The Wicked We Have Done

Chaos Theory - 1

Sarah Harian

1

Four minutes before the beginning of my sentence, Mom breaks down.

I thought it’d be easier; she’s had so long to prepare herself. My punishment was decided at the same time as my incarceration—six months ago—and I’d only seen her sporadically through a filthy glass window. But now she sobs into one bony hand while holding Todd’s wrist tightly with the other. With enough squirming, he’s able to break loose and run to me.

I squat down to Todd’s height. He eyes my polyester hoodie. Reaching out with pudgy fingers, he pinches the zipper.

He’s only five. I remember some things from that age—moving into a house, going to my first harvest carnival—but not everything. I wonder how he’ll remember me.

“Promise you won’t forget about me, ’kay, sport?”

Awareness floods him. “Where you going, Evie?”

“Just to take some tests. They need to keep me for a while, though.” I run my fingers through his dark, fine hair.

“Can I come?”

The corner of my mouth twitches up. “Nah, it’s like being in time-out for a month.”

His eyes widen.

“They even take away your snack time.”

“They’re going to take away your snack time?”

I nod.

“But when you get back, we can have snack time together.”

“All the chocolate ice cream in the world.” I force a mechanical smile. “I love you.”

He leans in and plants a sticky kiss on my cheek. “Me more.”

I inhale. Baby shampoo. For a second I’m transported to my home with Mom and Todd, before the trial, before college. Beige carpets and sun-baked windows, pencil sketches, lead-stained fingers. When I can’t handle torturing myself any longer, I stand.

The departure room is bleak and stifling—charcoal walls and flickering lights—hardly bigger than my cell. You’d think they’d give me a few hours with the sun before sending me away.

But terrorists don’t deserve beautiful things.

The bad lighting does nothing to mask Mom’s paleness. She looks so much older than she did a year ago—the wrinkles in her face deeper, her short dark hair streaked with gray. She nods, and I do the bravest thing I’ve done in a while. I step forward and wrap my arms around her petite shoulders.

Her breath hitches. She shudders a sob as she squeezes me.

“Don’t,” I say. “I’ll be back in a month. A month and they’ll let me go.”

I will pretend for her that I’m going to make it out of the world’s most technologically precise death penalty. That I’m going to make it out of the Compass Room.

The door squeaks open behind me. Mom’s eyes widen, the shake of her head a violent shiver. “I’m not ready.”

“We’re on a schedule, Ma’am.”

“I always believed you.” Mom clings to me, desperate. “Remember that.”

I place my hands behind my back obediently, cold cuffs locking them into place. “I love you.” Each word drowns in her cries.

The guards pry me away, and the door to the departure room clangs shut right on top of Todd’s strangled holler of my name. The floor’s metal grate rattles beneath my feet as prison guards rush back and forth between departure rooms and cells.

Despite the words I fed my mother, I know I saw my family for the very last time.

My throat tightens, but there is no time to reflect. I had months to imagine this moment, months to mourn. That time is over, because today is the beginning of my inevitable execution in the Compass Room.

The guards march me to the next door over. One opens it and the other throws me inside, dragging me to a thin cot. Medical devices decorate the rack on the wall, and a woman in a lab coat sits next to me on a rolling chair. She reads a tablet in her hands.

“Evalyn.” Harsh florescent lights illuminate her vapid smile. My guards hover close to us as she types up something on her tablet.

“Just a few quick tests.” She picks a blood pressure monitor from the rack, plugging one end into her tablet. “Your arm, please.”

She documents the rest of my vitals as she plugs in every new device. “Any problems with the contraception shot?”

I’ve been given the shots regularly since my sentence was decided. Compass Room regulations. I’ll be mingling with the male inmates during my stay, and the last thing anyone wants is for us to be breeding.

I didn’t have a say in the matter either. Had to take the shot to get into the Compass Room. And it’s either the Compass Room or death row for a girl like me.

“No.”

“All right.” She places the tablet on the counter and snaps on a latex glove. “Go ahead and lie facedown.”

I do as I’m told. Her rubbery hands sweep across my neck.

“This will sting a little.” With the sound of pressurized air, the pain is instant, as though she’s slicing through the base of my skull with a knife. I jump and she holds me down.

“All done.”

I sit up, one shaking hand flying to the back of my neck. My fingers find the bump beneath my skin. “How does the chip get through?”

“Pardon me?”

“The skull, the blood barrier.” The thought is suddenly terrifying—the implant—a slow bullet driving through my brain matter.

She purses her lips, obviously annoyed with the question. “Think of it as a tiny drill remotely operated. Perfectly safe, I assure you.”

Normal people get all of the time and resources to research anything they want to implement on their body. I haven’t been given that luxury. I have to trust that some smart chip I’ve never had the chance to research isn’t going to scramble my brain.

She taps the screen on her tablet in a few different places, then hands it to me. “You know what to do.”

The contract. They gave me a hard copy to read over in my cell, along with a Bible. I’ve memorized it.

The contract, that is.

One month in the prison. I may be subject to injury at any point during my stay. And if the monitor—the monitor this nurse injected into me—reads that my emotional and hormonal reactions to any simulation I’m put through are imbalanced, I will be put to death.

The contract is much longer than a few clauses, but these are the ones that matter.

With my fingernail, I sign my name. I need out of this room.

“Bringing Ibarra down,” one of my guards says into his ear piece. He takes my arm.

“It’s a zoo out there,” the other says.

“No shit.”

They steer me into the hall. A girl exits an exam room up ahead, also cuffed and escorted. She wears the same thing as I do—an official Compass Room uniform, I guess. T-shirt and black hoodie. Gray cargo pants and Velcro boots. An interesting change to the orange I’m so used to.

Tears streak her face. She’s very pretty, with full lips and high cheekbones, skin that’s a little darker than mine, and childlike dimples. She can’t be any older than twenty.

I can’t remember who she is. The world knows. The Compass Room list has been announced, documentaries of our tragic lives flooding prime-time network television.

My guards follow the escorted girl to the elevator, our two groups stuffed uncomfortably close together as we descend to the lobby. The girl’s sniffling fills the car, and I wish she’d quit. Every damn noise from her tightens the invisible cord around my heart.

The doors open, and I follow her out.

A series of floor-length windows surround the lobby—grated and bulletproof, but somehow classy. Good ol’ federalized prison. A classy lobby for the worst of us cretins. Cells and living quarters reside beneath the ground. We are invisible. Endless. Until we are allowed on floor two for visitation.

Or departure.

Beyond the windows, a train with a direct track to the California Compass Rooms waits for us at the prison station.

I see the protestors through the panes, behind the fence surrounding the station walkway. They pound the chain link with their fists, their signs waving back and forth. Ready for us. Their shouts weasel their way through the bulletproof glass.

We join the line of convicts. Some tall jerk shoots me a teeth-grinding glare. He’s toned—no, more than toned. He could snap my neck in half in his sleep. His sleeves are rolled up, his bare arms freckled by the sun. All that bulk must have come from outdoor physical labor. His square jaw is clenched and not a muscle in his face even dares to twitch, which makes me wonder if he knows who I am, or if his expression is stuck that way. The guards on either side of him walk stiffly, as though they are secretly scared shitless to be near him. “Casey Hargrove, prisoner number 92354, male number five in Compass Room C. Accounted for,” his guard says as he presses his finger to his earpiece.

And then the guard escorting the girl with dimples. “Jacinda Glaser, prisoner number 48089, female number four in Compass Room C. Accounted for.”

“Evalyn Ibarra, prisoner number 39286, female number five in Compass Room C. Accounted for.”

I swear the space around me goes dead quiet for half a second. The doors open.

Vibrant sound gushes into the lobby like water through an empty canyon. I am numb. My guards drag me forward. Jacinda’s fists clench behind her back—delicate fingers and white knuckles.

I evade the wall of noise and tilt my head to the overcast sky—a final fuck you from the universe. When I bring myself back to earth, I wish I hadn’t.

Hundreds scream at us, thrusting boards with contradicting text against the fence.

Compass Rooms = Barbaric

Repent, Child of God

“You will burn in hell for what you’ve done!” someone shrieks.

A woman presses a photo of one of my victims to the chain link. She mouths my name. Evalyn.

It bounces through space, multiplying. Breeding. Evalyn. Evalyn. Evalyn.

The train waits, silent and magnetic—a silver bullet on tracks—ready to shoot us to California in a handful of hours.

I follow the line of prisoners to the turnstile. Jacinda places her thumb on a panel embedded into the arch of the station. A green light blinks brightly above her and she pushes through.

“Miss Ibarra, right thumb, please,” my guard says. I comply, and the turnstile unlocks.

“EVALYN.”

My name again, sharper and angrier than the others.

“I hope it hurts—I hope it fucking HURTS.”

I’m guided up the steps and into the train car.

Seats line the walls, steel cuff armrests waiting for us with open jaws. My guard clips my ear with some kind of listening device and walks me to my seat between Jacinda and a skinny runt of a boy with black, straight hair and Jeffrey Dahmer glasses. There are ten of us all together. Ten candidates between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five.

Casey sits across from me. I tilt my head, challenging him. The other candidates are silent—unnaturally so. The cuffs snap over my wrists, and our guards leave.

I recognize two of my company. A girl with a bleach-blonde pixie cut and features that could carve glass sizes me up. Colorful tattoos linger at her pale wrists and disappear into her sleeves. Valerie Crane. Killed three guys and strung up their bodies. A glint of recognition rests in her eyes—she knows who I am, no doubt. We were in the same prison wing. I never spoke with her, though. No one fucked with Valerie Crane. I knew that much.

I also recognize another crazy bastard—an undergrad at some West Coast school. He’d been arrested for drugging and kidnapping several teens and torturing them to death. He was the only one out of his posse who had been caught. Pled innocent, though, with no motive. His name clicks—Gordon—pale and pointy-chinned under a mop of sandy hair.

Wearing a smug grin, he says, “Seems the ladies are a bit more infamous than the gentlemen.” He scans the room, pausing on each of the women.

“Go fuck yourself.” Valerie’s eyes roll to the ceiling, like she’s bored with him.

Next to me, Jacinda smiles.

The quiet rumble beneath us builds as the train takes off. We have no windows, only a row of televisions imbedded into the can-like walls above our seats. They showcase the logo of Flight Express, a corporate chain of high-speed trains. Apparently they have a contract with the federal prison system.

The silence continues. Sociopaths and serial killers are the antitheses of good conversationalists. I lean back in my seat, close my eyes, and wait.

Fifteen years ago, government scientists manufactured an accurate test for morality—an obstacle course, where the simulations within proved whether a candidate was good or evil. It was named a Compass Room.

For ten years, the CR was tested over and over. Criminals were placed inside for a month to see if the CR correctly identified the true threats to humanity. I remember one case. A big, gruff-looking man by the name of Marcus Greene who had accidently killed a family drunk driving, and a petite, middle-aged woman named Fonda Harrington—a psychopath who slaughtered three of her children. The Compass Room successfully pinpointed Fonda as the threat. Over and over again, the CR correctly identified the evil, but even so, the case to implement the rooms continued to be rejected.

A terrorist attack finally convinced the Supreme Court. All charged in the bombing were forced to undergo the Compass Room’s exam. And they were all found to be, as reporters said on the news, “morally tarnished.”

After the law passed, engineers updated the Rooms to kill the wicked. They became the most accurate form of the death penalty ever created.

Other than the fact that they’re built in the middle of experimental wilderness, the public knows very little about Compass Rooms. They know that, through technology, brain waves of the candidates are measured during a simulation. Reactions are evaluated, and like a needle on a compass, the test determines the true morality—the true internal clockwork—of the criminal. If necessary, an execution takes place.

An average of two-point-five inmates survive each CR. Not the best odds.

Survivors are under strict contract to not discuss the details of the simulation. And they all keep their mouths shut, because keeping their contract means a life free of prison. It’s the way the government justifies Compass Rooms in the first place—a month of the simulation is less expensive for society than a lifetime in jail.

Two more CRs are running in simulation with ours, one for those aged twenty-six to forty, and another for forty years and older. It’s why there were so many protestors at the prison today. The CRs have never run simultaneously before, and their existence is still relatively new. People always fight against new ethical technology. Perhaps the hype will die down in a few years when they start to realize that their tax dollars won’t be going toward feeding those who should be dead anyway.

But maybe not.

A chime sounds in my ear, and my eyes flutter open. On the TV screen, a smiling woman with rimmed glasses has replaced the Flight Train logo.

“Good morning, Compass Room candidates.”

A few prisoners sneer in disgust, including Casey. All for good reason. It’s like we’re in line at a theme park, our cabin a waiting room for some science-fiction ride with lasers and flying ships.

“Allow me to verbally prepare you before your simulation begins. The moment we left the station, your one-month sentence began.”

My heart speeds up.

“All of you have passed your mandated exam and signed your contract. You each have a monitor that will calculate your emotion and hormones. It cannot invade any other aspect of your chemistry.”

The back of my neck prickles when I think of the chip burrowing deeper and deeper into my brain matter.

“How nice of them,” Valerie spits, her eyes glued to the screen.

“Also, a reminder: you will be on constant watch by CR staff at all times within your simulation, even if it may not be evident to you. Your physical choices and interaction with other inmates will be matched with your internal calculations to determine your morality status.”

Every action we make—under the radar.

“Your train will arrive at your destination in approximately one-point-seven hours.”

And with that, she disappears. But she isn’t replaced by the Flight Train logo. Instead, a documentary rolls.

A documentary of us.

There is no narrative, simply a series of news coverage clips starting with Casey’s crime. A boy who buried his father alive.

Reporters detail the night of the murder, Casey’s mug shot, and his trial. Casey himself pled guilty to the crime while his mother, his aunt, and his closest friends claimed he was being blackmailed. The evidence was nonexistent, the murder weapon—a shovel—never found.

Casey’s true moral compass remains a mystery.

I peel myself away from the television to study him. Fists clenched, he stares at the screen with hooded eyes. Gordon’s beside himself with wicked amusement. Valerie, after watching for a bit, rolls her head toward the cabin wall.

“Why are they doing this?” the kid with the Dahmer glasses whispers, loud enough for me and maybe the boy next to him to hear. “What’s the purpose of this footage?”

I glance at him. He can’t possibly be older than eighteen. Hell, if I didn’t know the Compass Room had an age minimum, I’d guess he was fourteen. His glasses are sliding down his nose. He juts his chin upward until they fall back into place.

I don’t know if he’s actually expecting an answer, but I respond anyway. “Either to shame us, or to bring us up to date since we’re going to be interacting.”

He scoffs. “Well, obviously. But why footage of our trials?”

“To increase tension. Make us skeptical of each other.”

He wiggles his nose around. “Dammit, I have an itch.”

“I’d offer to scratch it with my teeth, but—”

“Nice try, Ibarra. I don’t need footage to be skeptical of you.” He smiles and flicks his head up to swipe the bangs from his face.

I learn his name from the documentary. Tanner—tried as an adult for pushing a boy off a riverside cliff.

The footage spans everyone. Erity, the girl with almond-shaped eyes and black, pin-straight hair, convicted of “sacrificing” four girls in the name of witchcraft. Stella, the girl with the golden curls, burned her ex-boyfriend’s house to the ground with his whole family inside. Blaise, a lanky boy on the other end of my row, shot two guys at a college party when he was drunk. Salem, the boy who frighteningly looks like he could be my brother, raped several women. And finally, Jacinda, who killed a family during a car-crash-suicide attempt.

Of course, they saved the best for last. The date of the graphic flashing across the screen is today. This clip played this morning.

“Evalyn Ibarra, the most infamous of the younger candidates, has been at the center of practically every national news discussion for the past few months,” says a platinum blonde at a morning news round table. A graphic materializes on the screen behind her. “Our polls show that eighteen percent of Americans think that the Compass Room will find Ibarra innocent, sixty-five percent think that the Compass Room will find her guilty, and seventeen percent are unsure. How about those statistics, Gary?”

The camera pans out.

“Well,” Gary says, “I’m going to have to agree with national opinion on this one, Katherine. The case is no stranger to anyone who turns on the television for more than five minutes. And you know how I think the jury would have leaned if the trial had continued and Ibarra hadn’t chosen the CR option.”

“That Ibarra would have been found guilty.”

“Exactly.”

“How long do you think she’ll last in the Compass Room?”

“If we study those who’ve committed crimes of her magnitude and have also been sentenced to CRs, and take what we know of their experience, I’d give her two days.”

“Two days? You’re only giving her two days?”

“Look at Anton Freesan and Janice Grey. Neither of them lasted longer than forty-eight hours, which we found out in the minimal documentation released after their CR was finished. Their crimes were very similar to Ibarra’s.”

“But Ibarra is young. Don’t you think the CR has been engineered to take that into consideration?”

“CRs are designed to terminate the morally corrupt. Think of them as the ultimate lie-detector test. The moral nature of a human doesn’t truly change with age, which was discovered a few years ago by a team of psychoanalysts in Philadelphia, if you remember.”

“I do.”

“Ibarra has the same moral arrow as she will when she’s thirty, and if she’s evil, the CR will recognize that.”

Feeling the eyes of every candidate on me, I glance down. Most are scornful—hate-filled. Even though they committed crimes, I am the queen of darkness.

They have nothing to worry about. If I’m really evil, the CR will make sure that by day two, my heart isn’t beating.

The footage of my crime rolls. Crying families outside Roosevelt College. Students and professors wailing, screaming. FBI, police, bomb squad.

All storming the school to catch one of the shooters who initiated fifty-six deaths.

All storming the school to catch me.

More footage rolls from a prime-time documentary of my crime. I was one of eight who shot up a faculty banquet at the college, the only one who didn’t kill myself—psychologists figure because I chickened out at the last minute.

They also mention Nick, another shooter, and the fact that we met through Meghan. I was her best friend, he her boyfriend. When we decided to take our lives, we made sure she came with us.

I hold my breath and wait, wait for the footage to end, wait for everyone in the cabin to tear themselves from me.

One boy refuses.

You’re dead, Casey mouths.

A little door slides open right behind his head, a robotic syringe jutting forward.

The needle stabs Casey in the neck. He jerks. “The hell?”

His eyes roll to the back of his head.

My neck stings, my jaw goes numb, and the inside of the train blurs to nothing.

March 2, Last Year

Riverview Apartments

At eight thirty in the morning, the sun filtered into my room, leaves creating geometrical shapes across the sheets and Liam’s bare chest. I rolled to my stomach and brushed the hair from his closed eyes. His chest rose and fell as he slept.

Waking up to Liam in the morning was a reawakening to my good luck. I always knew that high school sweethearts were a thing of fantasy. Somehow, I had managed to keep mine. Our five-year anniversary was only a few months away.

I crawled over him. The feeling of my bare skin gliding over his somehow never got old. It didn’t for him either; his skin erupted in goose bumps. He blinked a few times, focusing on me.

“There is something so sexy about watching you wake up,” I told him. “I don’t think I’ll ever get bored of it.”

He rolled me over and slid on top of me, his lips finding the stretch of sensitive skin above my collarbone. It was the place he kissed and touched when he was trying to be romantic, because he knew too well that I’d melt beneath him. My hands explored his waist to bring him closer.

He kissed my jaw and said, “Even when I snore all night?”

I grinned. “I’m getting used to it.”

A crash sounded from the kitchen, followed by the ting of a metal bowl rolling across the linoleum.

“Okay, since you now know that I’m awake, you should come out. If you aren’t screwing, that is,” Meghan hollered. “I made you two breakfast.”

“Thought I smelled bacon.” Liam rolled off of me, sitting up.

“Why is she cooking breakfast? She never cooks me breakfast.” I’d given her the keys to my car last night. Liam and I ended up drinking too much and had to take a cab home. She probably crashed into something and was now trying to make up for it, I thought.

I was the crazy junior who had not only clung to my high school boyfriend, but my childhood best friend as well. So many students I met since I started college thought I was insane. College was a time to break free from childhood—a time for students to experiment and sleep with people they didn’t even like and join sororities where the members, for a few fleeting years, would be as close to them as sisters until they graduated and never saw them again.

The three of us could have gone somewhere other than Phoenix for school. But Phoenix was only an hour away from home, and in Phoenix, we’d have each other.

And had them I did. I’d been living with Meghan for three years. Liam had his own apartment with a roommate, but he was practically living with us as well. Our third wheel, Meghan liked to call him.

Liam leaned over me and kissed my neck, his languid tongue rolling over my collarbone. I gasped as his fingers traced the inside of my thigh. “I love you,” he whispered. “Meghan’s probably just excited. She knows what’s waiting for you.”

