snaps on a pair of gloves, then leans over me to inject something into his shoulder.

“Pain killer,” she explains. “Keep holding pressure. Don’t let him move that arm, okay?” She glances back at Lily. “I need more light here!”

Vin shudders, his breaths becoming shallow and rapid, and the thought occurs that it might already be too late. Even if Brenne pulls off a miracle and stops the hemorrhaging, he’s already lost too much blood. Blood we can’t replace.

“Okay, Wil,” she instructs. “When I’m in position, you’re going to move your hand out of the way. We don’t have any suction, so use that extra cloth to blot when I ask.”

Vin barely reacts when she stretches the wound open with the retractor, her gloved fingers expertly probing. I glance at the gaping hole, stomach churning at the sight of white bone peeking through blood clots and muscle.

“I see it,” she calls out after an excruciating minute. “Must be the brachial artery. Clamp!”

Lily hands her a tapered instrument, which she plunges into the wound with a quick, twisting motion. “Sorry, baby,” she soothes when Vin lets out another gasp. “Almost there. Almost…” – the clamp makes a sharp, ratcheting sound — “Got it! Now to clamp off the other section of vessel.” She tells me to blot, then repeats the procedure and asks for the sutures.

Vin once compared Brenne to a hummingbird, and he was so right. I wish he could see her in action now, hands darting with speed and precision as she fights to save his life. When she’s done tying off the bleeder, she removes the clamp and tourniquet, gaze fixed on the wound. No spurting red. Not even a trickle. We puff out a collective sigh of relief, but Brenne’s already moved to his wrist. She checks his pulse, squinting in concentration. “Weak, but still there. He’s perfusing through the deep brachial artery.”

“Which means?” I ask.

“There’s still collateral flow to his arm. He might not lose it, if we can get some volume back into him.” She turns to Lily. “There’s a bag of IV fluid in that kit. Know how to set it up?”

Lily reaches for the med kit. “I’m on it.”

“Good. That will be a start. Then I’ll transfuse him with my own blood.”

When my jaw drops, she leans over to pat my shoulder. “Don’t worry, Wil. It’ll work. I’m a universal donor. And besides…” Despite the ordeal she just went through, she still manages to crack a smile. “It’s not like we haven’t shared bodily fluids before.”

*

Brenne and Lily finish setting up Vin’s intravenous line, then check on Dillan, who sits propped up against a boulder. His left arm is wrapped in a blood-stained bandage – a gory reminder of the wound he took trying to protect me. According to Cael, half of his hand is missing.

But why? Why sacrifice himself like that for a stranger? He’s loaded with pain killers and drifting in and out of consciousness, so I can’t exactly ask him.

Then there’s that shocking memory of his brother. Cillian Fragging Gant. What happened between them to fuel the hatred I sensed?  When I told Astrid about his secret past, she agreed. That’s the key, but there’s no time to peel back the layers.  Each passing second brings our enemies closer.

“We can’t stay here,” Astrid warns, echoing my thoughts. “They’re coming.”

“I know.” I ease the duffel bag of shock charges off my shoulder. The pressure triggers aren’t live yet, but I still set the sack down as if it’s filled with glass ornaments.

We’ve reached a natural bottleneck that we squeezed through a few minutes before the ripper attack. The plan is to set the charges here, bringing down enough debris to choke off the passage. Then we’ll run back to join the others.

I glance over my shoulder, absorbing the full aftermath of the ripper attack. In the foreground, two of Dillan’s soldiers lie dead near the remains of a third ripper, blood darkening the ground beneath them like an oil slick. About a hundred feet back, Brenne, Cael and Lily tend to the wounded. If only three rippers caused this much carnage, what would a larger pack do to us?

I face the bottleneck again, peering into the chasm beyond. Low-bellied clouds race overhead, casting menacing shadows along the gully floor. Any one of those dark patches could hide a lurking ripper. Or a sniper with his finger on the trigger, waiting patiently for the signal to cut us down.

Astrid kneels to set the last shock charge. When I call her name, she looks up and takes a deep, slow breath, like she’s just received bad news she doesn’t want to share.

“How much time do we have?” I ask.

“Not enough.” She chews on her lower lip. “Even if Vin’s stable enough to move, we’ll still have to carry him and Dillan the rest of the way. Gant’s Enforcers will blast through this barrier, then outrun us before we reach the extraction point.”

There’s no arguing with her logic, but I refuse to go there. I’ll gouge my eyes out before abandoning Vin, and Dillan – well, even if he is Gant’s brother, he still just saved my life. That’s got to count for something. “What are you saying? That we should leave them behind?”

“Of course not. I just wish…” She stares at Brenne’s silhouette in the distance, shoulders heaving. “We should have never let them come.”

“We had no choice,” I reply, even though I don’t really believe this. We could have left our friends behind in York, or forced them to stay with Kobari. There were enough opportunities to keep them safe. We just missed them all.