“A quickie before class?”

“Funny.” His voice rumbled in my ear. “I meant out on the patio.”

He had piqued my curiosity. But his eyes that were lighter than the sun-washed sky outside weren’t giving me a clue as to what he was getting at.

“That was your cue to get your ass out of bed.”

“Thanks for that.” I smacked him playfully and sat, locating my pajamas scattered across the floor. I dressed and tied my hair up. As I walked out to the living room, I hoped Meghan had made an excessive amount of bacon.

I looked toward the sliding glass door. On the balcony sat a full-sized wooden easel. I squealed and ran outside. Liam followed.

“Why?” I asked.

“What do you mean, why?”

I spun to him. “What’s the occasion?”

“I’m tired of seeing you ‘working’ with colored pencils and printer paper.”

I didn’t have any decent art supplies. It wasn’t like I’d been an artist all my life. I never took any art classes prior to college, but I knew I could draw. I knew I could conceptualize images and create them.

Then one day, during my freshman year, I decided to change my major to art. Because being a business major was unfulfilling.

Let’s face it, it doesn’t matter what you get your degree in. People just want to think it does.

I didn’t tell Mom until the summer before my sophomore year. Safe to say she was still bitter.

“You didn’t have to,” I said, even though I was so ecstatic that I couldn’t stop shaking.

Meghan sauntered outside. She wore an apron from the coffee shop she used to work at. “You know what this means?” She waved a dirty spatula in the air.

“We can get our blog up and running.” I bounced on my toes.

“We can get our effing blog up and running.”

Meghan and I liked the concept of teamwork, and an organic fan base. We had this brilliant idea not long before. Meghan was a photography major and damn good photographer. We’d been best friends ever since high school, and even then, she was obsessed with her work. We wanted to play around with perception—how a photograph could transform into a painting. It could be the same image and yet entirely different.

But this was only theory.

“Art-supply shop this afternoon?” she asked.

“Absolutely.”

“Damn, eggs are burning.” Meghan ran inside.

Liam pushed his sandy hair back. “I gotta take a shower and get to the library. Even on Saturdays I can’t relax. College blows.”

“I love you.”

He shot me that perfect, lopsided grin of his. “Because I buy you easels?”

“Because you know me. You know that a wooden easel means more than the world to me.”

He took my hand and dragged me to him, planting a kiss on my forehead. “I love you too. More than you know.”

2

I have the worst hangover imaginable. I peel my tongue from the roof of my mouth and swallow away the bile in my throat. Water. I need water, now.

I open my eyes to clean, bright light and groan, covering my head with a flat, itchy pillow.

Some party last night.

I stiffen. There was no party last night. There hasn’t been a party for ten months. I’ve been in jail.

Yanking my head from beneath the pillow, I blink until my vision focuses.

Pine panels cover the walls and floor. Shelves scattered with knickknacks sit above a whitewashed vanity. Light trickles in from a French-paned window on the wall farthest from the door.

Someone snores beneath me.

As I sit, I bite back the urge to groan. I’m still wearing a hoodie and cargo pants. My boots are by the door.

The Compass Room.

I try to remember when I was last awake, rubbing my wrists where they should be cuffed. Did I enter the simulation? Did I escape alive?

All I can remember is the train, and the other criminals. The needle that went into my neck.

My gaze locks on a navy backpack at the end of my bed. EVALYN is stamped on the front.

I don’t remember ever owning this pack. I take a moment to contemplate what could possibly be inside, then zip it open.

A T-shirt, cotton underwear, a canteen, a lighter, socks, a toothbrush, and at the very bottom, a blanket. Survival gear.

I don’t know why this belongs to me now. I don’t even know where I am. The one thing engrained into me since entering the prison system is that I should follow orders: when to leave my cell, when to change my clothes, when to see my visitors, when to eat.

Where is the guard who’s supposed to tell me what to do?

I shake out my ponytail and run my fingers through my tangled waves, secure it up, and swing my feet off the bed. Taking my bag with me, I step down the ladder to learn the identity of my bunkmate.

The bag propped up at the bottom of the bed reads JACINDA, and the girl with dimples lies on her back, an arm flung over her face.

She’s the suicide girl—took out a family in the process and lived to reap the punishment. She had been crying before we left prison. I wonder if it was because she still wants to die, or because she might not get out of here alive.

I tear myself away from her and walk to the window. Before me, a hill covered in pine rolls downward. The sun sits at a slant in the sky—it will be dark soon. I’ve been out for either a day or a handful of hours.

Nothing but forest. No buildings, no roads. Just a thick blanket of green all the way to the jagged mountains in the distance.

“Where the hell are we?” I mutter to myself.

“Is this the Compass Room?”

I spin to Jacinda, who has propped herself up on her elbows. Her expression shifts as she registers who I am, unfocused eyes darting around the room, like she’s trying to figure out if we’re alone.

She’s afraid of me. Guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

“I don’t know,” I say.

When she spots the backpack at the foot of her bed, she crawls to it, her fingers tracing the letters. “Jacinda,” she murmurs, retracting her hand like the fabric bit her. “No one calls me that.”

“What do they call you?”

“Jace,” she says warily. She studies me up and down, mindlessly clutching the strap of her backpack and wringing it.

An awkward silence fills the air between us before I say, “Okay, Jace. I’m gonna take a look around. See if I can figure out where we are.”

“The door isn’t locked?”

I didn’t even think of that. Simple stained wood, the door is so unlike the bars I’m used to staring at for hours on end. I walk toward it, place my hand on the brass handle, and turn. With a click, the door creaks open.

“Not locked.” I peer into the hall.

The dry air smells of cedar and dust. Light streaks across the floor from the sole window to my left. Six doors line the hall, two of them open. At the right end, a staircase leads downward and toward the trickling of voices.

“I’ll be back.”

“Please”—Jace clutches her bag to her chest—“don’t leave me here alone.”

The way she begs me makes no sense. A moment before, she had seemed frightened of me. Maybe Jace is afraid of everything. And she’s supposed to be a morally tarnished criminal. Are you kidding me?

I’d rather not have anyone tagging along, but she’s too pathetic to say no to.

“Come on, then.”

She hurries to me, holding her pack close. Once in the hall, I fling my own onto my shoulders and adjust the straps until it’s tight against my back. Jace and I walk side by side to the staircase.

Erity stands in the center of the living room, gazing at the stone-lined fireplace, the huge leather sofas, the overhanging chandelier made entirely out of deer antlers. She wears a pack too.

In the kitchen, Stella opens and closes each cabinet. “There’s food! And liquor. Lots and lots of liquor.”

A small squeak escapes Jace’s throat.

“Holy shit.”

Valerie has snuck up on us. She stares over my shoulder.

We’ve woken up in a mountain resort with food and tons of booze. It’s like the government’s secret evil plan is to reward us for our bad behavior.

Salem enters from the deck. That’s six of us. Four still sleep. “Is there anyone here?” I ask. “Anyone besides us?”

“Not that I can tell,” Salem says.

“No guards?”

“Nope.” He harbors a fevered glint. “Looks like they left us all alone.”

A chill runs up my back. Stuck here with this bastard—a boy who raped thirteen girls—isn’t exactly what I’d call a vacation.

“He won’t touch you,” Valerie murmurs, but it doesn’t make me feel any better. “You know what I do to fuckers who can’t keep their hands to themselves.”

I do know. Not just from her crime, but from her infamy in our prison wing.

“Did we ever talk?” I ask. “In the H Wing?”

“I didn’t talk. I kicked the shit out of people.” She shrugs. “And you . . . you got the shit kicked out of you enough. Picking on you wouldn’t have been satisfying.”

“Oh, thanks,” I respond dryly.

A wry smile twists her lips. “Maybe we should have talked. You know . . . been prison BFFs or something.”

“You would’ve gotten bored real quick. I’m far too vanilla for your tastes.”

“What’s vanilla?” Jace whispers. She gapes at us with owl eyes.

Valerie’s mouth twitches like she’s itching to laugh. When she reaches out and pats Jace’s shoulder, Jace flinches. Without answering her, Valerie turns back to me. “Too vanilla as a friend or a fuck buddy?”

I narrow my eyes. “Both.”

She sighs dramatically. “Yeah, you’re right. I probably would have gotten bored of you real fast.” She steps forward, leaning against the balcony. “You were a good little prison inmate, letting all those girls beat the snot out of you without a fight. But here . . . we have some freedom now. I better keep an eye on you, Ibarra.”

I raise an eyebrow. “You afraid of me?”

She bursts into laughter and makes her way down the stairs.

“I don’t get it,” Jace says when Valerie’s out of reach. “Was she flirting with you?”

“I don’t think so. I think we made an alliance.”

She’s quiet for a long moment, and then asks, “Can I be in on the alliance?”

I grin inwardly and nod. “Sure.”

In prison, alliances are created so inmates can watch each other’s backs for potential attackers. But I don’t know what an alliance here means.

I study Salem and the space between us, vacant of bars or chains or glass. Vacant of any form of protection.

Maybe here, you need people watching your back too.

* * *

Other than a huge deck overlooking the forest, there isn’t much else to explore in the stone-crusted lodge. The air outside is clean and cool, dense with the scent of evergreen and soil.

We’ve been dropped in the middle of nowhere.

The rest have woken. Casey wears a grimace like he’s ready to beat the living hell out of someone. I’m starting to wonder if he always looks like a vicious dog.

Stella walks into the kitchen. She unzips her backpack and rummages through cupboards, collecting various cans of food and tossing them into her bag.

“It’s a bad idea,” Casey calls from the living room.

“What is?” I ask.

“I’m leaving,” Stella says. She flips back her blonde hair and zips up her pack, tossing it over her shoulder.

“Leaving? To where?”

“They knocked us out, dumped us here, and gave us survival gear. So I’m going away. To anywhere.”

“So you’re going to wander into the wilderness?” Valerie chuckles sarcastically. She leans back against the marble of the kitchen island. “Great plan, dipshit.”

Stella’s fingers grip the straps of her backpack so tightly that her knuckles are white. “They gave us provisions, and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking around here with you creeps.”

“You have no idea what’s out there,” Casey says.

Stella barks a laugh. “You honestly think I’m safer here? With a bunch of killers and a rapist?”

“I’ll only show you a good time, sweetheart,” says Salem as he rummages through cabinets on the other side of the kitchen. It’s such a half-assed comment, like he’s making his presence known because he can.

“Point taken,” says Casey. “But if they gave us provisions, outside must be where our tests are.”

“Oh, stop pretending you care what happens to me. You’re as bad as Salem. All of you are.”

Casey tenses. “You don’t know me.”

“And you don’t know me,” says Stella. “I’m not afraid of those tests because I shouldn’t even be here.”

Valerie scoffs. “Oh yeah, I’m sure you were totally justified in burning alive your boyfriend and his whole family.”

Stella winces. “Fuck you,” she hisses before crossing the living room and heaving open the front door.

“Good riddance,” Casey says when she’s gone.

The tension after Stella leaves is awkward and volatile. Her departure brings the realization that not only do we not know where we are, but we can’t trust anyone we’re stuck with. We’ve been given provisions, so it’s obvious that, if this is the Compass Room, we are meant to head out. It’s either that or stay in a house full of psychopaths.

While Valerie and Jace sit out on the deck, Salem and Gordon speak quietly to each other in the kitchen. Casey’s retreated upstairs, and I’m left in the living room with Tanner, Erity, and Blaise.

I haven’t heard Blaise speak once. Dark and tall, he lies on the couch, his limbs dangling over the sides. He clutches a leather-bound book to his chest that he must have picked up from the shelves in the living room. It looks like a Bible.

Tanner sits in the armchair next to mine. His gaze is fixed on Blaise, intent.

Soon, the silence is so thick in the living room, so hot and itchy and unbearable, that I have to say something.

“Do you think Stella is telling the truth?” My voice is so quiet that I’m not even sure Tanner heard until he breaks from Blaise.

“Her trial suggests otherwise.” He pushes his glasses up with his forefinger.

I stare at him blankly.

“Please tell me that you know of her trial.”

I glance around at a lifeless Blaise, at Erity, caught up in a book and not paying us an ounce of attention, and then at Gordon and Salem, both of whom are invested in a certain kitchen cupboard.

“I’ve kind of been in jail.”

“We all have kind of been in jail. I’m pretty sure I’ve kind of been in jail longer than you have.”

I lean back in my chair. “Does that mean you’ve studied up on us?”

“All of you, but not as thoroughly as I’ve studied the Compass Room itself.” He narrows his eyes.

“What?” I say defensively. “No, I didn’t research Compass Rooms after my sentence. Nor did I go out of my way to research any of you.” I hug my torso, as if that will make the next words out of my mouth any more comforting. “It’s pointless research if you’re going to die anyway.”

“I guess if that’s the way you see it.” He shakes the bangs away from his face. “Or your plan all along was to harass another criminal to explain everything to you.”

I scoff. “Looks like you’ve figured me out.”

“To answer your question, Stella is one of the harder reads. Evidence of her crime is pretty inarguable. The fire was started by a cigarette and a photograph. She was outside the house sobbing when the fire department arrived, and she hadn’t called 911. Nicotine residue was found on her fingers.”

“Yet she believes she’s going to survive this.”

“Yeah, but you have to remember, just because you’re guilty doesn’t mean the Compass Room is going to kill you.”

“How could she have possibly believed her intentions were good?”

Tanner shrugs. “Could have been an accident. That’s what her lawyers were trying to prove in court.”

Damn . . . this kid has even done his research on our trials.

I nod toward Gordon. He and Salem have stumbled upon the ample amount of liquor and are currently lining up the bottles on the kitchen counter.

“Guilty as sin itself. I think everyone knows it. The evidence was overbearing. And it’s not like you can accidentally torture people.”

I nod toward Blaise. Tanner furrows his eyebrows.

“You don’t know.”

“He’ll make it out.”

“But you’re speculating,” I say.

“I’m observing. Killed two people when he was blackout drunk, and now he’s clutching a Bible to his chest.”

“And me?”

He hesitates for a moment, like he thinks I’m trying to trick him. But then he answers safely by saying, “You already said you’re going to die here.”

I pull my knees up to my chest. “I guess I did.”

“Even considering your minimal research on your own morality test.”

I can’t help but give a slight smile. Somehow, this kid’s cheekiness is comforting. Maybe it’s because he actually cares what I have to say.

I’m not used to that.

“The one thing I do know about the Compass Room is that this test is supposed to see who you truly are, despite your research. Despite good acting or the lies you tell yourself.”

His swallow is audible. “Are you afraid?” When I shake my head, he repeats my words back to me. “The Compass Room sees who you truly are, despite the lies you tell yourself.”

It’s the first time since I’ve woken that I notice the pounding of my heart. “When do you think the tests will start?”

Tanner glances over at Salem and Gordon as the boys clink together glasses full of clear liquid. “I think they already have.”

* * *

Blaise isn’t the only one engrossed by a book from the shelf in the living room. Erity’s been carrying around a hand-bound journal. Her dark hair hangs in a curtain around her face as she flips through the pages, first on a couch, then outside, and then tucked away in a corner.

“Looked over her shoulder when I walked by. It’s a witch book,” Salem whispers to Gordon when I walk into the kitchen. “All sorts of diagrams and Latin writing and shit, like it was on the shelf just for her. Little witch bitch. You should ask her to cast a spell.”

“Could probably learn a few fucked-up tricks from her.”

Valerie glares at them maliciously when she walks inside from the deck. We exchange glances before she starts scrounging around for food.

Gordon slides me a shot. “Don’t think, just drink.”

A mass torturer just slid me a shot, waiting with that stupid, smug grin of his. He doesn’t look like a psychopath, more like a surfer boy finishing up his final semester in San Diego.

Average. A curtain of average features to hide his twisted fetish. His smile makes me wonder if torturing those kids to death got him off.

“Suit yourself.” He picks the shot up off the table and downs it. “Top-shelf. Might as well—I’ll be gone in no time. Most of us will, except two-point-five of us. I wonder if the unlucky one will lose his legs. Maybe his arms. Or her legs and arms.” He waggles his eyebrows and I taste bile.

“They’re testing our morality, right? Any of this could be a lure to make us do something stupid,” I say.

“And then what, an army will come stomping through the door and shoot me dead? Doubt it.”

“He’s right, you know.” Salem sifts through the bottles in the liquor cabinet before choosing a petite tequila container, a label I’ve never seen before in my life. Probably because I don’t barhop at places that offer thirty-dollar shots. “Test ratios for Compass Rooms are against all of us. Your best bet would be to drink and fuck your last night away. Who’s it gonna be?” He winks, pointing his finger between Gordon and himself.

My stomach clenches. “You’re sick.”

“Better make your decision quick. It’s obvious you’ll be the first one dead.” He studies the bottle. “Damn, I’ve only drunk this one other time. That was a night, I’ll tell you.”

Valerie rests her hand on the knife block. Valerie Crane strung up three of her twin sister’s supposed rapists, and yet this asshole who is here because of his out-of-control cock is yammering away. As if he was clueless.

I shake my head at her. Don’t cause a scene, don’t shed blood. She grinds her teeth back and forth, burning holes into the back of Salem’s head as he takes a long pull from the bottle.

Casey has reappeared and studies the scene in the kitchen from the living room couch, expressionless.

“Have fun dying drunk and alone.” I saunter past them.

“Bitch.” Gordon snickers in amusement.

A crash rings through the kitchen. When I turn back, Valerie has Gordon pinned to the wall by his neck. “Apologize, you little fuck.”

A chuckle bubbles from Gordon’s mouth, setting every last one of my nerves on fire. His eyes roll lazily to me. “I’m sorry, Evalyn, for calling you a bitch.”

I don’t feel better.

Salem laughs and drinks.

“Let him go,” I tell Valerie. “You know it’s not worth it.”

She doesn’t listen immediately, shoulders heaving with every breath. Finally, she rips her hands away and stalks to the deck.

Not wanting to linger in the poisonous aftermath, I return to my room and sift through the contents of my bag. What to do in a house full of killers and psychopaths—I eye my canteen, my blanket.

I could leave.

There’s no sense sticking around here and waiting for the inevitable. Bags were given to us, bags with supplies. Perhaps we were meant to run, explore. Go separate ways. Perhaps Stella was right.

I zip the pack up, swing it over my shoulder, and turn.

“Evie.”

He stands in the doorway, head tilted to the side, sucking on his finger like he’s always done. A habit he’s never broken.

My brother.

“Todd?”

He giggles. “Hide-and-seek, Evie. You count. I go!”

And then he runs.

“Todd, stop!” I yell, darting into the hall. He races to the end, giggling like mad, and rushes into the only open door.

I sprint into the room, where Casey is alone. And changing.

He straightens, shirt coiled around his wrists. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Did a little boy run in here?” I spout, simultaneously gaping at him. I’d been right before when I’d ventured to visualize his brawn. What I hadn’t imagined were the zigzagging scars roping his torso.

He slides into his shirt. “Excuse me?”

I swipe the hair from my eyes to scan the room. “I . . . err . . . a little boy. About five.”

He acknowledges what I’ve said by leaning back against the vanity. I’m noticing a trend to the response of his body language—this one is popping up often. It means, Are you a fucking idiot?

“I see now,” he says. “You’re mentally insane. That’s what probably attributed to your crime.”

So Todd didn’t run in here.

Why would Todd even be here?

Maybe I am insane.

“Does that mean no?”

Casey rolls his eyes. Only then does he notice my backpack.

“You leaving?”

“Thinking about it.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Is that so?” I tug the hanging strap around to my other shoulder. “Care to enlighten me?”

“Do what you want.” He nods to the window that showcases the valley, the near-impenetrable pine. “But you don’t know what’s waiting out there.”

“I don’t know what’s waiting out there, but I know what’s waiting in here. I’ll take my chances.”

His lip twitches. “You talk like you aren’t the most dangerous one of us.”

I tighten the straps of my pack. “If I’m so dangerous, why the hell are you persuading me to stick around?”

He’s calculating, still as stone.

I cock my head. “Planning on being vindictive, are we? Keeping me around so you can punish me yourself? Heard you’re good at that.”

Before I can shut my mouth, he has me up against the wall, arm to my throat, the air knocked from me out of sheer surprise.

“Don’t think I fucking won’t,” he growls.

I wonder if they’ll let us kill each other in here. People get killed in jail, right? This wouldn’t be different. “All talk and no game,” I spit. “Maybe you should stop being such a pussy and do it already.”

“Do what?”

“Kill me.”

His whole aura practically shakes with rage.

“I know I’m gonna die, Casey. You could make it easier. Save us a feud.”

Something shifts in his expression—playtime is done. A deeper loathing takes over. He backs away from me. “Get out.”

I ball my hands into fists.

“I said get out!”

I wait a few seconds to prove I’m not affected by his smoke and mirrors, and push away from the wall, leaving the room.

The hall is dark. It’s the time of day when no one’s yet thought to turn on the lights because you can see enough to trip your way through the shadows. My hands are shaking. I don’t know why, not quite. I didn’t mean what I said—that I wanted him to kill me. I needed to see his reaction, to see if he took me seriously. It’s hard to gauge the insanity levels of others when you’re so screwed up yourself.

A woman stands at the end of the hall in a short nightie. Her eyes are Bambi orbs.

I pause, waiting for her to move. She doesn’t look real.

Doesn’t look real at all.

And she’s not an inmate.

“Casey,” I hiss, but the door is shut.

Maybe she’s the owner of the house. Maybe she’s been hiding. I open my mouth to say something, but my voice has vanished.

She creeps to me, shoulders erect. Her head hangs at an angle, stringy blonde hair falling limply around her shoulders, eyes sunken in their sockets.

She’s unbelievably thin. Her rib cage protrudes around her nonexistent breasts. With a bony hand, she flips back her hair, revealing the mottled bruises on her neck. “Shh.” She reaches out, like she’s going to place a finger to my lips. I shut my eyes, waiting for her touch.

“Don’t tell him I’m here. I want it to be a surprise.”

I open my eyes to ask who she means. But she’s gone.

I exhale and breathe in slowly through my nose. Exhale. It was the traveling, the train trip, that’s causing these visions. Or the drug they used to knock us out. First Todd, now her. I’m having side effects. Hallucinations.

That has to be it.

I hurry downstairs. Valerie and Jace are in the kitchen, doing their damnedest to stay away from the boys. We’re all trying to stay away from two boys in particular, although interacting with Casey isn’t exactly a walk in the park either. But Salem and Gordon are both vocal in their conversation, inebriated chatter filling the cavernous downstairs. Everyone either has their packs on or near them. We all got the message that they are important.

“There’s food.” Valerie holds a glass of water—or vodka—close to her mouth. “In the fridge. If you want it.”

The last thing I am is hungry. Squatting, I scrounge the liquor cabinet for the perfect bottle—an aged scotch—before uncapping it and taking a long pull.

Smooth. I feel the effects immediately. The horror threading my spine begins to ebb.

“Damn, girl,” Valerie says as I bring the bottle back down. Jace remains distant, rubbing her arms as she observes the boys.

“You two been seeing anything strange?” I ask. “Things—people—that shouldn’t be here?”

Valerie crosses her tattooed arms across her chest. “Having an episode? You’re not gonna go bat-shit crazy on us, are you?”

I might be. Because Todd and that girl—I saw them. Who’s to say how sane I am?

Jace takes the effort to drag her gaze away from the boys. “People?”

I open my mouth to explain, but I’m distracted by Casey, who’s now hovering at the base of the stairs. He glances from us to the boys on the couch. I guess neither conversation is appealing to him.

The lights flicker, the buzz of electricity a prevalent force against my ear drums. They sputter out.

When the power returns, Valerie hisses, “Holy fuck.”

The girl from the hall stands at the top of the stairs. Valerie can see her. I’m not going insane. She’s real.

Blaise, who has been lying on the couch since this afternoon, suddenly sits up. He starts to mutter. A prayer, maybe? He jumps up, swings his backpack over his shoulders, and bolts out the door.

Salem acts like he’s going to follow in Blaise’s footsteps, but stays planted in his chair, watching the girl cautiously.

Casey realizes the attention magnet above his head.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Salem groans.

“Who is she?” Jace asks.

“One of the cunts who testified against me.”

An audible growl escapes Valerie’s throat. She clutches the kitchen island in front of her, the muscles in her forearms dangerously tense.

How can Salem’s victim be here, in the Compass Room? Someone must have paid her to make an appearance, but that means she was willing to be in the same room with him.

She leans forward on the railing, breasts trying their hardest to spill from the triangle restraints of her nightie. “Hey, baby,” she purrs. “Missed you.”

“What the fuck?” whispers Valerie.

Jace’s hands clamp her glass of juice tightly. “How is she here? How is she inside, like us, how . . .”

The skeletal girl struts down the stairs. “Come on, sweetheart, why such the long face?”

Don’t tell him I’m here. I want it to be a surprise.

“Here to apologize, you stupid bitch?” Salem seethes. I wince at his tone.

“Knock it off, asswipe,” Valerie snarls. “Don’t pretend you didn’t rape her.”

Salem locks onto Valerie, cracking a wicked grin. “Never denied anything, did I?”

“I’m going to kill him,” she mutters.

She isn’t above it, Salem should know. But his expression is fearless.

“I do want to apologize, Salem.” The girl steps onto the stone of the living room floor and slinks around the couch, making her way toward him. “I know what you’ve been thinking. That this place is paradise. I’m here to prove that to you.” She bats her eyelashes. “So sit back and let me.”

The lights dim. Valerie’s all jumpy next to me, so I extend my hand in front of her and say, “Let it play out.”

“Let him touch her? After what he did?”

Yes, because she’s letting him. Yes, because this situation is too insane to address. The little blonde crawls onto his lap, and Salem smirks, feasting his eyes on her scrawny, deprived body. Casey waits with clenched fists. Hurried whispers stir from Erity and Stella behind me, and Gordon, well, Gordon starts to cackle, low and gravelly at first, spiraling into mania.

“Think I’d leave you all alone, baby, in a place where the girls don’t service the boys like they should?”

“You’re finally making sense to me.” His hands travel up the back of her thighs, cupping her ass.

She chuckles darkly. “Good.”

Clasping her hands on either side of his head, she twists, elbows swinging as she snaps his neck in half.

I Don’t Remember Most of the Trial.

A funny thing happened with my mind—a trick—during all of those testimonies. I couldn’t even remember my testimony. Just blocked out. A shade drawn over a window.

But I remember one particular witness.

It had never been officially over between Liam and me. I was in federal prison, and he was getting over the fact that the world knew me in a different way from how he did. Those two Evalyns weren’t allowed to exist on the same plane together.

The prosecuting lawyer was relentless. But I should have expected that.

“Mr. Calaway, how close were you to the defendant?”

Liam’s eyes flickered to mine. “We’ve been dating for five years.”

“So you’re still dating, correct?”

“I . . . we haven’t really talked about it.”

My eyes stung. I blinked furiously, sucking in air through my lips.

“Was it a sexual relationship?”

“Objection, Your Honor.”

The judge waved her hand in a dismissive fashion. “Overruled.”

“Yes,” Liam said.

“And in the months before the event, did Evalyn start to act any differently than normal?”

Liam thought about this. He thought about this until my fingernails were embedded deep into my palms.

“No.”

“How about her relationship with Meghan Luciani?”

“She started spending more time with her.”

The whole courtroom buzzed with hushed whispers, and I felt the dead cold seep into my stomach.

“Therefore, she started spending more time with Nick.”

I knew what everyone was thinking. That thought was the most humid thing in the room, clinging to the air until I couldn’t breathe.

“I guess,” Liam said.

“So it would be possible that Evalyn was having an affair with Nick?”

My lawyer stood so fast she almost knocked her chair over. “Objection, Your Honor! Total speculation!”

But Liam didn’t need to answer that question; it had already been implanted into the minds of the jury. Evalyn Ibarra spent time with the girl she murdered in order to fuck her boyfriend.

“Sustained.”

So the prosecuting lawyer tried a different route. “How close was the defendant to Meghan Luciani?”

“Very close. Sisters close.”

That’s when Liam lied. We weren’t sisters close. Liam used to always tease that he would have thought we were lovers if he didn’t know better.

“That’s why it came as such a shock to me when Evalyn was charged.”

That wasn’t what the lawyer wanted to hear, so he changed the subject. “Did Evalyn ever talk about chaos theory in front of you, Mr. Calaway?”

Liam shook his head. “No. Well, only once. Meghan had told her that Nick was obsessed with it.”

The purr of the court grew to a rumble.

This was the one bit of evidence given that didn’t damn me. Nick’s obsession led the police to find a hoard of philosophical books about chaos theory in his apartment—the theory that validated his delusional desire to kill. As for me—nothing in my possessions proved that I even knew what chaos theory was.

The lawyer held up a baggie with a tube inside for Liam to see. “Can you make out this shade of lipstick, Mr. Calaway?”

Liam nodded.

“Is this a shade that Miss Ibarra owned?”

I saw the crime-scene photo as if it was in front of me. The mirror, the note in pink.

Whoever finds this—

I’ve crumbled along with the world.

This cookie-cutter girl you want me to be

Makes me sick.

There is no turning back. Not for

Any of us.

We will see you in

The next life.

—Evalyn Rochelle Ibarra

“I—maybe. I don’t know? I mean, I’m a guy.”

The gallery, and even some of the jury, laughed. I don’t think Liam was trying to be funny.

“Do you plan on breaking up with Miss Ibarra, Mr. Calaway?”

“Objection!”

“Sustained.”

“No further questions, Your Honor.”

As the prosecuting lawyer made his way back to his seat, Liam’s head remained bowed, his shoulders shaking.

I prayed that he wouldn’t look up at me. I told God that if he did, I’d break, right here in this courtroom, in this chair.

That was the last prayer God answered for me.

3

Jace screams.

The bubbling laughter spurts more rapidly from Gordon’s mouth as the girl slides off Salem’s limp body. Warmth has left every inch of me.

A gleam has risen in the girl, sharp and vibrant like a blade slicing open her irises. “Get ready to run.”

Fire mysteriously ignites in the hearth, bursting forth and catching on the couch, the carpet—on the nightie of Salem’s victim. Her face is illuminated as the flames eat her alive, charring her skin, broiling her insides.

In a matter of seconds, the fire has spread to all of the furniture, licking up the walls, igniting the curtains.

“We need to get out of here!” Valerie screams.

But I can’t. Not yet. My own body awakens, no longer paralyzed by invisible chains of terror. I run toward her, toward the girl now only walking muscle and bone—and drop to my knees, skidding across the stone until my legs collide with Salem’s body. I feel around his collarbone, moving my hands up toward his neck, where his head rolls at an impossible angle. It wasn’t an act. He’s gone.

Heat threatens to sear the skin straight off of me.

Someone grasps my arm and yanks me to my feet. “What are you doing?” Casey shouts. “We need to get out—”

A plume of flame erupts from the fireplace. Casey throws me in front of him, guiding me out the door. He runs so fast I can’t even keep both feet on the ground as he carries me blindly down the hill. There is nothing but darkness, the only light from the hell we’ve left behind.

“Where are the others? We can’t leave them!” I jerk backward and we both stumble. He gets up first, takes my hand, drags me to my feet, and doesn’t let go. The ground flies by faster than my legs will carry me, and I’m sure I’m going to trip until the land levels out and brush pelts my arms.

We’re in the forest.

Casey trips, and this time I’m the one to heave my entire body to get him up.

I slow and he tries to tug me along, but I tear my hand free from his grasp. My legs give out and I drop to my knees. My wheezing sounds like sobbing. Maybe I am sobbing. “I’m done.”

He sits next to me. “Hell. We’re in hell. Must have died on the train.” He pauses, and then, “The fuck were you doing back there?”

“Wha . . . what?”

“Running to Salem like that.”

“I needed to see . . . if he was dead.”

“Who cares? He was a terrible person. The house . . . look, look! It’s up in flames. You can see from here. And what, were you going to save him if he was still alive? Was that what you were going to—”

“Who cares? You? Why? Tell me, Casey . . . why did you drag me away? Why not leave me to die?”

“You were the only one I could see clearly.”

“Bullshit.”

“You were being psychotically heroic.”

“So I needed rescuing? I’m a mass murderer.”

“Apparently we’ve all done some pretty fucked-up things to get here.”

“My point exactly, now shut up. Let me think.” Actually, being alone with my thoughts is the last thing that I want right now. The image of the girl’s burning flesh replays over and over in my head. The lodge is on fire. What do we do—where do we go?

There might be other stops within the woods—other buildings with food and beds. Other horrors. Whatever the Compass Room is planning for us next.

The Compass Room.

We were given backpacks with provisions for a reason. The sudden eruption of flames wasn’t an accident. “Everything that just happened . . . that was all on purpose.”

“What?”

“They wanted us out of the house. They want us in the woods.”

Shuffling sounds in the distance—staggered footsteps. I stand, but Casey whispers, “Don’t move.”

We’re at the brink of a grove, before us a clearing where someone emerges, dragging a whimpering figure.

“Shut up!” Erity hisses to Jace, throwing her on the ground.

Casey’s up and pulling me to his chest before I can think. He covers my mouth. I fight against him but he’s too freaking huge. He’s keeping me from her, for no reason, and she needs help.

My vision has adjusted enough to see the darkness splattered across Jace’s shirt. Blood. Something juts from her shoulder.

“Please,” Jace cries.

“This is the only way I can escape,” Erity says.

With a fallen branch, Erity swings at Jace’s head, the contact cracking in the hollow night. Jace slumps to the ground on her back.

“If you want to die, you keep moving!” Casey hisses.

I fall limp, knowing he might be right, but also knowing that any more fighting is completely useless.

With the branch, Erity rushes to scratch a haphazard circle on the ground. Throwing the stick to the side, she picks up Jace’s legs and drags her to the center.

The video on the train had shown Erity as a member of a secret coven that believed they could extract power from human sacrifices.

Casey’s hand slips from my mouth.

“She’s going to sacrifice Jace if we don’t stop her!”

For how small she is, Erity’s strength is phenomenal. I recognize the object jutting from Jace’s chest as a knife handle.

“We have to do something!” I whisper.

“Let me think, let me think!”

There’s no time to think. A howl picks up in the distance, tortured screams filling the air. Even the trees quake in fear, the rustle of leaves surrounding us. Wind whips violently back and forth.

Erity sinks to her knees by Jace, her face lit in excitement. She mutters something I can’t hear; the shrieking now deafens me. I scream along with the noise until Casey covers my mouth again.

Erity is casting a spell.

Tendrils of black smoke swarm into the clearing. She stretches out her arms. “I’m ready!”

She waits to be filled with Jace’s soul.

Suddenly the smoke separates into thousands of black pellets—like oil hit by water. Erity’s expression shifts from joy to horror, and her scream joins those that lace the air. All at once, the smoke rushes forward, slamming into her. She seizes until every pellet has found its way inside her skin.

And then she explodes.

Her body rips into a million pieces. For a second I swear the flecks of her hover in the air, bits of flesh and bone and organ tissue, before they spray all over the forest, all over Jace.

All over me.

Casey releases me in a fit of curses. I race into the blood-soaked field and drop to my knees near Jace. She’s coated in a red, chunky mixture of Erity’s insides. I’m so packed full of adrenaline that I don’t even think twice when I drag the coil of intestine off her chest and press my ear to her soaked shirt, blood squelching beneath my head.

The beat of her heart is solid.

“Casey!” I scream. He isn’t budging. With the help of the full moon, I’ve adjusted to the night. He stands still, gaping at the clearing, running his fingers over his cheeks to clean away chunks of our former fellow inmate.

The knife penetrates Jace to the hilt. There’s no telling if I’ll hurt her more trying to remove it. I take a moment to trace the bone-white handle.

“Dammit, help me, Casey!”

Casey snaps out of it and joins me, kneeling by Jace’s head. He lifts up her shoulders so I can slide her pack off.

“I saw the moon reflecting a little farther that way.” Casey points.

“On water?”

“A lake, I think.”

“Can you carry her?”

He nods, determined, though his entire body shakes.

“I can’t tell how much she’s bleeding. I don’t know if the blade hit anything,” I say as he staggers to his feet with Jace in his arms. I gently peel Jace’s sticky hair off her face. Her cheeks are cold. She won’t be conscious any time soon.

If I can put all of my effort into saving this girl, then I can dull the memory of what just happened.

I wonder if Casey’s thinking the same thing.

As we walk through the woods, a green light illuminates the night for a split second before disappearing.

“Lightning?” Casey asks.

“I don’t know,” I respond, hoping it’s not the beginning of another horror. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

* * *

The sun is coming up.

Casey and I have been hovering around Jace for the past few hours, unable to revive her. Her skin is tinged gray, hair laced with blood and the beach’s white, grainy sand. The same sand that stretches for hundreds of yards on the northern edge of a crystalline, perfect alpine lake.

The paradise mocks us. Nothing is reminiscent of the night’s events other than the blood crusted onto all of us, and the knife stuck in Jace’s shoulder. We have to pull it out—the question is when one of us will muster enough courage to do so.

Salem and Erity are dead for sure . . . maybe others are too. I didn’t see anyone else make it out of the house. I don’t even remember seeing Tanner in the living room before the place burst into flame. He could have been burned alive.

In the direction of the lodge, smoke still floats into the sky, clouding the north, filtering the new sun. All that’s left is a hellish orange hue.

I start to cry. I stupidly start to cry. With my adrenaline gauge on empty, I have no way to gain my bearings. In the past few hours, I’ve seen the impossible. Like we’re lab rats in a globe of secret supernatural government experiments. We’re criminals, and we don’t deserve more than that.

I wipe my cheeks, the tears softening up the blood. Casey’s lip rises in disgust.

“I’m fine, thanks for caring.” I return my attention to Jace.

I’m trying to understand what would happen if her heart stops beating. Would that mean the Compass Room deemed her worthy to die? Logically, it would have to. It was obvious that Salem should have died. Erity too. But Jace—I can’t imagine what she did or thought in the past few hours to condemn her.

I’m not going to sit here and watch her die.

I promised myself.

Never again would I wait for anything.

I reach out, curling my fingers around the bone hilt of the knife.

“What are you doing?” Casey’s back tenses. “You don’t know what that will do to her.”

“True, but I know what doing nothing will.”

He doesn’t argue.

I rest my left palm on her shoulder to steady myself. There’s no telling what will happen when I pull—or if I’ll even be able to rip the blade out. If she’ll wake up.

I count to three in my head and yank as hard as I can.

My hand flies back, and only the hilt catapults through the air.

“Fuck!” I scream. This is worse than leaving the knife in her—now the blade is buried deep within Jace and we have no means of getting it out.

Casey jumps up to grab the hilt—wherever it landed—and I examine the damage. I’m expecting to see the sharp edge of the blade where it broke. Instead, there’s nothing more than a shallow puncture wound, maybe an inch deep.

“Evalyn.”

I glance at Casey. He lifts the hilt. The unbroken piece of the blade is coated with blood—about an inch, enough to make the cut in Jace’s shoulder. The end isn’t jagged, but smooth.

Like it’s been sanded down. Like it dissolved.

“What the hell?”

“Why would Erity try to stab her with this?” Casey chucks the hilt onto the sand.

I study it, the blood melding states of glistening liquid and crust.

“She didn’t.” Jace coughs once, raising her shaking hands to wipe her cheeks. “She stabbed me with a knife.” Her words are slurred. “A real, full one. She recognized it. She said it was her ritual weapon.”

I hush her. “Rest. Don’t talk. You can do that later.” I squeeze her uninjured shoulder, releasing a breath of thanks that she’s awake.

Casey kneels next to me. “Where’d the rest of the blade go?”

I pick the handle of the knife up off the sand, running my finger over the smooth, dull edge. Jace says Erity stabbed her with a whole knife. But Jace’s wound isn’t more than an inch deep, which is the amount of blade here.

I hold my thumb into the bit of blade until my skin turns white and leaves a crescent imprint in the metal.

“It’s dissolving,” I say.

“Dissolving?” Casey reaches out and runs a finger over the metal. “Why?”

I shrug, a handful of possible answers racing through my head, though only one seems likely. “This place kills those deserving death. Maybe it isn’t sure about Jace yet.”

“So if they knew Jace was morally tarnished, then the blade wouldn’t have dissolved?”

I brush more sticky strands of hair from Jace’s forehead. Her eyes have fluttered shut. “I’m not sure.”

“You think they’re literally watching our every move, the Compass Room engineers—gods—whatever they are?”

“I think they have to be.”

“So did they make Salem’s victim magically appear? Or Erity’s motherfucking deity?”

“Is that what it was? A deity?”

Casey pushes his fingers through his hair. “We were sentenced to the Compass Room on the same day. That’s the only reason why I even know. Thankfully, she outshined me on all of the news programs. An archaic coven had been reborn. They believed they could waken a deity with a ritual involving a brimstone fire that created black smoke.”