“Makes no difference.” Astrid’s voice hardens, blue eyes narrowing. I’ve seen that steely look before, on the top of Academy Peak, right before she jumped. No. My heart flutters when I realize what she’s going to say next. “I won’t let them die for me, Wil. I’m the prize Gant’s after.”

“No.” The word catches in my throat. “You’re not going.”

She crosses her arms. “You can’t stop me.”

“Watch me!” I spin toward Lily and Cael, but they’re too far away to warn without shouting. The Enforcers could already be within earshot. I’ll have to stop Astrid alone.

“Don’t.” She grabs my hand and yanks me toward her. “Please, Wil. You know I’m right. Gant won’t stop until he’s found me, and I’m tired of running. If I can get to my dad....” Her voice cracks with emotion. “He still has allies. I just need to find them. I need to go home.”

I don’t have the heart to tell her what we both know: that her home is gone. That if her father isn’t dead already, he soon will be. Once Gant has her in his grasp, there will be no mercy. No redemption. He’ll bring her nothing but more pain and loss.

Think fast. There must be some way to stop her. “Then I’ll go with you,” I blurt out. “We’ll retrace our steps and find a spot to set up an ambush. Those are Enforcers back there. It’ll take both of us to slow them down.”

That earns an eye roll. “No offense, Wil, but you won’t be much help. Your shooting skills kind of rot.”

Fair point, but I’m not losing this argument. “What about my tracking chip?” I tap the base of my skull. “Gant’s hunting me too. I know you think the world revolves around you, but I’m the one he singled out to torture. Maybe he’s got this twisted thing for me.”

When she curses under her breath, I know I’m wearing her down. Time to win this argument. “He thinks he’s the Great One reborn, and I’m the Camp Rat who dared to defy him. Do you think he’s just going to let me go?”

“No. He’ll make an example of you, which is why you need to keep running.” 

I shake my head. “I’m not leaving without you. Listen, I know you want to confront Gant now, but you’ll be playing right into his hands. You don’t even know if your tracking chip still works. The EMP may have inactivated it.”

“Fine.” She kicks at the dirt, then bends over to pick up a potato-sized rock.

“What?” I laugh. “You’re going to use that to knock me out?”

“I thought about it.” She palms the stone, smiling. “But no. We need something to set off the pressure trigger. If the explosion works, then I’ll come back with you. Okay?”

“And if it doesn’t?”

Instead of answering, she sets down the rock and reaches for my hand. When she speaks again, her voice is soft – almost intimate. “Back on the subnaut, when Thea wanted to show me those memories, I refused. I didn’t want the ghost of some dead girl rattling around inside my head. But now…” She tightens her grip, fingers lacing with mine. “Now she’s dead. She gave her life for ours, and that somehow changes everything.”

My cheeks burn. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I want to see her. Aletheia.” She takes my other hand. Leans in closer, until her forehead touches mine. “I’m ready, Wil. Show me.”

“I – I’m not sure how.”

“It’s easy. Just close your eyes.” Her breath heats my lips like a flame. “Close your eyes and remember...”

Smoke rolls in like fog off the Pacific. To my east, the hills glow orange, burning with an intensity that dwarfs the rising sun. The wind will carry the flames, fanning them into an inferno as they consume the valley. As they turn everything we’ve built here to ashes.

Our city will fall today. It might take minutes, maybe hours, but the outcome will be the same. The Founders will breach our defenses, then hunt down my family.

I’ll be here waiting for them, but my children will be long gone.

Sweet Megan. Fiery Rose. Loyal James. Mason will lead them to safety, using our escape route through the tunnels that run beneath the ruins of old San Francisco. They’ll go to Catalina, where two ships wait for them – one to sail west, the other south.

Mason begged me to come with them, but that’s not an option. It’s taken two decades for the Founders to track me down and they won’t stop now. My father will send them across the ocean to find me, which is why I must stay here and fight. I’ll buy my family the time they need to escape.

To fulfill our mission.

I go downstairs to the lab and open a freezer. Two vials of vaccine. All that remains. We never had the technology to make more, but maybe someone else will. My father wants to spread his plague to the rest of the world, to the last pockets of survivors, but there’s still time to stop him.

Tears flood my eyes, but I blink them away. There’s no time for self-pity. I need to deliver this precious cargo to my children before saying good-bye. Then I must share what I’ve witnessed, so the world will never forget. Never…

Boom! My eyes snap open to the aftermath of an explosion. My father’s siege guns have been pounding through the night, but this sound is different. Closer. The shockwave still echoes in my ears, like a firecracker set off in a tight space. Dust clouds the air like fog, blotting out the watery light.

I stagger to my feet, mind swimming as I cough for air. Those memories! They felt so real but…

They’re not mine. They belong to Aletheia, and I’m…

I’m myself again. I’m Wil.

The realization should flood me with relief, but I can’t shake the terror still clawing at my gut. Can’t shake the feeling that something terrible just happened.

I spin around, gaze slamming into the jumble of boulders that now block the bottlenecked passage.

That’s when it hits me.

Astrid is gone.

***

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