“Then they’d have to sacrifice someone to the deity to gain power,” I conclude. “Right?”

Casey nods.

“So all we know so far are that there are two deaths, and both were somehow caused by a part of the criminal’s crime coming back to life.” But that’s all I can piece together. There are too many open ends in the Compass Room’s logic to try and mentally close any loopholes right now.

I use one of my pairs of underwear to clean Jace’s shoulder after I’ve taken off her shirt. She whimpers and tries to jerk away, and Casey holds her down. “It’s okay,” he whispers to her, fondly—fatherly—and waits with his hands on either side of her neck for her to calm down. “What do you remember?”

She takes a moment to gather herself. “Running through the woods.” Her face scrunches up as she gets ready to cry. I refocus on cleaning her up. “I was with both Erity and Valerie until we lost Valerie. Erity . . . She found that knife sticking out of a stump. She said it belonged to her, and that it must be a sign. I didn’t think to question her. I was still freaked out by the fire. She stabbed me when I wasn’t paying attention.”

“Let me get this straight.” Casey massages his temples. “Erity found a knife out in the woods that was hers, and then stabbed you with it?”

“She was sacrificing Jace’s soul to the deity we saw. She was trying to gain power, maybe to escape the Compass Room,” I say.

“Great explanation, except for the fact that Erity’s deity doesn’t exist.”

“Do you have a better explanation for what we saw?” I snap.

Of course he doesn’t.

“How did she die?” Jace asks.

“Erity?”

She nods.

Casey and I exchange glances, and I return to my work.

“Don’t worry about it right now. Relax and let Evalyn clean you up,” Casey says.

I head to the lake and soak the underwear, wiping her clean for a final time. I rip off the least dingy part of her old T-shirt and use it to make a bandage. When I’m finished, I say, “All done. Try not to move your arm.”

“I don’t know if I can move anything,” she croaks.

“Jace, do you know if you saw anyone else make it out of the house?” I think of Tanner and wonder if I should even care about him.

“I was with Valerie and Erity,” Jace says. “That’s all I know.”

“Damn.” Casey gets up and walks toward the lake.

Jace breaks. A sob racks her body and I hold her down to keep her from moving too much, shushing her. She bites her lip.

“I wanted to die.” She sputters a cough. “For so long. I don’t want to anymore. I finally don’t want to and now it’s inevitable.”

I squeeze her arms. “Don’t say that. You know not everyone is going to die in here.”

She gives me a look that tells me she knows I’m only trying to make her feel better. The CR statistics are dooming for all of us. Some of the beta tests didn’t even harbor survivors.

It’s hard to imagine Jace hating life so much that she tried to take out a family in the process of taking out herself. I remember the video from the train—the decisions the court struggled with. Jace was drunk when she hit that family, but she was clinically depressed too.

“Can I ask you something?”

“What?” she croaks.

“Why did you want to die?”

Not the most appropriate question since I’ve only known the girl for a day, but we don’t have all the time in the world.

Beneath the snot and tears, she doesn’t appear offended.

Her head rolls to the side. “Life is so strange. I grew up numb and not a single person worried about me. It wasn’t until I felt alive that anyone started to care.”

“What do you mean?”

“I was a middle-class B student. My parents are together. People told me I was pretty. No one takes depression in pretty girls seriously. They think it’s angst, or a cry for attention. They think it’s ‘boy problems.’” She remains transfixed on the lake. “It was never boy problems.”

“Then I hit my low. I drove drunk and killed that family. When I came to in the hospital, I saw what death really was like.”

“It’s not pretty.”

“It wasn’t for that family,” she replies. “I’m sure it can be beautiful: the plane we pass into. But I’m not ready for it.”

My body flushes with heat. “I’m not either.”

“You ever been in love?” she asks me next.

I bite my lip hard and gaze at the mountains adjacent to us.

“You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.”

“Sure. I’ve been in love.”

“Were you in love when everything went to shit in your life?”

“I was.”

“He leave you?”

I part my lips, but no sound escapes me.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. It’s okay.”

“I would have liked to fall in love before I died. I would have liked to know how it felt.”

“Don’t romanticize it. It hurts. Even when things are good.”

She doesn’t say anything, and when the silence starts becoming uncomfortable, I realize she’s asleep.

I try to rest, but every time I see Erity ripping to pieces. My sentence here isn’t even close to being over. We have twenty-nine days left in a place that defies the laws of logic—a place filled with legitimate ghosts and gods that aren’t afraid to interact with us. To kill us.

The real mystery is how many days I have left, or who else I am going to have to watch die.

I stand, walking to the shore. Crouching, I splash my face and gulp down freezing water. It tastes like blood.

Maybe Casey’s right. Maybe I’ve died already, and this is hell.

* * *

Finally clean, Jace sleeps on one of the blankets. Even unconscious, she looks very afraid. My hunger pangs decide to act up. The fridge at the lodge was full of food. I wish I had eaten. I wish I had prepared myself for anything to happen.

Casey sits by the water with his hood up, staring across the lake at the mountain range. I wonder what he’s thinking about. I wonder if he’s praying for forgiveness before his own demon appears.

I leave Jace for a moment to join him. He glances over at me and back to the lake when I sit, then says, “Why did you help her? Is it because you think a proclamation of your decency will earn you points?”

“That’s not—”

“Is that why you went to see if Salem was really dead when you could have been burned alive—to make a show of it? So anyone who is watching us could see that you’re not an awful human being?”

His words are searing, even though they shouldn’t be. I was used to this once. So why is Casey cutting away at my core like I haven’t built up any emotional walls?

“It doesn’t matter what we do in here. It matters what we’re feeling when we do it.” I turn to him. His face is hard, eyes bloodshot. Now, being close to him, is the first time I notice the freckles on his nose. He’d be good-looking if he weren’t so angry all the time.

“Two of us are dead. You think they were killed off solely because of their feelings?” he asks.

“Salem had no remorse for the girl he raped. Erity had a purely selfish motive for killing Jace.” My voice sinks to a bitter note. “So when I die, Casey, you can determine for yourself what was going through my head when they offed me. And then you can laugh at my petty attempts to help people. Until then, can you try and not hate me for every single thing that I do?”

His face softens, but it’s too late. I’m up and walking across the beach to Jace, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. But the conversation keeps my mind reeling. Why care about what happens to anyone in here? We’re all adults—adults who’ve done terrible things. We should just have to look out for ourselves at the final moment of our judgment.

However, when Jace wakes, I know I’ll never be able to follow through with my own reasoning.

“You didn’t have to take care of me,” she tells me weakly, “but I don’t know what would have happened if you didn’t. So thank you. Thank you for saving me even though I don’t deserve it.”

“You would have been okay no matter what.”

Her eyebrows scrunch together. “How do you know?”

I lie down next to her. “I don’t know a whole lot about Compass Rooms, but the one thing I do know is the penalty of death isn’t something that’s thrown around in here. You have to prove yourself wicked in order to die.”

“But what if I have already?” Jace questions, worry in her voice.

“Doubt it.” Pieces of the Compass Room’s possible logic fit together in my head. “I think that disintegrating blade was part of this place’s fail-safe.” I touch her shoulder gently. “It doesn’t want you dead. Not yet.”

She relaxes and smiles. “Thank you, Evalyn.”

The twisting horror that’s existed in my gut since the lodge burned down eases up with the gratification of helping Jace, even if it won’t matter in the long run.

She asks me questions all over again—how Erity died, which I try to honestly explain to the best of my ability.

And then the hard one—why they’re making us so miserable.

“They’re trying to scare us, I think,” I conjure up for her. “If the chip is measuring our emotion, maybe they’re trying to make us feel vulnerable.”

Actually, it makes damn good sense. Because of this I want to stay awake. I want to wait for another horror to find us, but it soon becomes impossible.

The next thing I know, I’m shivering so hard it hurts, and I can’t feel my nose.

Dawn is breaking.

Casey lies curled up on one side of Jace, I on the other. Together we’re doing our best keep her warm. My stomach clenches in pain. I sit up and rub at it.

“We need to find food.” Casey watches me from beneath his hood.

“Where?”

“We could go back to the house. Scavenge. I’m sure not everything burned down.”

I shake my head. “The walk is too far. I don’t think I have enough energy to make it, and I doubt Jace does either. I don’t want to leave her alone in the hopes of finding food when there probably isn’t any left untorched.”

He glances at her, and then back to me. “Maybe it’s better if we split. If we’re alone, we don’t have to see any more deaths.”

I swear his bottom lip trembles before he rolls to his other side.

“But I deserve it,” I say.

“Doesn’t mean I want your insides sprayed all over me.”

Point taken.

The air warms, and when the sun is at the highest point in the sky, it bakes us. I keep my sweatshirt on to avoid the burn, but I’m a sauna. Casey leaves for a bit to scout around the lake, and I distract myself by changing Jace’s bandage and making sure her cut isn’t infected.

“On the news they said that people like you do some things because you want to be in control.”

I stiffen. “Do you think that’s why I’m helping you?”

“I don’t think the news knows everything.”

“You shouldn’t trust me so easily.”

Her face is surprisingly blank, heart-shaped lips pulled into a frown. “You’re right,” she says. “But that doesn’t mean I’m not going to.”

I almost expect her to finish with, so there.

Casey returns a couple of hours later. No paths leading anywhere else around the lake, no signs of others. No food.

“Maybe we’ve already failed and they’re letting us starve to death,” he says.

We bake, neither of us saying a word. I’m beginning to wonder if I was wrong in thinking our deaths would be triggered by something monumental, like Salem’s and Erity’s. Maybe Casey’s right, and we’ll fry here until we waste away.

Casey and I make one more weak attempt to find food. Rolling up our pants, we wade into the water and scan the crystal surface for fish. It isn’t even like we have any means of catching them, but knowing they are there will at least give us some motive to find a way.

We search until Casey says, “I have a problem with people causing violence for no reason.”

At first, I don’t understand why he of all people is telling me this. But then I realize that this must be an excuse for his initial hatred of me.

“I’ve suffered already for what I’ve done, if it makes you feel any better.”

“Suffered already?”

“Will suffer until I die in this miserable place.” I walk forward, the cool water relaxing my muscles, a bed of pebbles massaging my feet.

“So you have no desire to repent at all? No desire to ask for forgiveness or to admit that you fucked up and you want to be a better person?”

I catch a shimmer out of the corner of my eye, but it’s the reflection of the setting sun. Casey has stopped moving forward. He stares at me, waiting for an answer.

“Repentance is a privilege,” I say. “Some people don’t deserve it.”

He pauses, like he’s trying to unravel my logic. “So if you don’t want to repent and you know you’re going to die in here, why are you helping me try to find food?”

This boy is not going to give up. “Jace has a good chance of making it out. You . . . maybe. You kind of act like you have a hero complex. I can see our great justice system finding that redeeming.”

He narrows his eyes at me, like he can’t figure out if I’m feeding him lies or not. Or maybe because he knows that I kind of just insulted him. I smile, a gesture of truce.

He doesn’t smile back. “There are no fish.”

I tread toward the shore. “I guess we can begin waiting for night, then.”

The sun falls and the drastic change in temperature washes through the air, this time colder than last night. It’s impossibly cold for how hot it was during the day, so cold our breath escapes us in white puffs even before the sun has extinguished itself completely below the mountains.

I could gather branches to build a fire since we were given lighters. Boiled pine needles would be more sustenance than nothing at all. But then I think of all of the energy it would take to haul wood, and I forfeit the idea.

“D-don’t worry about me,” Jace says between chattering teeth when Casey and I discuss the best way to keep her warm. “My shoulder isn’t infected. I’m as s-screwed as the two of you.”

“Don’t be stupid,” I tell her. “I’ll sleep on one side of you, Casey on the other.”

“Promise you’ll cuddle?” She giggles. She actually giggles. The hunger must be getting to her.

“I think she’s serious,” Casey says. I catch his eye. He’s smiling.

“Both of you are lunatics.” I bury myself beneath the covers and huddle close to Jace.

* * *

Third day, no food.

The good thing is that Jace’s shoulder is getting better, but now her biggest worry isn’t infection.

She still hurts too much to move around a lot and spends the day cloaked in a blanket, sleeping through the hunger. I wake her up sporadically to feed her water, and when I’m not doing that, Casey and I lie in the shallow water by the shoreline because it’s so damn hot, staring out at the sparkling surface. We don’t speak for hours.

I study my reflection. My cheeks are hollow, my face so thin that my nose—for once in my life—is too big for me. This transformation probably happened when I was in prison.

Once upon a time, I was proud of my looks. My eyebrows were too thick, my nose too long. My eyes were a few shades darker than my skin—the color of boring—but I still owned all of it.

Once upon a time, self-confidence wasn’t a struggle of mine.

When the sun falls, Casey says, “I didn’t think this would be the way I’d die in here.”

I laugh, the movement of my mouth splitting my lips farther. “It’s not funny. I’m sorry.”

“It’s a little funny.”

Our eyes connect. His are vacant of the anger I’ve become used to.

“How did you think they’d kill you?”

To my surprise, he speaks with ease. “I thought it’d be a simulation. Maybe they’d show me images of what I’d done, or ask me questions. They’d try to figure out if I’d do it again. Then . . . I don’t know. Lethal injection. Something humane.”

I nod, but say nothing.

“What about you?”

I lick my chapped, bleeding lips, playing with the ends of my tangled hair. “I thought that the way they’d kill me would be as chaotic as my crime.”

He doesn’t question further, and we sit in the water together until the sun sets, leaving to change out of our wet, dirty clothes and fall asleep.

* * *

Even with the cold and the fear, it doesn’t take me long to drift off. I dream of Liam and the month before the shooting. It was his twenty-first birthday, and he wanted to spend it with me. I took him to a comedy club that smelled like cigar smoke and leather. We dressed up and drank too many glasses of scotch on the rocks because we were both oh-so-adult. And the tab we rang up—good God.

Then we went back to his apartment. I spent years with him and the sex only got better. I may have even cried that night, said something about how blessed I was. I’m such an obnoxious drunk.

I’m crying now, in this dream. Maybe I’m crying because I know it’s a dream. We’re in his bed, and I’m straddling him, dragging my hands up his chest. I lean forward until my dark waves are curtaining him, running my tongue along his jaw to his ear. Golden strands of his hair tickle my nose. “Why are you sad?” he asks.

“I’m not sad.”

Someone grunts, but it isn’t Liam.

I awaken, my arm draped over a warm body, nose buried in the crook of a neck. Casey’s jugular vein thrums against my lips. He stirs, and we simultaneously gape at one another.

“Fuck.”

We awkwardly wriggle away at the same time.

With my sweatshirt covering my hands, I rub my eyes with clothed fists. It only reminds me of how cold I am, and the absence of everything I’ve lost.

For a handful of seconds I allow myself to collapse, the sob escaping my mouth in nothing more than a hiccup. I pull myself together and wipe my cheeks, listening to Casey shuffle behind me, his footsteps in the sand as he heads toward the woods, probably to pee. I thought he was on the other side of Jace when we fell asleep. Did I crawl to him thinking he was Liam, or did he roll next to me in the middle of the night?

“Evie!”

I glance to the edge of the water, where Todd stands.

“Todd!” I jump to my feet.

He points, and I follow his finger to the center of the lake, where a large crate floats. My gaze returns to the beach, to question him, but he’s gone.

“Casey!”

He stumbles out of the woods, disheveled and confused as to why I’m screaming.

Jace sits up, clutching a blanket around her shoulders. “Did I just hear a little boy?”

I point to the lake.

“What is it?” Casey walks forward and squints.

“I don’t know. It could be anything. It could be food!”

“We’d have to swim to it,” he says. “Shit. It’s freezing.”

I unbutton my pants.

“Now? You’re going to swim out there now? Are you insane? At least wait until the sun comes up and we start to fry.”

“I can’t wait. I’m starving.”

“You always this impulsive or—”

“I’m always this much of a fat-ass, actually. Food before logic.” I kick my pants off and run toward the water before I can change my mind. The thought of food—of something finally making sense—recharges me.

Casey curses and starts taking off his pants.

I plunge into the water and scream a four-letter word, dipping my shoulders beneath the surface. My feet kick away from the silt and I arc one arm through the air, the other thrusting water behind me. I don’t wait for Casey, but before I know it, he’s caught up.

“W-worst idea ever,” he says. “C-can’t believe I followed you.”

I laugh and scissor my legs. “Don’t be . . . such a . . . pussy.”

Once we’re to the crate we’ll be fine. It’ll keep us afloat and I can catch my breath. The center of the lake isn’t as far as it appeared to be. Or maybe the box is floating toward us. I groan in relief when I grasp onto the wood paneling, heart pounding in my chest, lungs aching.

With the weight of me and Casey, the box submerges halfway. It’s about three feet tall and five feet wide, made to stay buoyant with weight. Made to float, and to be found.

“Ready?” Casey asks, clinging to the other side of the box.

I’m about to respond when something slithers up my leg. Just a weed, I think, trying to kick it away. But whatever has me isn’t a plant. Cold and slippery, it coils around my thigh and squeezes.

Dragging me down.

I scream and cling to the box.

Casey swims to me. “What?” he yells. “What is it?”

I have just enough time to tell him before I’m choking on water.

“Hold on!” His hands explore me until he finds my leg. “It’s like a tentacle or something!”

A tentacle. Images of Erity flood my mind. Of Salem’s neck broken in half.

“I’m dead.”

“Hang on, Evalyn!”

All I can think is that maybe I should have prayed for forgiveness. Was there really any chance for me in here? I knew there wasn’t. I knew there wasn’t the second I was sentenced.

I start to tell Casey to say good-bye to Jace for me, but it’s too late.

I’m dragged beneath the surface of the lake.

April 14, Last Year

Campus Parking Lot

My phone rang when I was walking to my car. It was Mom. I put in my earpiece and hit the green button.

“Evie?”

“Hey, Todd. What’s up?”

Mom never let Todd call anyone. She must have not been watching him carefully.

“Hi, Evie.”

“Hi, Todd.”

“Why don’t you ever come home?”

The four-year-old had a way of making me feel like shit. “Baby, I’m in school. You know that.”

“But you used to come home on Saturday and now you don’t.” Smart kid.

It wasn’t like I didn’t miss him. I thought about him every day, which is why I couldn’t come home anymore. The only reason why I came home was for Todd. Not Mom. And I didn’t do a good job of hiding that fact.

Before I could respond, Todd whined, “Noooo.”

“Ev?” Mom said.

“Hi.”

“What are you doing?”

“Todd called me.”

She made an audible sigh. Mom hated Todd’s attachment to me. Wasn’t my fault. The pregnancy was unplanned from a man she’d been dating, and since she had a full-time and lucrative career, she couldn’t take care of Todd the way she’d taken care of me. I ended up mothering him in high school as she provided for our family.

And Todd fell in love with me.

Not my fault.

“Well, now that I have you, you coming home Saturday?”

“Meghan and I have plans.”

“You and Meghan always have plans. I have a business trip.”

She wanted a free babysitter.

“Sorry, Mom.”

“For crying out loud, Evalyn. I’m paying for your school, for you to get the degree you want. The least you could do is come home and help out on the weekends.”

It was her favorite card, especially with the extra emphasis on you. What she really wanted to say was, “the useless degree you want.” Every time she brought up that she was paying for my art degree and I shouldn’t act like an ungrateful bitch, the burning in my chest grew a little hotter. “I have class. Tell Todd I love him.”

I hung up.

Nick was waiting for me by my car, leaning on it like he fucking owned the thing.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey, yourself.”

Nick was handsome in his own unique way. Bright eyes, dark hair, and a slight curve to his nose. Meghan thought he was gorgeous. But he wanted her too badly, and wanted too much from her too soon.

It put a bad taste in my mouth.

“Meghan said you had a spare key to your apartment.”

I halted. His grin was flat, as if he knew I’d be skeptical immediately.

“What of it?”

“I was wondering if I could borrow it.”

I narrowed my eyes.

He quickly continued. “Just for the night! I wanted to surprise her tomorrow morning. You know, the whole coffee-and-donuts-in-bed thing. She keeps hinting at it.”

“Hinting that she’s a fat-ass?”

His mouth hung open until I said, “Kidding.” He needed to develop a sense of humor if he planned on staying with Meghan.

I thought about it. I hated the idea of giving keys to someone who’d been dating Meghan for only a month.

“I’ll leave it on the counter in the morning.” He was practically pleading.

If I denied him, he’d tell Meghan and she’d play hurt puppy with me. It was only a day.

And maybe I could steal a donut.

“Fine.” I reached for my bag.

“Meghan also said you were gonna go to the store. I can pick stuff up for you since I’ll be out anyway.”

He seemed sincere. “It’s fine,” I said.

“I insist. You have a list?”

“Can I text it to you?”

“It’ll probably be easier if you write it down really fast.”

I sighed and fished a piece of paper out of my wallet, along with the key. I didn’t know why I was so hesitant. I was poor and should have been taking advantage of the fact that he was about to buy me frozen chicken and paper towels.

“Cool,” he said when I handed the key and the list over. “I’ll see you tonight.”

It was my fault. My fault, because I forgot about the key, and Nick kept it. It was my fault that I gave him that list—a slip of paper that ended up dooming me. I guess he could have found other ways to commit his crime, but that thought wasn’t comforting.

Nick killed Meghan.

But so did I.

4

Casey doesn’t let go.

There is nothing left for me to do but cling to his arm and kick at the thing around my leg—the thing that feels like steel encased in supple flesh. It drags me downward so quickly that the current tickles me. Casey’s fingernails dig into my arm as he refuses to admit that I’m a goner.

If he doesn’t swim to the surface soon, he will be one too.

I dare to open my eyes to darkness. The pressure in my lungs builds. They say it isn’t painful, drowning. You go numb from the cold, your insides fill with water, and you stop existing.

Just like that.

The tentacle unravels. I hear Casey’s muffled voice, urging me to swim upward. I let go and kick my legs as fast as I can, but I won’t be able to hold my breath for much longer, not for the amount of time it’ll take to reach the surface. We’ve been dragged down too far.

But I try. I kick the darkness as my chest threatens to explode. There are no ripples of light. No signs that we are even close.

And then I emerge, coughing and gasping, my arms flailing in the air.

The air, the black air.

My cry of relief echoes, and when I’ve calmed down I realize how dank and heavy this air is.

“Casey.” His name rings through empty space.

He coughs somewhere in front of me. “Here.” Our hands connect, fingers entwining.

“There’s a ledge.” He guides me to the rock. With what feels like all the energy I have left, I lift myself out of the water and collapse. My heart calms as I inhale breath after beautiful deep breath, my body trembling.

Casey flips me over. I can’t see him—can’t see anything. We must be in a cave of some sort. Since we swam up from beneath, the only exit must be the same way. If we want to live, we’ll have to swim. And we have limited oxygen down here.

I curl my hand into a fist and hit him as hard as I can in the chest. “You stupid fucking idiot.”

There’s a long pause before he says, “Excuse me?”

“What the fuck did you think you would gain by holding on to me? Your damn hero complex could have killed you!”

“First of all, I didn’t die. Second, calm your shit. You wanna cause a cave-in with your petty yelling?” I make to punch him again, but he snatches my wrist. “Didn’t they teach you in prison that hitting isn’t nice?” he asks lowly. “And why do you care whether I die or not?”

“I can’t watch you die,” I hiss.

I try to relax and force my anger down. His fingers uncoil, but he doesn’t budge from his position over me. I can feel his body heat.

“I don’t know why I held on to you. Probably shouldn’t have. If they want to kill you, then they will do it, I guess. Doesn’t matter if I try and save you or not.”

I flinch, even though he can’t see it. “Even if you could potentially save me, I don’t see why you would. A few days ago you had me pinned to the wall by my neck—”

“That doesn’t mean I want you dead.”

“That’s not what I remember from the train.”

He pauses, but only for a moment before he sputters, “I shouldn’t have said that.”

“Why? Because back then you didn’t know you’d be stuck with me? Remember, Casey, I know your secret. I know that violence for the sake of violence makes you break. So don’t try to tell me that every fiber of your being doesn’t want to go Captain America on my ass.”

“That’s not what I—”

“Save it. Let’s get the fuck out of here.”

“Fine! Fine. I think—I think we might actually be at the opening of a tunnel here.”

Even after insulting him, he still helps me to my feet. Slowly, I place one foot in front of the other, holding my hand out until my fingers connect with jagged rock. “Found a wall.” Keeping the rock to my left and Casey to my right, I mouth a prayer that there aren’t any fifty-foot pits, or this isn’t the lair of the thing that dragged us to the bottom of the lake.

“Damn.”

“What?”

“This is probably the lair of the thing that dragged us to the bottom of the lake.”

“Don’t be such a pessimist.” He can’t mask the fear in his voice.

A loud click rings through the cavern.

“The hell,” Casey says.

The noise is so familiar. I freeze, waiting to see if it sounds again. A dull greenish glow floods the space we’re in, so faint that I don’t even recognize it as light until I can suddenly see Casey.

I know what that noise is. I heard it the morning of my crime. It’s the noise of the switch being thrown for a set of powerful fluorescents, like those in a gymnasium. The kind of lights that cast an eerie weak glow before they heat up to full power.

We stand in the middle of a long and tall chamber of stone. My gaze falls on the only thing within this place other than us. A school desk with a chunk taken out of the red plastic chair. A plywood tabletop, the wood texture torn on the corner.

The desk Meghan sat in.

Nick holding the chamber to her forehead. Blonde curls plastered in sweat. Tears.

Gunshots spraying the air.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.” My heart trembles in tiny hummingbird beats.

“Evalyn?”

I spin toward him. “You have to find a way out. Now. Go back through the water, Casey.” A sob rises and there is no stopping it. I have to power through this. This is your fate, Evalyn. What did you expect?

In the cold mint light, his eyes widen. “What? Why?”

Why do I care what he sees? It isn’t that he doesn’t deserve to be visually tortured. But something inside of me screams that he cannot be put through this.

He steps forward and grips my shoulders. “Evalyn!”

Face the music.

“You’re going to watch me die if you don’t.”

He takes my hand and pulls me around the desk and through the chamber. We race through the never-ending hall, into shadow.

The cavern forks. The right path is almost tangible with darkness. Another click and the left is flooded with a crisp white beam. A spotlight, illuminating a sprawled figure on the ground.

“This way!” Casey cries, yanking me to the right.

Blonde hair matted with blood. Purple hemp bracelet on the left wrist, a bracelet that matches mine.

“No, no, no,” I dig my heels into the ground, ripping my hand away from his. “I can’t. I have to stay here.”

“Are you fucking insane?”

I can’t run from her. Not from Meghan.

I slow when I enter the halo of light. Her eyes are hollow, gaping wounds in both of her temples, one where the bullet entered and the other where it left. The puddle of blood beneath her is curdled with brain matter and yet she still breathes—rattled, wet gasps.

“Evie.” Her trembling lips smile, and I break.

“Jesus.” I place my hands on either side of her head, smearing her blood on my palms. I need to put her back together. My tears splash on her forehead, her cheeks, rolling as if they were her own. “I miss you so much.”

Her eyelashes flutter like insect wings. I’m losing her.

“Meghan, Meghan!”

Rumbling billows behind me. Casey screams my name.

“I’m sorry.”

“I know, baby.” Her skeletal fingers find my wrist.

“I’m coming with you now. I’ll be there soon.” I choke on my sob and wipe my nose with the back of my hand.

Casey grasps beneath my shoulders and hauls me to my feet. “The cavern is flooding!”

The rumbling water crashes into the back of mine and Casey’s legs and rolls over Meghan, the ends of her blonde locks the last thing I see of her as they float atop the tide.

I fight to see her one more time. Casey picks me up like a child and carries me to the dark tunnel, until another wave of arctic black knocks him forward and I fall into the water.

The current, with a cryptic mind of its own, forces me one way and him the other.

A third wave extinguishes the light. The fourth floods my last breath of air.

* * *

“Holy shit,” someone says.

I inhale, coughing, sputtering.

Breathing.

Breathing.

“Evalyn? Evalyn!”

It’s Casey.

The world slides into focus. Valerie laughs.

“Damn. Pound on her chest enough times and whaddaya know.”

The sun shines bright behind the canopies above their heads. Grass tickles the back of my ears. And I’m alive.

“What happened?” I roll to my side and spit leftover cave grit onto the grass.

“I don’t know, you tell me. Thought it was strange that I had the urge to make camp next to a dark abyss in the middle of a fucking creek. It was intriguing, though. Good thing I did, because the two of you shot right out of it.”

Casey breathes heavily next to me. Water still drips from his nose.

I sit up even though Casey says I shouldn’t, and Valerie tromps around—her version of pacing, I guess—chewing on her thumbnail. Her eyes flit to the right, toward the noise of water, and I crane my neck to see the roaring current of the stream rushing down off the mountain. By our bank, the current is languid, spiraling into a midnight whirlpool.

Funneling into a chasm.

“That’s where you came from,” Valerie says. “Geysered straight up out of it, you and Casey. You were floating on your belly—thought you were a goner.”

“Is this the outflow?”

“Outflow?” she asks.

“Of the lake.”

“Don’t know about a lake. Been camped out here for the past two days.” She nods a bit upstream to an old shack several yards from the water, where rows of vegetables stem from the doorstep like crooked fingers.

Food.

Between us and the garden is a smoking fire pit and a nylon tent big enough to sleep several people snugly. The flap is unzipped, a liberal pile of blankets peeking out. Even pillows.

“The shack’s a pantry—lots of canned meat, vacuumed cheese, pots, pans, utensils, you name it. Found the tent and blankets in there too.”

“How’d you find it?” Casey asks.

The brightness in her eyes falters. “I was with Jace and Erity when we ran from the lodge. When I lost them in the woods, I wandered.”

Jace. “She’s at the lake all by herself. We didn’t mean to leave her there. She probably thinks we’re dead.”

“What happened? I mean, you two came out of the fucking ground.”

The darkness is coming back—Meghan’s brains on the cave floor. The water, the cold.

My violent shivers won’t stop. Valerie hands me a folded blanket from the tent, and I stare at it until she huffs, shakes it out, and drapes it over my shoulders.

Casey explains it all, from the moment we ran from the house. Erity and the demon, Jace’s stab wound, the dissolving blade, the hunger, the crate. The tentacle, the cave.

The entire time Valerie sits cross-legged, expressionless. As if she’s not surprised by any of this. When Casey’s finished, she says, “Found Blaise’s body.”

My mouth hangs open. If the news is a shock to me, it’s completely unbelievable to Casey.

“No,” he whispers. “That’s impossible.”

“Bullet hole through the temple.” Valerie shakes her head. “Why so impossible?”

Casey sits back in thought. He wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “I roomed with him back at the lodge. He . . . well, first, he tried to bring me to Jesus.”

“Not all Christians are saints, but okay,” says Valerie.

“It wasn’t just that. He . . . He seemed so sorry for what he’d done. That it was a mistake. I mean, he was blackout drunk when he killed those guys.”

“I don’t know, Casey.” Valerie runs her fingers through her hair. “People lie. And I’m sure they lie here to try and make themselves seem more innocent than they are.”

It’s my turn to speak up. “Tanner seemed to think the same of Blaise. He was pretty sure that Blaise was going to make it out of here.” Another thought comes to me. “How did Blaise kill those people?”

“He was at a house party, got wasted, and found a loaded pistol in the master bedroom, I think,” explains Valerie. “Meaning that he died by the hand of his own crime.”

“Like Erity and Salem.”

“You know what this means, though, don’t you?” Valerie’s eyes flicker to mine. “You’re the only one to survive it.”

She’s right. I should have died in that cave. When I saw the desk I told Casey to leave because I knew that my crime was going to re-create itself in some form, and it was going to kill me.

But it didn’t. It doesn’t make any sense.

“Maybe it was supposed to and somehow I beat it. Somehow I escaped.”

“I can’t see that happening,” says Valerie. “This mode of justice is supposed to be pretty bulletproof. If it weren’t, then it wouldn’t have been approved to be used. They would have let all of us rot in prison.” She holds up two fingers. “I think there are two possible reasons why you’re still alive. One: they didn’t get an accurate enough reading and let you go—for now. Two: you aren’t as evil as everyone says you are, Ibarra.”

I shake my head. It can’t be the latter.

“Welp.” She stands. “You two simmer on that. I’m gonna follow this stream a bit and hopefully rescue Jace.” She pauses and glances over at her spoils, realizing that she’s leaving us alone with everything she needs to survive.

“We’ll be here when you get back. Alliance, remember?”

Valerie narrows her eyes. “Alliances are for idiots.”

“You know what that makes me, then.”

With swagger, she walks backward. “Whatever. They’ll probably kill us all anyway, right? You guys look like shit. Might as well rest and eat. Hey, maybe that’ll earn me some brownie points—being virtuous and all. I might get to live an extra day.” Without another word, she spins around and follows the stream to the lake.

“It doesn’t work like that,” Casey mutters. But Valerie’s too far away to hear.

I blink, my eyes dry and stinging. I’m exhausted, my brain too traumatized to process that there’s food now. And fire, and blankets.

Why am I still so damn cold?

Casey gets up first. He pulls off his soaked T-shirt so he’s only in his boxers, grabs a blanket from the tent, and drapes it over himself. He inspects the garden, the shack. I manage to stand although my knees shake terribly, remove my shirt, and drape it over the tent while I keep my blanket pinned under my armpits.

“There isn’t enough food to feed four people for more than a week,” Casey says. “Not really.”

“We may all be dead before then.” I sit, resting my forehead on my knees. Seeing Meghan was too much. I’d forgotten the sharp, raw edge of grief.

“Hey, you okay?” Casey asks. When I don’t respond, he says, “I’ll make food. Go lie down or something.”

“You don’t have to baby me,” I say into my knees. “Doubt I’m much more traumatized or hungry than you are.”

“Evalyn.”

It might be the first time he’s spoken my name in such a sincere tone. It’s enough to get me to lift my head.

Within his expression lies a mixture of seriousness and confusion. “I don’t really understand what happened in that cave, but from what I know about psychos, they generally don’t have that much remorse over the horrible things they’ve done.”

My eyes water when I think of Meghan. “It’s complicated.”

“I’m sure it is. I’m not asking that you explain it to me, but don’t sit here and pretend that it didn’t rip a hole straight through you.”

I tear at the chapped skin on my lip with my teeth and examine the black whirlpool sucking down all that water into its center.

He’s right. It is complicated, and I don’t want to explain it to him. The exhaustion that comes with people choosing to believe or not believe my side of the most horrifying moment of my life is something I’d rather leave in the past, in the month of my trial.

Instead of responding to Casey, I study the whirlpool. It must have reversed to spit us out. Nature doesn’t do that. And that’s what is so misleading about this place. Most of what’s around us is natural: the dew dripping from the needles of the evergreens, the way the wood smokes in the pit, the rich, soft soil beneath my feet, and the morning mist that hangs in the air. But that whirlpool—there is something so mechanical about it, so concise. It’s being manipulated.

Casey rips a couple of potatoes and carrots from the earth and washes them upstream. He grabs a can of stew meat and a battered old pan from the shack, then carefully opens the can with a kitchen knife. I feel useless sitting around, even though I’m miserable, so I get up and search for firewood. Valerie’s cleared most of the ground, but I manage to scrounge up an armful of sticks while I keep the blanket pinned to me. Eventually it slips down and my bra is exposed. I huff and throw the blanket over my shoulders, kneeling near the fire and blowing into the coals. Casey watches me. I’m not sure if it’s because of my boobs or my actions.

“Where’d you learn to do that?”

“Girl Scouts.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Kidding. All we did was sell cookies and be cute. I have no idea. TV. Why, is it working?”

He shrugs and holds the frying pan over the fire. It takes a while to warm up, and even when we eat, hovering over the pan together and picking at the concoction with our fingers, the potatoes are still crunchy. But it’s hot, and filling, and perfect.

There isn’t a whole lot of food, but when I finish I’m full, maybe because my stomach has shrunk from not eating.

He nudges the last potato in the pan toward me.

“Eat it,” I say.

He does. After he swallows, he says, “Interesting situation we have here, being stuck together when none of us are trustworthy people.”

“That’s an understatement.”

“But I don’t think any of us want to be alone either.”

“Is that why you didn’t let go of me in the lake? Because you didn’t want to be alone? I thought you said it’s better to be alone so we don’t have to watch each other die.”

“I—I don’t know.”

“You could have stayed with Jace.”

He glares at me but says nothing. I guess a response would be too difficult—I am interrogating him, asking him why he finds my life suddenly valid.

I stand, letting the blanket slip from me. I’m aware my underwear is entirely see-through, but I don’t wait to see Casey’s expression. Instead, I walk toward the creek. He asks me where I’m going, but I don’t respond.

I drink and wash, far enough away from the whirlpool so I can’t see it. I bury my feet in the creek bed, the grainy silt massaging me. I concentrate on the texture as a tightness shrinks my chest. I can’t let it take over—I can’t panic. If I do, I’ll lose my mind.

I lift my feet and the crevices of my toenails are caked with yellow clay. Dropping to my knees, I sink my hands into the bed, fingers closing around a substance soft and malleable. Beautiful yellow. Beautiful daisy yellow.

I take as much clay as I can carry and bring it back to camp, stacking the doughy mounds on top of a stump. Casey doesn’t pay me an ounce of attention, because Valerie’s returned with Jace.

“We Want to Compromise.”

“No, you want my client to plead guilty.”

I sat at an aluminum table. My lawyer was on my right, mom on my left. I picked at my fingernails beneath the table, scraping at my cuticles until blood flooded my nail beds.

The month-long trial was nowhere near ending. I was numb, unprocessing. Unwilling to communicate.

“Our deal is to shift the sentence if you plead.”

“Even lessening the years served wouldn’t change anyone’s—”

“No years would be served. The sentence would be changed to one month in a CR.”

A Compass Room? Now my attention was caught.

The prosecutor continued, but I already knew this was the answer. Even I wasn’t sure how guilty I was, so how could my jury know? “These kinds of trials are Compass Room material anyway. The kind with damning evidence and stellar character witnesses.”

“In case you’ve forgotten, Compass Rooms are only in the prototype phase.” My lawyer’s voice was riddled with disbelief.

“But they’ve already been written into the law.” The prosecuting attorney sat back, tugging on the lapels of his jacket. “What would you rather have, Miss Ibarra? A long, drawn-out trial? A death sentence? Or some prison downtime as the CRs come into play—a freedom you don’t deserve—with an opportunity to redeem yourself?”

My mother shook her head violently out of the corner of my eye. I could sense the tenseness of my lawyer. But to end the agony of the trial for good, to be given the opportunity of redemption or death—right now, even death sounded better than the fame of infamy.

The prosecuting lawyer spoke. “You want the Compass Room, don’t you?”

I nodded. The prosecutor smiled, and my mother wept.

* * *

The “prison downtime” the prosecutor promised was a joke.

Three weeks later, the national news announced that the CRs were ready to go, and sentences for ongoing trials were being sealed. I was the first to fill a spot in my CR, but I wasn’t alone for long.

When I was taken from my cell for dinner, it was an evening like all the others. The mess hall was the size of a gymnasium, guards watching us like hawks from a ledge around the dome ceiling, their automatics resting snugly in their arms.

I normally ate alone, or at a table of others who liked to eat alone. The sociopaths. I was too easy a target for the other girls, especially with how much media attention my trial had gotten. I wouldn’t have been surprised if everyone in that mess hall knew who I was.

I always got shoved around. The day before, a girl had jumped me and slammed her fist into my kidney, but a guard broke the fight up before she could do any real damage.

Today was a verbal torment type of day.

“Ready to die, bitch?”

I’d been finger painting with my leftover mustard, and when I looked up, I wiped my hand on my pants. She was hideous. Dreadlocks, a twisted mouth. A slanted, shoddy tattoo covered half her face.

But she was nothing to be afraid of.

“Quite ready.” It was the truth. I was aching to leave. When I was dead, I wouldn’t feel my bruises, my cracked ribs. And I’d be with Meghan.

I glanced back down at the plate, at my shitty mustard sun and grass, and felt the warmth of the field, of a place I knew I’d never have the chance to see. Not alone, not with Meghan. I wouldn’t be able to watch her photograph the sunset, wouldn’t be able to see the fire in her eyes that matched the sky.

“That’s cute,” she spat, nodding to my drawing. “Bet that’s not the same as twisting up the photos that chick you slaughtered took.”

I drew my hands into fists. This kind of harassment I knew too well. I knew to tell myself that it was because so many of these sick fucks actually envied my fame and wanted it for themselves. Normally I could handle it, but today all I wanted was to slam my knuckles into her nose.

I didn’t get the chance.

Across the hall, chaos broke out. Women jumped on tables and started screaming, throwing food, kicking trays. All signs of a fight. The guards swarmed in to stop it, but they took much longer than usual. Somewhere, an authority figure blew his whistle. Even the guards above had their weapons aimed toward the mess hall floor.

“Oh shit,” Dreadlocks said.

I swiped my tray to the side and stood on top of the table. Blood streaked the concrete. I saw it as paint—beautiful and vibrant and alive. I wanted to render it into something of my own.

One guard yanked away a girl with short, bleach-blonde hair and torn-off sleeves. They spun her around and I knew her. Even with all that blood pouring from her nose and mouth, I recognized her.

Valerie Crane.

She thrashed against the guards, spitting a glob of red mucus onto the floor. Our eyes met.

I could have sworn she grinned at me.

“Better get familiar with that face,” Dreadlocks said.

“Why’s that?”

“She got sentenced to your CR today. Who knows? Being around her all the time . . . maybe she’ll end up beating the hell out of you.”

I got off the table and sat back down. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“It’s the least a little shithead like you deserves.”

She wanted me riled up, but that never worked. I didn’t like giving people in here that kind of satisfaction.

She left me then, walking back to wherever she’d come from, through the trail of blood like it was nothing more than dirt on the floor.

I never learned her name, or what she had done. She didn’t matter.

But Valerie Crane . . . Valerie would matter.

5

Everything that’s come out of Jace’s mouth has been shrill with excitement.

She thought we were dead. She thought that, unless she ran into someone else, she’d have to spend the rest of her time here hungry and alone.

“I was sure I was going to starve to death,” she says through a mouthful of canned chicken. She didn’t even bother to heat it up, pinching the hunks straight from the tin. Her shirt is off because I cleaned her cut a few minutes ago, and Valerie studies the wound, her nose only inches from Jace’s shoulder.

“She got you good for using a dissolving blade.” Valerie traces along the edges of the cut.

Jace hisses and smacks her hand. “Knock it off.” She bites back a grin.

“Then the Compass Room got Erity good,” I add, having moved on to my second meal of the day, hard cheese and fresh tomatoes. “Not that it matters anymore, but did you see that crate floating in the water?”

Valerie shakes her head. “I was hoping it had floated to shore or something—I mean, if it really was food—but I couldn’t find it anywhere.”

“What the hell.” I rub my temples.

“A lure,” Casey says. “You needed to go into the water to get dragged into the cave.”

I allow a single shiver to ripple through me, and then push the thought far from my mind, returning to my cheese.

* * *

The sky holds the deep blue of twilight. After Valerie brought back my boots, bag, and pants from the beach, I searched the near hillside for wood to prepare for the impending cold night. Finding enough was difficult without an axe, but I managed a decent pile. Casey took inventory of our food and estimated it’d last us about ten days before we’d have to find a new source.

But I’m not worrying about that right now—none of us really are. There isn’t a point. At least three of us have died in the first handful of days. The horror I’ve experienced may be nothing compared to what I’ll see tomorrow.

The only thing we can do is eat while we can. Sleep while we can. And wait.

I take a tin cup supplied by the shed and head for the stream, filling it with water before returning to camp.

“You seriously going to drink that without boiling it? You know what Giardia does?” Valerie asks when I sit. “Have you ever heard of the phrase explosive diarrhea?”

Jace snorts.

“You would know personally?” I raise the cup to my mouth.

“I read. You know? Some people do it to learn things. People who read are eighty-five percent less likely to commit crimes.”

“You must be very unlucky,” Casey says.

I take a large gulp of the cool water. “Okay, well, if I end up dying of explosive diarrhea in this place, I give you permission to laugh at my corpse.”

“And perform lewd acts with it?”

“Whatever floats your boat.”

* * *

Like last night, when the sun dips beneath the mountains, the temperature drops instantly. “That can’t b-be natural,” I stutter. “Like the whirlp-pool, it’s so unl-likely that it’d drop thirty degrees in t-twenty minutes.”

“I’m from Connecticut,” Jace says coolly, just now putting her shirt back on. “The temp doesn’t faze me much. But you’re right—it’s strange.”

“What’s their reasoning? They trying to t-torture us?”

It’s not apparent, not even when the four of us lie next to one another in the tent and try to sleep. Both Valerie and Jace are curled up under a mountain of blankets while Casey rests behind me. Even with my hood up and surrounded by bodies, I shake so violently from the cold that my back grows sore.

* * *

Morning light trickles through the thin nylon separating us from the sky. Outside, an animal shuffles away on the grass. I stiffen. An audible splash sounds. Whatever it was fell into the stream.

It gasps, and groans.

I kick the blankets away, crawling over both Valerie and Jace to reach the tent exit. Valerie knees me unaccidentally in the pelvis. I unzip the flap and crawl out. A boy lies faceup in the shallow part of the creek.

I scramble to my feet and run into the water, dropping to my knees and soaking my only pair of pants. I shake him and call his name.

“Water,” he croaks.

“You’re in water, you stupid boy!” I help him sit up. When he comprehends what I’ve said, he leans forward and gulps down mouthfuls of the stream, choking and gasping.

By now, Jace has crawled out of the tent and gapes at us.

“Breakfast,” I tell her. “Make breakfast, and hurry!”

* * *

Tanner sits on the fireside stump, wolfing down his third helping of canned chicken and potatoes.

I fill him in on what’s happened so far as Valerie cleans Jace’s wound. Tanner puts down his dish and listens closely with his fingertips pressed together in front of him, occasionally pushing up his oversized glasses with his thumbs. When I’m finished, he tells us what’s happened to him.

He was already outside when Salem’s victim showed up. Took off into the woods long before the house caught on fire, but stayed close by for the next few days.

“There was nothing. Only the dew I could collect off the leaves and my own thoughts. Until I ran into Gordon.”

“What happened?” Casey asks.

“Tried to stab me with a knife. Chased me down into a muddy ravine. Sometimes I hid in the thick brush. Found a cave once. But I couldn’t get away. He was on my tail the whole time.”

“Why?” I ask. “Why would he do that? He knows this place judges our morality. Erity died because she tried to kill Jace.”

Tanner shakes his head. “I think he knows he’s doomed. He’s having a little fun before he goes.”

“So why isn’t the Compass Room taking care of him?” Valerie says. “They’ve already taken care of three of us sadistic fuckers. They’re clearly capable.”

“Three?” Tanner asks. I forgot to tell him about Blaise.

When I do, he pales. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I know,” Casey agrees.

“Oh, come on, guys. You’re acting like you haven’t spent the last x amount of months in prison,” Valerie says, pulling herself away from Jace’s wound. “Part of being a sociopath is that you lie. A lot. The guy can tote around the biggest Bible in the world but that doesn’t mean his mind isn’t all sorts of fucked.”

Tanner opens his mouth like he’s going to argue, but snaps it shut. He can’t. None of us can, because none of us know what was going through Blaise’s head.

Like how we don’t know what’s going through anyone’s head but our own.

Tanner huffs. “Well, these hauntings are obviously testing us, but what they are exactly, I’m not so sure. I mean, they can’t be real. Deities, victims that can’t logically be here, dead girls . . .”

I flinch. Casey’s staring at me.

“We know that four of us have been tested so far, right? Salem, Erity, Blaise, and Evalyn. The only survivor of those tests has been Evalyn. We know the way they test us is through brain waves, so the way that Evalyn reacted to images of her crime was different from the others.”

“Obviously,” Casey says. “I mean, none of us saw how Blaise was killed, but Salem was being a creepy fuck when he died, and Erity was trying to sacrifice Jace.”

“And Evalyn?”

Casey’s eyes flicker to mine and then away. He’s about to speak when I say, “I was shocked. Panicked. I thought I was going to die.”

“You were remorseful,” Casey says.

“You don’t know that. I could be remorseful like Blaise was being repentant in the lodge.”

“Oh, give me a break, Evalyn.”

“I’m just making a point.”

“Children,” Valerie warns lowly.

“I can’t figure out what triggers these . . . events,” Tanner says. “I don’t know if we’ll all be hit, if that is necessarily what we will all die from, or if Evalyn will be hit again.”

My throat tightens.

“So then what do we do?” Jace asks.

Tanner shrugs. “Until we know the trigger, we wait. Eat. Take nature walks. Enjoy what could be our last moments. That’s all I have so far.”

So uplifting.

“Wait.” Valerie chews on the corner of her lip. “I . . . I saw my sister. I don’t think it was a test. Sure as hell didn’t feel like one, compared to the others, but she’s who led me here, to this place. Compared to what all of you have been through, I’d say it’s been paradise so far.”

So my visions of Todd didn’t mean I’m going crazy.

“Maybe some of these experiences can reward us instead of kill us,” Tanner suggests.

“I saw my brother too, Val. Back when we were in the lodge. I chased him down the hall.”

“And into my room,” Casey interrupts.

I clear my throat. “And then at the lake. He was pointing to the crate in the middle of the water that I mistook for food.”

“And that led you to your test,” Tanner finishes. “As for the lodge.”

“He led me to a fight.” I shoot Casey a heavy-lidded glare.

Jace snorts. Casey doesn’t seem very amused.

“Not sure on that one.” Tanner sighs. “I guess we’ll have to wait for more to work with, won’t we? What’s important for us to realize right now is that it doesn’t matter if we stay here or go out into the woods alone. We can’t hide from the tests. If we could, this place wouldn’t be very accurate, now, would it?”

* * *

Camp atmosphere after the huddle-up isn’t all too good. I can’t help but mull over what Tanner has said. He has to be right. There would be no point of the Compass Room if we could hide from these tests.

Our temporary haven isn’t safe. Nowhere is.

The good news is that I found a bar of soap in our outdoor pantry. Jace chastises me for washing in the creek—something about killing the fishes—and I counter that it’s not my responsibility to show this place an ounce of respect. And I haven’t seen a single fish.

I wash downstream, far away from the whirlpool, scrubbing all of my clothes thoroughly with the soap before laying each garment on the rock to dry. The shirt I wore when Erity was killed is permanently stained pink. I’m rinsing out my hair when Valerie sits on the near bank, dipping her feet in the water.

I cross my arms over my bare chest. “You mind?”

“Not at all,” she says, and then, “We have a problem.”

She explains to me that the group is torn on what we should do about Gordon, the lone psycho ranger wandering out in the woods. Tanner thinks we shouldn’t worry, even though he was chased for days by the bastard. He’s convinced that he won’t be able to kill us if we aren’t supposed to die.

I shake my head, sinking into the pool. “I’m not quite comfortable with that idea.”

“Casey thinks we should booby-trap our food.”

“Too complicated. We can’t pair off in shifts to keep guard at night?”

“Thank you. There is some sanity left in this world.”

I return with Valerie to camp, wrapped in a blanket and wringing out my hair when she delivers the news. The fact that I’ve volunteered myself and Casey for the first night shift doesn’t make Casey very happy.

“Having two people on guard doesn’t mean that he isn’t going to try and hurt one of us,” he argues. His hair stands on end from grease, his T-shirt brown from soil and ash. I kind of want to push him in the stream because he’s so filthy. And also because he’s pissing me off.

I avoid making eye contact with him by helping Jace prep dinner, our makeshift cutting board a loose plank from the pantry. We plan on disassembling the entire shack for firewood as soon as we can figure out how to do so without a hammer or axe. I slice up red onions near the fire pit as Casey hovers over me, waiting for my response.

I toss the onions in the soup pot. “I don’t know what else you expect us to do. Build a fortress out of twigs? Make everyone practice their knife throwing?”

“Knives dissolve,” he says, missing the point.

“I’m sure this isn’t the first time someone has proven how psychotic they are in a Compass Room. I’m almost positive that he’s already dead. Look how quickly Erity was killed off.”

“Oh, so you expect the people who created this place, who stuck us in here, to protect us? Great thinking, Evalyn. Genius, even.”

“The knives disintegrate when they touch flesh. We know this.”

“There are ways to kill a person without stabbing him.”

I inhale, keeping my patience. “I’d say we’ve been working very well as a team of misfits, Casey. Please don’t ruin it so soon.”

I return to my vegetable cutting, and he stalks off. Fortunately for me, since I have to spend half a night with him, he cools his temper by taking a bath.

As I wait for nightfall, I sit with Tanner by the edge of the creek. “You okay?” I ask.

“Okay as I can be.”

I nod. A valid answer for the occasion.

“You like me, don’t you?”

I laugh in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I don’t know. Ever since the train, since you offered to scratch my nose with your teeth.”

“You’re endearing.”

“Why?”

“Because you care enough to want to know the answer for everything.”

“And I look like a little kid.”

“And you look like a little kid.”

“At least you’re honest.” His brow crinkles with worry. “The jury found me guilty. Only reason I’m here is because—well . . .”

“Because you were taunted.”

“I said I was defending myself.”

I remember the story. Tanner pushed his bully off a cliff that the kids fished at in his hometown.

“Were you defending yourself?”

“Essentially.”

I can decode that. For anyone bullied, ridding themselves of their bully is defending themselves. Essentially.

“Why did he pick on you?”

“Why does any boy pick on anyone? It happens—it’s a part of history. Some of us grow up and we’re unacceptable—smarter or smaller or gayer or darker than what we should be. So we get picked on or change who we are. My dad told me to stop being such a pussy, so for once in my life I listened to someone other than myself, and look where it landed me.” He picks up a stone and chucks it in the water. “He followed me to the river. I was taking a walk along the cliff by myself. . . .”

He drifts off for a moment.

“Dark thoughts come over me, Evalyn. Sometimes it’s hard to erase them.”

I’m about to respond when Casey returns from the stream, shirt off and dripping wet. “You all right, kid?”

“Yes, Dad. Mom already asked me.”

I snort and Casey’s eyes catch mine for a brief moment before he says, “Just making sure.”

* * *

After Tanner, Jace, and Valerie have retreated to the tent for the night, Casey and I remain abrasive toward each other. Bundled inside two blankets with my hood up, I face the dark bank on the other end of the stream.

He pokes at the coals with a stick. “What do you think about what Tanner said? About how no matter where we are, what we’re doing, we can’t hide from our tests?”

Great, not exactly something I want to talk about. I ponder carefully, rolling around the best response in my head before saying, “I think that the next test will hit us when we least expect it. And when it happens, I’m not sure if I’ll be able to handle it.”

“I find that hard to believe.” The noise of coals grating against each other fills the air. “Considering the amount of shit you’ve seen . . . I’d think you’d be numb to tragedy by now.”

Strange that he points out the shit I’ve dealt with as though it’s not in relation to the shit I’ve caused. “I don’t work like that. I don’t go numb when my shit meter is maxed out.”

“Good to know. I guess.”

“Why? So you can make sure nothing else tragic happens to me?”

The noise of the coals ceases. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“Give it up, Casey. You act like you have to be in control of everything. It’s why you don’t want to sit here and wait for Gordon.”

“Then what do I want to do, if you’re so fucking smart?”

“Hell if I know. Since you can’t control him from here, you’d rather go find him and kill him yourself. That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

I don’t need any extra time to realize what I’ve said.

I turn toward him. “I didn’t mean it.”

“Yes, you did.” He stands, picking up a fresh log and throwing it into the fire. Sparks fly everywhere. I brush one from my shoulder. “You meant it. You think I’m going to die here because I’d rather kill someone then let them kill other people.”

“No—Casey, no, I don’t.” I have no idea, actually. How much do I know of this guy? Not a whole lot. The statistics say that only two of us will survive this place.

Should I hope for the best, or prepare for the worst?

“I guess you’ll find out, won’t you?” he says.

“Don’t.”

“What? You said it yourself. What I can’t control, I kill. Why would they let someone like me escape?”

“Shut up, okay?”

“Shh!”

At first, I think he’s mocking me. But his mouth is open. He’s listening for something. I hold my breath and wait, but hear nothing. “What was it?”

And then I hear it, an audible snap of a twig, a shift of a body.

Casey and I both jump to our feet at the same time. I squint in the direction the noise came from, but make out nothing in the darkness.

“An animal,” he says.

I shake my head. I haven’t seen any animals so far in the Compass Room. They might have been hiding from us. I wait for scurrying, hissing, growling. Anything that could signify the movement in the darkness is nothing but a natural part of the landscape.

But then the darkness starts to hum.

I grab Casey’s wrist and listen. I know this song.

Hush-a-bye, don’t you cry,

Go to sleep, little baby.

I finger the knife in my pocket, releasing Casey.

“Who’s there?” Casey asks lowly.

When you wake, you shall have,

All the pretty little horses.

“I’m gonna go check it out.”

“Are you crazy?” he says.

“What’s more insane? To wait here or figure out what the hell’s going on?”

He can’t argue with that.

“I’ll come too,” he says. But he’s unsure. I hear it in his voice.

I know I should be more afraid than I am. The fire from my bickering with Casey has kept me fueled. We have been working well as a team of misfits. It isn’t time to back down now. I’m on shift. I need to figure out what’s humming. Who’s humming.

I need to protect the misfit criminals I ended up with.

Blacks and bays, dapples and grays.

“All the pretty little horses,” Casey whispers.

The humming—it doesn’t sound childish. If it did, I would expect Todd to appear. Instead it’s a baritone voice, smooth, like he sings this song often. Twigs crunch under my feet as I tiptoe beneath the overhang of branches, Casey right by my side.

“Who’s there?” I ask the darkness.

With the campfire behind us, my vision slowly adjusts. The humming stops.

No one is here.

“Hello?” Shadows swallow Casey’s voice.

“Take a look around,” I say. “Maybe toward the creek.”

“Separate?”

“We want to make sure the area is clear, don’t we?”

“Yeah. Yeah, sure.”

I listen to his footsteps fade and return to the section of forest before me. What I’d give for a flashlight right now. There’s no reason why CR engineers couldn’t have slipped one into our bags, except to enjoy watching us suffer without one.

“Hello?” My confidence is lost, the word only a whisper.

Way down yonder in the meadow,

There’s a poor little lamb.

“WHO’S THERE?”

Bees and butterflies pecking out its eyes,

The poor little lamb cried—

The singing stops, and Gordon, somewhere in the darkness, says, “I never get this far. I want to, you see, but they always die before then.”

Melted ice slips down my spine. I need to run. I need to get the fuck out of here.

“What do you want?” I try to keep my voice steady—What. Do. You. Want.—but I exhale the words in a frenzied, slurred mess.

He says nothing in return.

I cling to the blade in my pocket and listen for any trace of him, but there’s nothing. I wait, hearing only Casey behind me, shouting my name. Waking the rest up, I’m sure.

I ask the darkness, “Who always dies before then?”

But the darkness doesn’t respond.

May 5, Last Year

Ten Miles from Campus

The evening was chilly. The setting sun bathed the hills in deep orange. Behind us, cars zoomed past Meghan’s, parked on the side of the road. I wondered what they thought we were doing, two girls in the middle of a clearing, staring at nothing.

We had just been in the city. So far I had a picture of a garbage can and a half-eaten carton of Chinese food to work with.

Meghan kept snapping shots, adjusting the lens, snapping more. Her platinum curls whipped back and forth in the wind. “Gorgeous.”

“Hurry up,” I whined playfully.

“Sorry, I can’t get away from this. These might be the best pictures I’ve ever taken.”

“Kidding. I’m more than entertained right now.”

“Hmmm . . .”

“It’s true.”

“You’re so weird. How you love coming on these expeditions.” The sky was melding into a darker blue.

“I like a heads-up on what I’ll be working with.”

She crinkled her nose. “Sure. I think you just want to bug me.”

“Also the truth.”

Actually, the real truth was that she was a source of pure inspiration. This sunset wasn’t an anomaly, even though she was trying to convince me so. She got excited about the beauty of the garbage in the street. Who did that? No one, only someone as immune to monotony as Meghan was. She saw something to be passionate about everywhere.

We grabbed burritos from the taco stand near campus before making our way back to the apartment. She uploaded everything onto the tablet and I chose my favorite, one where the pink was outlined in perfect canary yellow.

She streamed our favorite sitcom and studied as I set the tablet in front of me and began to paint.

* * *

Our first duo project took me a month to complete.

Meghan’s photo was only the base of the painting. I brushed her in as well, a series of strokes that made up her hoodie and jeans, a tangle of hair that matched the yellow in the sky above her. The clouds were different from the ones in the photo as well. I painted them into twisted hands that grasped at the air—bent wrists and long, curling fingers.

If you asked me then, I would have said that I didn’t know what it meant. The idea came to me and I decided to roll with it. But the psychologists on television had a lot to say about my implementation of twisted hands in the sky and Meghan in the foreground.

Even at that time, I was plotting against her.

6

I want to deny that Gordon was lurking around our camp last night. I want to blame what I heard on my lack of sleep, on my wild and frightened imagination. But Casey won’t drop it.

“Someone was there, Ev. We heard him humming. And you can bet your ass that we weren’t imagining the same thing at once.”

Ev. He says it so casually, like we’re longtime buddies. I’m not sure if I’m buying it, but I don’t say anything.

Unfortunately for both of us, we have to tell Tanner, Jace, and Valerie, which causes a bit of an uproar.

“If we don’t leave, that fucker could come back at any time,” Valerie says over breakfast.

“And if we do, who’s to say he won’t simply follow us?” Tanner challenges.

We’ve split two cans of SPAM. I hated SPAM until this morning. Now the fried, overprocessed meat is exactly what my body needs. I find myself licking the last of the fat off of my fingers when I’m finished, listening closely to everyone’s opinion on the situation.

“Tanner’s right.” Casey draws circles in the dirt with a stick. “We can pack up and go somewhere else, but that doesn’t mean that we’ll be any safer than we are here. Hell, it could mean we’re less safe. We have running water.”

“We could find another spot downstream.” Jace hugs her knees and rocks back and forth on the ground. I can tell she wants to bolt, and would be the first to start packing up our things if the decision was made to leave.

“Ev?” Ev again. “You’re the tiebreaker.”

It’s an easy decision for me. “We stay.” I can’t trust that any spot is safer than another, but here, I feel the woven beginnings of a community. “I don’t think he can hurt us. He chased Tanner, but he never got close enough to make an attempt at killing him, am I right?”

Tanner thinks for a moment, and nods.

“If he does, he’s dead. Just like Erity. So let’s leave it at that.”

Valerie grinds her teeth, but says nothing.

* * *

I’m left with a lot of time to wonder if they stretched these tests out over a month solely to torture us. Every quake of the branches above, every crunch from the foliage beyond the creek is enough to make the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. Even with Tanner’s theory that we’re as screwed here as we are meandering in the woods, no one goes more than a hundred feet from the campsite, and that’s just to find a place to pee.

Casey tries to teach Tanner how to build a fire. They construct the teepee out of sticks, and when Casey instructs Tanner to light the tinder, Tanner yelps and drops the lighter, sucking on two of his fingers. Casey huffs and pries Tanner’s hand from his mouth, squinting as he examines the injured digits. “Better be careful. Next time you’ll burn them clean off.”

“Hardy har,” says Tanner.

I laugh. “Log cabin formation’s better.”

Casey raises an eyebrow. “Oh yeah, Miss Fire Expert? Care to show the boys how it’s done?”

I stand, clapping my hands together. “Don’t mind if I do.”

* * *

During the downtime, I keep myself occupied by rendering the clay into thick liquid. When the yellow is done, I pick away at the berry patches in the garden, red and purple and blue skins breaking to stain my fingers.

They will be perfect.

Making paint is my way to disconnect. I used to do shit like this when I was a kid, except with the red earth I found near my home. Now, due to the classes I’d taken in college, I have a bit more knowledge of how to create natural paint. I grind coal and boil berry skins until the broth is dark and thick. My palette is a kaleidoscope of reds and pinks and blues and yellows. I carry a wet hunk of coal over to a boulder a little ways outside of camp and sit cross-legged, sketching a black trunk and gnarled arms. Nothing like the trees here, though. This is escapist art.

This is whimsical.

Little fingers tickle my shoulder, sliding to my neck, my hair. They pinch the strands and tug.

“You like it?” I ask Todd.

“It okay.” He tugs harder. “I don’t like my trees I draw at school.”

The little hand claws at my temple, and I lean into his sweaty skin. Memorizing it.

How can this not be real?

“Why don’t you like your trees?”

“They’re too curly. Mom used to say that you’d come home and show me how to draw trees. She said . . . she said you might even let me use your paints.”

I reach up and touch his hand, smearing paint all over his supple skin. I bring him to my lips, kissing his fingers.

“Why’d you have to do it? Why’d you have to leave me?”

I stiffen. “What did Mom tell you, Todd?”

“Why did you have to kill Meghan? Why did you have to blow her brains out?”

This isn’t Todd. This is Compass Room torment. You can’t forget that, Ev. You can’t let your guard down.

A breeze cools the sweat on my neck and I know he’s gone. A shiver seizes me, and I reach forward, smearing a pink leaf on one of my coal branches.

* * *

Todd’s visit is almost as exciting as getting my goddamn period. Almost.

I inform Jace and Valerie when we’re squatting around the half-decimated shed, using forks as levers to loosen the nails.

“Damn, that sucks.” Valerie wipes her forehead with the back of her hand. “Luckily I finished the day before the train.” She nods toward Jace, who is picking out the nails on the other side of the shed and paying no attention to us, rubbing at her healing stab wound subconsciously with her free hand. “She’s also supposed to start in a couple days. Think she’s freaking out.”

With her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth, Jace concentrates on wedging the fork just right. Doesn’t seem like she’s freaking out.

“What are we gonna do?”

“Bleed all over yourselves. Wash your clothes when it’s over. Hope it doesn’t stain.”

“Sounds like a terrible idea.” I cross my arms over my chest. “What about your backpack? I didn’t get anything in mine.”

“No tampons, Ma’am.”

“Sexist bastards.”

“No shit. Well, let me know if you figure anything out. I have dinner to make.”

“Thanks,” I mutter, knowing I shouldn’t worry that much. Women have dealt with periods in the woods before, I’m sure. With less than what we have.

I grab a knife from our supplies and sift through the blankets in our tent, finding the thinnest and smallest of our collection. Draping it over a near tree branch, I cut away at the fabric.

“What are you doing?”

Casey, who’s washing a pile of dishes by the stream, gapes at me, horrified.

“Crafting feminine hygiene products, a long-lost artisan technique.”

“But we’re going to need that.”

I don’t know if it’s the cold nights, or PMS, or the fact that he’s breathing over my shoulder again. “Yes, you are quite right, we will be needing it—for vaginas. So please let me get back to my work before I bleed all over you.”

I return to my slicing. After minutes of no interruption, half the blanket is shredded, and I glance back down to the stream to see a vacant bank.

I bathe and redress. Tanner sits by the water, battling a splinter buried deep in his fleshy palm.

There’s a bit of meat grease in our pan from breakfast, so I gather it on the tip of my finger and bring it to him. Sitting down and taking his palm, I rub the fat over the sliver of wood.

“What’s that?”

“SPAM grease,” I say. “The salt will help draw out the splinter.”

He huffs, pushing up his glasses. “I’m useless here.”

I bite my lip to hide my smile. “You shitting me? I’m the splinter doctor. You sit on your merry ass and speculate about how this entire prison works.”

“They say ignorance is bliss.”

“They are a bunch of asshats.”

He grins. “Why can’t all girls be like you?”

“Convicted killers and psychopaths?” I wink at him, and he rolls his eyes.

I make my way back toward camp. Jace and Valerie sit by the fire, deep in conversation. Jace laughs, tracing Valerie’s flowery tattooed elbow with her fingers.

“You guys know where Casey went?”

Jace jerks back her hand, as though she were caught doing something she shouldn’t have been.

Valerie shrugs. “Firewood?”

“We have the shed. It’s enough to last us several days.”

“Maybe nature called. We all have to do our business.”

I shudder. Not having a bathroom has almost been worse than the tentacle dragging me to the bottom of the lake.

Jace points upstream. “I saw him go that way earlier.”

I nod and take off in the direction she suggested. There’s a hint of an overgrown path leading through some younger pine. I swallow my worry and keep searching.

When I come across a clearing, I freeze. My heart thrums so intensely that I can feel it in my throat.

It’s a camp—footprints around a fire pit, the contents burned all the way to ash. It could be days old. This wouldn’t be from anyone in our camp. No one has left long enough to make a fire, and why would they?

I hold my breath and listen—for footsteps, for anything. There’s nothing. Not a breeze, not the sound of birds. Somewhere out in the forest a branch snaps.

The ends of my nerves ignite, screaming for me to run.

Get your ass out of here now.

“Evie.”

I spin toward the sound of Todd’s voice, but he doesn’t speak again. I start to walk, the gush of falling water echoing through the woods. The hill I’m climbing crests. Casey dips his feet in a pool of steaming water—a hot spring, surrounded by smooth rocks on one side and a mossy granite ledge on the other. Water trickles musically.

I cross my arms over my chest to hide my shaking hands. “Holding out on the rest of us?”

“Just found it, actually.” He cocks his head. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

I don’t say anything and scramble down the hill. I reach the cusp of the pool and shuffle my feet. The water looks divine, but I can’t help the horrific feeling that if I get in, something is going to slink around my waist and drag me to hell.

“There’s a campfire back there.”

“I saw it. I mean, we knew he was out there.”

“Gordon?”

“Yeah. Nothing we can really do about it now.”

“It could be someone else’s. It could be Stella’s.”

“You’re right, it could be Stella’s.”

I don’t really have a way to respond. I could say something along the lines of, Well, what should we do about it? But there really isn’t anything we can do about it. We can wait. We can guard our shit. We can hope he’s dead by now.

I want Casey to say something, something that will dull the sharp, awkward air between us. He’s mad at me, maybe because of the blanket, maybe because of something else. And the only things I can think to talk about are death and the weather.

“Well, I . . . uhh . . . hope you have a nice soak by yourself. I will see you back at camp, I guess.”

As I speak, his eyes shift to something directly behind me. As dead as his expression was before, he is alert, scooting from the pool and strapping on his boots in a matter of seconds, jumping to his feet.

He says my name.

“What?”

“Walk straight past me. Keep going and you’ll hit the stream. Follow it to camp and don’t you dare turn around.”

A shiver crawls from the base of my spine to my skull. He knows I won’t. He knows exactly what I’m thinking.

“Don’t.” He isn’t threatening. He’s terrified.

I look over my shoulder.

I see absolutely nothing at first. I wonder if he’s fucking with me—he has to be fucking with me, because there’s nothing behind me but a grove of saplings. But then I squint. Beyond, propped up against the trunk of a fir, is a shovel.

I gape at that damn shovel, trying to figure out why Casey’s so scared. And then it clicks.

My desk.

His shovel.

He buried his father.

Casey’s about to have his test.

“It could be nothing,” I try to convince him, but my voice is shaking. “Maybe they’re rewarding us. Shovels are useful.”

“Go. Back. Evalyn.”

I turn to him, attempting to keep a straight face even though Casey’s test means that every passing second could bring me closer to watching him die.

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“Follow you back to camp.”

“Promise?”

“Go.”

His footsteps crunch behind me. Mist filters down through the branches, doing its damnedest to block out the sun. My legs burn as I try to walk as fast as I can without breaking into a run.

I’m losing it. I’m losing my mind.

A gravelly voice echoes through the woods.

“Turned out just like me, haven’t you?”

I stall.

“Evalyn, run,” Casey commands.

Not without him. I’m not going to leave without him.

With a hint of a Southern drawl, the voice says, “Put me in the ground, but I can still fuck with your head. I can still break you.”

I turn enough to catch a glimpse of the figure emerging from the trees. Then my eyes connect with Casey’s. Amid the panic I find within them, there’s also determination.

“I’m not leaving you.” I extend my hand.

He takes it, and we run down the slippery path. My pulse pounds in my ears. I hear every nervous gasp escaping Casey’s lips as if it were the only sound in the air. The brush thickens until the path before us is nearly impenetrable. He leads me to the right and down a hill.

I take in the moist air and force my legs to work faster until they’re burning up, burning into nothing.

Already tangled in the anorexic arms of foliage, there’s even more stopping us. A stone wall, maybe ten feet wide. I can’t tell if we can get around it, not with the thicket on either side of us.

The man stands on top of the hill we raced down, a shovel in his hand. In his fifties, maybe. Unshaven jaw and salt-and-pepper hair. Work boots and jeans and a navy button-down shirt. The shovel by the hot springs—he carries it in his hands.

“Your dad.”

“I can hoist you over. You’d only have to worry about the drop down.” He clasps his hands together and rests them on his knees, expression mechanical.

He’s giving in to death. Like me.

“I’m not leaving you alone.” The man swaggers down the hill, dragging that rusty old shovel alongside him.

Clunk, clunk, clunk.

He looks like Casey. Older. Less meat on his bones. So sallow he balances on the edge of translucent. Like he’s climbed from the grave Casey dug him.

“What do you want?” Casey mutters. Quietly. The tearing of tissue paper in the middle of a storm.

“To bring you to hell with me.”

Casey shoves me.

Pain rips through my scalp as branches grasp my hair. I land on my ass in the mess of dead underbrush, twigs clawing at me. I try to bounce back up, try to grab on to anything, but the earth won’t release me.

Gnarled branches stretch and curl over my lap, creating a restraint that pins me down.

Casey gapes at me, horrified by what’s happening. He isn’t paying attention to the demon of a man who raises the shovel.

I shriek Casey’s name. The shovel lands across his shoulders.

He falls to his knees, and his father swings, metal head connecting with Casey’s back.

Casey crumples to the ground.

“You little fucker. Never appreciated me.”

Casey rolls over as the shovel drops a third time, slamming into his torso. He relaxes, head rolling toward me.

He’s giving up.

He can’t give up.

“Fight!” I scream.

Vines squeeze my waist, holding me down. The knife. The one I used to cut up the blanket. It’s in my sweatshirt pocket.

I squirm until I can reach it, digging into my clothes and wiggling it free. I saw through the vine as fast as I can until tufts of foam distract me.

The drum of metal on bone fills the air. Tears streak through the dirt on Casey’s cheeks.

Beneath the foam hides a skeleton of wires. Delicate—fibrous. The moment I slice through the twisted thread of them, the vine loosens, and I’m free.

“Never respected the roof over your head. Everything I provided. Just wanted more until nothing was enough, ain’t that right?”

I untangle myself, foliage scraping my cheeks as I crawl out of the brush. Casey’s father takes a step to his left, his back to me, boots dangerously close to Casey’s neck.

“Spent too much of my time trying to protect that neck of yours. Shoulda brought you out back and shot you like a bad dog when I had the chance.”

He raises the shovel, this time, aiming for Casey’s head. Aiming to crush.

“Better late than never.”

I don’t think. Or maybe I think to decide that I don’t care. I charge, sinking the knife into Casey’s father’s back.

He drops his shovel, but he doesn’t turn into smoke, or wail and sink back into the ground. I don’t slice through him as if he were a projection. An illusion. I drive that knife right through real muscle—through meat—wedging the blade between two ribs.

Warm blood seeps out from around the handle.

He arches his back and drops to his knees. The bastard tries to pick up the shovel, like he isn’t registering that he’s been incapacitated. I snatch the shovel up before he can do so. Casey’s father is dead, and this—this situation—is impossible.

I allow that logic to drive me.

Splinters from the handle embed into my flesh as I swing with all my might. The shovel ricochets off Casey’s father’s skull and he falls forward, face sinking into the mud. The knife juts from his back.

As soon as I’m still, Casey rolls over, lifting himself up onto shaking arms, and crawls to his father. The handle of the knife rises and falls with every breath. Up and down. Up and down. I set my own in sync with Casey’s dad’s. In and out. Up and down.

Casey balances himself on his knees and grasps the handle of the knife with both hands, yanking it out. He lets it fall, this time in a different place. His right kidney.

Again, his lower spine.

His neck.

His shoulder blade.

Casey hacks and hacks, blood splattering across his face and clothes as he rips the knife away. He doesn’t stop, not when his dad has to be dead—again—his back nothing more than ripped denim and mangled pockets of swelling blood.

I kneel, grasping on to Casey’s spattered arm. I say his name over and over, prying his fingers away until the knife drops onto the red-coated earth.

We are statues around the corpse.

What have I done?

I’ve cycled, that’s what. I’ve killed to protect. But that doesn’t make it right. I’ve proven that I’m willing to murder again.

They’re going to kill me now. Any moment. I can feel my own heart thrum violently. It knows that this is its last chance to make noise.

I will simply stop existing.

My breath rattles through the air. Nothing happens.

Casey takes his hand back, crawls into the brush I was tangled in, and throws up. His back arches like an animal as he spits bile from his mouth.

“You made it worse. He was going to kill me. It was going to be over. Now I have to sit here and wait to die.”

“You don’t know that.”

He chuckles darkly and sits. “After what I just did, you really think they are going to let me live? I proved them right. I’d kill him again if I had the chance.” His head falls back. “Are you listening? You can finish me off now!”

I flinch as his voice echoes through the woods.

“I helped. At least you don’t have to wait to die all alone.”

His expression breaks in defeat. “Why—why would you do that?”

I open my mouth, but I can’t find a way to explain that watching his father beat him was worse than watching what happened to Erity.

“You’re alive. He isn’t. If they decide to kill you, then fine, but it won’t be because I sat back and did nothing.”

“That’s a stupid answer.”

I rest my palm on his chest. He hisses at the pressure.

“You lost your mind,” I say.

His eyes drift to the mangled corpse. “He does that to me.”

* * *

Guiding Casey up the hill almost takes more effort than I have. His head is somewhere else. He doesn’t speak. I keep my fingers entwined with his as I yank him out of the valley. He stops on occasion, shoulders slumping. I give his arm an extra hard tug and promise, “Just a little farther.”

“I shouldn’t.” He uses little effort to yank me back, keeping us at a standstill. “Why waste the time? I should stay here and wait for something to finish me off. I shouldn’t subject everyone at camp to this.”

“I didn’t save your ass to let you do that.”

“I never asked you to save me,” he snaps, eyes a little less vacant than they were moments before.

This feels familiar.

“Shut up and keep walking,” I order, but the threat is humorous with the way my voice trembles. I don’t know why I’m panicking. Maybe because after everything I’ve done, he still doesn’t care enough to keep living.

It’s like he doesn’t think he has a reason to.

It feels like hours have passed as we retrace our way back to the hot spring. I wade in first, the water cool enough to not scald me.

Casey wades in, wincing when he submerges. He’s so pale. I tug on the bottom of his shirt and work it over his head, doing my best to hide my horror as I take in the mottled bruises already forming.

He sinks to his knees. I soak his white T-shirt, the red turning pink, and wipe the caked blood from his face, his hair, his temples.

“I deserve hell,” he says.

I slide the shirt over the bruises on his collarbone, over the old scars spidering across his chest, down his arms. Scars from torture.

I trace them. “No. He deserves hell. He deserves to die over and over.”

“Stop, Evalyn.”

“He did this to you, didn’t he?”

“Don’t feel sorry for me.”

Casey’s hatred of violence for the sake of violence suddenly makes a hell of a lot more sense. It’s not because of a deeply embedded complex. It’s because he experienced such irrational, unneeded violence all throughout his childhood. Until he did something about it.

“They’re going to kill me. It’s what has to happen now.” He shakes his head. “I only wanted to protect my mom. His end was the only way. He has to stay dead, and so do I.”

Casey needs order and control and for things to exist only with meaning. He is the antithesis of chaos. He is the opposite of everything that destroyed my life.

I dip my head toward him, my lips brushing his jaw. Maybe I do feel sorry for him, but it’s more than that.

He inhales through his nose, and I break away. “Tell me to stop again.”

He doesn’t. He leans forward and kisses me hungrily. I capture his bottom lip and drag my teeth slowly across, releasing his mouth and lowering my head to his neck. I lick his bruises.

“You only pity me.”

I cup his jaw in my hands. “You know what I felt when I ran that knife through his back, Casey? Relief. Is that what you felt when you buried him?”

I brush away the tear that trickles down his cheek with the pad of my thumb.

“I know that feeling all too well. If it damns you, then it will damn me too. So do me a favor and trust that this isn’t because I pity you.”

I kiss his steam-slick jaw and he clutches my shoulder blades, sobbing into the crook of my neck.

We are still here. He is warm and alive and holding me for dear life.

We are still here.

* * *

No one has noticed our absence by the time we return to camp. There are no questions as to why our shirts are pink, why there are scratches on my face and arms, why Casey walks with a limp.

Everyone is obsessed with a much bigger problem.

Stella’s found us.

And she’s more fucked up than Casey.

The Social Worker Was Skittish.

Talking to Brenda was unnatural, not that jail therapy could ever be natural.

We sat in a visiting room. My hands were bound on the table.

Brenda pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose and clasped her hands in front of her. I had known this woman for less than twenty minutes and had already counted this gesture seven times. She hunched forward a bit, as if that would help her see the threadwork of my soul a bit easier.

I leaned back in my seat, like the few extra inches of separation from this woman meant anything.

Although Brenda appeared intrigued by me, I couldn’t ignore the hint of fear I saw behind those hideous wire-framed glasses. Was she cautious of every woman she serviced in this prison, or just the ones as evil as me?

The questions she asked me were very cookie-cutter, like she recycled them over and over with every prisoner that she visited, tweaking them slightly to fit the crime or punishment of her current patient.

“How do you think prison has challenged you?”

Now this question—I’m sure this one stayed the same for everyone. It was a question that she could use to gauge whether a patient took her seriously. A guarded answer would consist of the food or no longer being able to shit in private. But a more emotional response—that would be something that Brenda could sink her fingers into.

“I don’t want to talk about prison.” Prison was a fraction of my torment, and I would be leaving soon anyway. I would be facing death. Wasn’t that more important?

“Then what would you like to talk about?”

Another standard response, one to make me feel as though I was still in control.

“The Compass Room.”

The muscles twitched in her face—a clue that told me how the Compass Room wasn’t where she wanted the conversation to head. But she was a prison therapist. Surely she had talked herself through much worse.

“All right. All right, Evalyn. How do you think the Compass Room will challenge you? Do you think it will force you to struggle with the truth of your past—with all the hidden secrets that weren’t brought to the surface during your trial?”

I smelled Meghan’s blood.

“I think that all of us—every criminal put in the Compass Room—confronts their guilt. The very last moment they could have reversed their actions. Could have said no to inflicting pain.”

“Hmm.” Brenda pushed up her glasses. “I think you’re right.”

“Then they have the choice of being a villain, or a coward, or a hero. Two of those choices are irredeemable.” I was rambling, but it felt good. I had stayed quiet for so long. So shell-shocked. But the presence of trauma was waning, even with my CR sentence nearing. I was gaining a voice.

“Which one are you, Evalyn?” She blinked, her eyes magnified.

“Me?” It was an easy question, the kind of question I wanted to answer. The kind of question I wished a lawyer had asked me during the trial, because my response felt so pure and achingly honest. So inarguable.

“I’m a coward.”

* * *

Being a coward wasn’t something I could solely reflect on. I lived my cowardice every day, even on the day that I confessed this to Brenda, because right after our meeting, an electronic form illuminated the wall of my cell requesting my compliance.

Liam wanted to come visit me.

I stalled to accept. No, I didn’t just stall. I allowed the form to glow upon the cold wall all night as I stared until I couldn’t blink, until my sockets had dried out so much I thought that I might go blind.

But then I remembered—there was no stalling for me anymore. Stalling only led to suffering.

* * *

The glass separating us created enough tangible severance for me to pretend that he wasn’t really there. The boy in front of me was only a hologram of Liam, an illusion to punish me more. I sat down and picked up the bulbous, wiry phone—something from the century before, albeit necessarily so. Anything more modern, one of us surely would steal.

He looked different—yet there was nothing about him that I could place as out of the ordinary. Still sandy-haired and blue-eyed and thin. Still beautiful with the little crescent scar on his chin. But it was as if my memory somehow skewed him, even though I’d seen him a few months before, at the trial.

“What are you doing here?” I said.

“Evalyn.”

His voice was how I remembered.

“What?”

He pressed his fingertips to the glass. “I can’t stop thinking about you.”

“Liam . . .” The way his name rolled off my tongue brought back five years of breathing it in between kisses. The grief resting in those memories took on a life of its own, occupying me until I could do nothing but stare at him in horror.

I’d been his for a quarter of our lives. And he’d abandoned me.

“Hear me out. It was selfish of me to never come see you, after everything you’d gone through. I didn’t know what do to.”

“Liam.”

“I know you’re not guilty, Evie.” His fingers tensed, as though he was trying to dig through the glass. “God, I knew that during the trial. I was scared.”

“Stop.”

“I’ll never forgive myself. I need you. . . .”

“Stop!” I yelled. Other conversations ceased. Guards lurched forward. “I’m sorry,” I cried. One guard eyed me hatefully as I promised it wouldn’t happen again. He let me stay, but not without hovering over me for the rest of our conversation.

Liam slouched in his chair and buried his face in his free hand.

“Have you not been paying attention to the news? I’ve already received my sentence.”

“It’s only a month long. Only a month and you’ll be free—from your crime, from prison—all of this.” He was delusional.

A shudder rippled through me. There was nothing left I could do. I had nothing left to fight with.

“Oh, Liam.”

I wanted to tell him that I was going to die without him. I wanted to make him suffer with that thought for the rest of his life. But I couldn’t, because I still loved him.

He gritted his teeth, shoulders shaking with a sob that echoed through the receiver. “This isn’t fair.”

Waves of images flooded me, oversaturated images of us. “I never wanted this.”

“I know. I’m so sorry.”

I tried my damnedest to memorize his face, promising myself to hold on to this, for as long as I would last within the Compass Room.

Blinking, tears shot down my cheeks. I licked my cracked lower lip, tasting salt.

“Good-bye, Liam.”

7

Stella hugs her knees as she sits next to the fire, mutely staring at the flames as they eat away the wood near our feet. Her arms are scratched and scabbed, face mottled with bruises and two black eyes.

Her slender figure has gotten even scrawnier in the past few days. But she doesn’t eat. Valerie cooks up the best meal we’ve had in this place—two cans of cubed beef, carrots, and caramelized onions. The smell is so good it’s painful. But even with a heaping plate in front of her, Stella gazes at the fire, her once golden curls now a haloed rat’s nest.

“Something fucked her up out there,” Valerie states between mouthfuls of beef.

If it was anything like what I just witnessed, I think I understand.

Jace and Valerie have been so consumed by Stella’s arrival that they aren’t interested in Casey’s absence. Tanner questioned where he was, and I said he was in the tent because he felt sick.

I’m hesitant to relay what really happened. Maybe I don’t want the camp more up in arms than they have to be.

For an hour I wait for Stella to eat. I ask her questions—why she’s so beaten up, where she’s been, what she’s seen. But it’s like she isn’t even comprehending what I say. After her dinner’s become cold, I reheat it in the skillet and bring it to Casey.

He lies on his side in the tent, his rib cage rising and falling. He glares at the nylon wall, even when I hold the stew out to him.

“We could die at any second, you know. Obviously you know. You can spend your last moments feeling sorry for yourself or you can enjoy the wonderful meal that Valerie cooked for all of us.”

“Right, Evalyn. I’m feeling sorry for myself. Fuck off.”

I can tell that kiss did a whole lot for our relationship. “So you’re going to try and convince me you’re not? Good luck with that.”

We’re locked in a staring contest for moments before he says, “I don’t think any of them are broken.”

“What?”

“My ribs. I don’t think any of them are broken.”

“Then quit brooding and eat the damn food I brought you.”

A challenge. He waits for a bit, until I roll my eyes, and then sits up with a wince. I hand him the dish and he eats all of the contents with his fingers, licking them clean.

“I knew you were hungry.”

“Did you tell them?”

“About your dad?”

He flinches.

“No. There’s no use scaring anyone when there isn’t a way to stop these things from happening.”

“Well, thanks for helping me keep my dignity intact.”

“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”

“Killing my dad is nothing to be ashamed of?” I sense his distrust.

“Casey.” I say each syllable of his name slowly, reaching toward the hem of his shirt. His breath hitches as I slide my hand beneath the fabric and rest my palm against his stomach and ridges of risen skin.

“A broken beer bottle,” he tells me. “I was out riding a bike with a friend. Didn’t tell him or my mom where I was going. She sat there and watched with a tissue pressed to her mouth. When he was done with me, she wrapped my stomach in gauze. Told me that I needed to be good, or these things would happen. But being good never stopped anything.”

I swallow nothing. My mouth is so dry. “He deserved worse than what you gave him.”

“You shouldn’t talk like that.” He’s urgent. Scared. “Not while they’re listening.”

“It won’t matter.” I drag my hands down his stomach, feeling his muscles tense at the touch of my fingers. “They know what’s going on in my head already.”

There’s a loud crash outside, metal clanking on metal, and Valerie yells, “The fuck is wrong with you?”

I scramble from Casey and he follows me out of the tent.

Valerie is restacking our pots and dishes. Stella paces back and forth, running her fingers through her tangled mane.

“She’s freaking out,” Jace says quietly from the log she’s seated on.

“We have to go!” Stella screams. “Get your heads out of your asses and pack up! Move! Move! They’re coming!”

She lunges for the stack of pots. Valerie shoves her to the ground.

“Hey!” I yell. “She’s damaged.”

“Obviously,” Valerie snaps, “but that doesn’t give her a right to give us any more grief.”

I glance back at Casey, who’s observing the exchange vacantly.

Jace reaches out in attempt to offer Stella some comfort, but Stella shies away from her hand.

“Then what do you expect us to do?” I ask.

“Send her on her merry way,” Valerie spits when she finishes stacking up the dishes.

“We can’t do that,” Casey says. “Not with what’s out there. Not with what she must have seen.”

Stella scurries over to the dirt patch and sits, picking away at her bleeding hangnails.

* * *

I know Casey doesn’t want me to tell anyone about our encounter, but it’s foolish to keep that information away from the brain of the group. So while Jace and Valerie are washing down by the creek, and Casey is asleep, I tell Tanner everything. He’s riveted by my explanation of our attack, fearlessly asking for the morbid details—the emotions I felt when I shoved the knife into Casey’s father’s back, whether or not his blood was warm, how many times Casey stabbed him.

“It doesn’t seem logical that the Compass Room would let you defeat a test through murder.”

“Exactly,” I say. “I was sure we were both dead.”

Tanner’s eyebrows furrow. “Unless there are multiple algorithms that the system is using. Maybe some executions have a very simple pan-out, like Erity’s and Salem’s. But maybe . . . maybe the Compass Room is slowly collecting data on inmates like you and Casey through your thoughts and actions. That would make sense, right? If it was one test, the Compass Room would only need to keep us for a handful of hours instead of an entire month.”

“What kind of data?” I ask.

“Maybe it’s attempting to determine justified violent thoughts verses unjustified violent thoughts. Casey’s father was attacking him, and all you were doing was defending him. Maybe, if the only violent thoughts that you express while you’re in here are those necessary for self-preservation, you’ll end up escaping.”

From across the fire, Stella chuckles, slow, rolling, hoarse. “Little boy. Little boy, you know nothing. All of you, safe in your fort in the woods, with one another.”

She’s lucid. I have an opportunity. “What happened to you, Stella?”

“It comes back. Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.”

“What does?” Tanner asks.

She clutches the knots in her hair, yanking at them. Fat, ugly tears roll down her cheeks, creating clean streaks through the filth. “He keeps finding me. Over and over and over. And I tell him that it wasn’t me.” Her voice cracks in a sob. “But he doesn’t believe me because he finds me later and blames me again.”

I want to ask her what the hell she’s talking about, but at that moment, Valerie and Jace return from the creek, and Stella ceases her cries, wiping her red, wet cheeks before picking her cuticles once again. Tanner and I exchange glances. We know that it will be futile trying to get anything else out of her.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces.

The words race through my mind as I try to sleep.

We’re all curled up in our usual spots, Casey more distant from me tonight. Stella refuses to enter the tent, even though Valerie and Tanner are on guard until midnight.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.

Valerie tries to reason with her, but she isn’t very good at it.

“If you could tell us what’s wrong with you, we’d help,” she says. “But instead you’re going all crazy bitch on us and I really don’t have the energy to decipher you.”

“You don’t need to decipher me,” Stella says, her voice an eerie singsong that’s all the wrong notes strung together. “You and your camp and your nonchalance. Sitting here, eating your food.”

“Yeah? And what do you suggest I do differently, huh?”

“Nothing.” Stella’s voice drops to a dark monotone. “It’s so pathetic how oblivious you are.”

“Oblivious to what?” Tanner asks.

“That this place is patiently waiting to peel back the layers of your skin and claw out your insides.”

“Shut up and go to bed,” Valerie says. “Before I make you.”

Casey breathes in and out, slow and deep, his face scrunched up like he’s dreaming something dreadful.

* * *

The day is safe.

Casey teaches Tanner how to cook breakfast over an open fire. The boy can wow us all with the smart words continuously flowing from his mouth, but he can’t perform any practical task to save his life.

“The potatoes are burning!” Tanner howls. The tragedy of the morning. “I ruin everything.”

When Casey laughs, the corners of his eyes crinkle. A sharp, warm burst races to my heart and rattles it around.

In this moment, he’s not thinking about his dad. Progress.

* * *

I spend the afternoon with my painting. I’ve been able to work on it every day, but on this occasion, it receives hours of my attention.

I’m shirtless, not wanting to stain my last clean white tee, even though here, fashion really doesn’t matter. But it’s liberating. I wipe my stained fingers on my stomach, red trails lacing with blue and coal.

“I thought this might have been yours,” says a deep voice. I stiffen, looking down at my bra smeared with black and yellow fingerprints, and then back at my tree. It’s almost finished. Almond-shaped leaves decorate the branches in reds and pinks and blues. Their edges glow with the yellow of the clay.

I turn to see Casey with his shirt off.

“Why are you naked?”

“Why are you naked?”

“Touché.” I dip my finger in the blue and swipe it on the rock, creating another leave on the coal branch.

“I didn’t know you had it in you.”

“What?” I wipe my hand on my stomach.

“To paint like this.”

I resist the urge to roll my eyes. “I thought you were an expert on my trial.”

“I never said that.”

“One of my paintings was psychological evidence. The prosecuting lawyers were using it to pin me as bat-shit crazy. ‘Fulfilling my own prophecy.’ It was all over the news.”

He shakes his head, crossing his arms over his bare, bruised chest. “I don’t remember. What was it?”

“What was what?”

“The painting? What was so fucked up about it?”

I think for a moment, biting my lip, and then dip my finger in the blue paint. “I will show you.”

“Now?”

“Come here.”

“How are you going to show me now?”

“Just come here and sit down.”

He hesitates, but complies.

“In front of me. Scoot in front of me.” I study his chest when he does so, deciding where I want to start. I’m biased with the scars and bruises that twist his skin. A pang of guilt slices my stomach as I find myself stuck with the fleeting thought that there’s something beautiful about his marred flesh.

I reach out, grazing him right below his left nipple with my paint-covered finger.

He releases a sharp gasp, and then laughs. “Seriously?”

I say with the straightest face, “You mind? I’m working.”

The light in his irises shifts, his expression giving into mischief. “Fine. The lady wants to work, so I’ll let her work.”

“Thank you,” I say flatly, trying to ignore the thrill racing from my gut to my thighs. Something seems wrong with being turned on in the Compass Room. My next move doesn’t really help the matter either. I ask him to lie down.

This time, his complies without even stalling.

I drag across his skin three claws of blue sky. Reaching his scars, I’m desperate to read him like braille.

I don’t know for how long I have him beneath me, but he remains motionless other than the rise and fall of his chest. Only when I drift to the area below his navel does he inhale rapidly.

“You ticklish?”

“No,” he says.

When I trace the skin again, the small of his back arches off the ground.

I don’t want to tell him I’m finished. I want to keep touching his hot, paint-slick skin. Our kiss was a way for me to take his pain away—I’d been convinced of that. We haven’t even spoken of it. I thought it would stay buried until we died, but now he’s before me, covered in my sky and my clouds—a vessel from my past to here, from Meghan to the Compass Room.

She’d want me to have him.

“I’m done.” I wipe my hands across my collarbone.

Slowly he sits up. “It’s a . . . a sky.”

“Yup.” I stand, needing a break from this suffocation. The creek’s only a few yards downhill. Without thinking twice I unbutton my cargo pants and slide out of them.

“What’s so psychologically disturbing about a sky?”

I don’t know what to say. I could explain that Meghan had been painted into the picture too, but I’m not ready to return to her. Not right now.

So instead of speaking, I take off my bra.

My back is to him, but even so, I feel the shift of tension in the air. I step out onto the rocks, careful not to slip until I’ve made it to the pool in the middle of the creek.

He hasn’t said anything. His thoughts must be misplaced for the time being.

I cup my hands beneath the water and lift them, tilting my palms until the icy trickle washes away most of the paint on my chest and stomach, leaving nothing but ghosts of color across my skin. “You better come wash yourself off,” I yell. “If that shit dries, you’ll be multicolored for days.”

As I leave the creek, he enters. I hug my chest, but that doesn’t stop him from staring at me as we pass each other in the water. My heart thumps wildly against my clenched palms.

On the shore, I kneel, facing away from the water and drying myself off with my shirt. I feel his presence when he sits behind me, like the heat of his body is radiating a million times more than it should be.

“You don’t have to be a neck breather to glance at my tits, Casey. All you have to do is ask.”

He scoffs. “Sometimes it’s like you don’t have a filter for your mouth.”

“Fuck you.” I glance at him and smile. He smiles back. It’s bright, until his expression shifts and I know he’s thinking of something darker than my running mouth.

“And even your instincts. It’s like you didn’t think of the fact that your neck could have been broken when you stabbed—when you stabbed my dad.”

I focus on my shirt, untwisting it so I can put it on.

“Same with Jace when she was hurt. Hell, even Salem. That is your instinct. To help people no matter what risk it is to you. And I’ve been thinking about it ever since the lake, when you wanted to find food for me and Jace because you were so sure that you were going to die here. So tell me, Evalyn, how does someone with that kind of instinct premeditate a mass murder?”

My hands stall, fingers tightening around cotton fabric.

“Because I’m a diagnosed psychopath, Casey, and that’s what psychopaths do.”

“Wrong,” he says brazenly, making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “If you’ve proven one thing to me it’s that you aren’t egocentric. That is what makes a psychopath so damn predictable.”

A chuckle bubbles from my mouth. “So what? You think I didn’t do it—that I didn’t commit my crime?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re wasting your time, trying to figure me out. I know what you want to do. We’re lonely. I don’t want to die alone and you don’t want to die alone, but the only difference is that you need to paint the best picture of me in your head to be close to me.”

“And you don’t?”

“No. I like you the way you are. The way you really are.” I twist my neck until I can see his face. He’s close enough that I can distinguish the exact colors within his fractured irises. A mosaic of moss green and gold and hazelnut. “If you want someone to snuggle up to for the end of the world, I don’t have to be anything less than an evil human being.”

“Won’t it feel better for me if you aren’t, though?”

I drop my shirt and pivot toward him. Grasping his shoulders, I slide onto his lap.

I attempt to keep a straight face, even with my soaring adrenaline and our lack of clothes. Even though he’s damn near expressionless and I haven’t shocked him as much as I was aiming for.

“You tell me,” I challenge. A handful of inches from him and I can count the freckles on his nose. They make him seem so much younger than I know he is.

His warm, callused hands grab my hips and pull me to him, eyes fevered, and I’m reminded that it’s been almost a year since I’ve been touched—really touched—not the manhandling I received from the prison guards or the abrasive hugs given to me by Mom. There was a time in prison where I thought I’d die, like the infants in orphanages that are never held. My heart would collapse because it knew that the arms around me were only my own.

He is electric, recharging me after months of solitude.

There’s nothing separating us other than our soaked underwear. One of his hands trails up by back, pinning me so my breasts are pressed to his chest. He groans as I grind my hips into his. My fingers lace through his dark hair. “Is this what you want?” I whisper into his ear.

He doesn’t respond right away. One of his hands remains at my back. The other cups my thigh as he tries to bring me even closer to him, like it’s even possible. “How long has it been for you?”

To my own surprise, I laugh. “Since I’ve had sex, or since I’ve been touched in a way that doesn’t remind me I’m the scum of the earth?”

It isn’t funny. He knows it isn’t funny.

I want to kiss him. I need to.

Suddenly he pushes me back onto the grass until I’m beneath him. “Both.”

“The same amount of time. Ten months.”

“Since doomsday.”

“Since doomsday,” I repeat.

He bites his lip. He’s thinking.

I reach up, tracing from the bottom of his rib cage to his navel, where the color has stained his skin.

“How does it feel?” he asks.

“What?”

“You said you haven’t been touched in almost a year, so how does this feel?”

“I—” What do I say? I could say that it reminds me there’s more in life to feel than the hard mattress of a prison bunk at my back all day. Who wants to hear that melodramatic bullshit, though, really?

So instead, I say, “Like our kiss.”

His lips twitch, and his hand slides up the inside of my thigh. “You’re so cold.” He lowers his open mouth to my neck and exhales slowly.

I curse.

“What?” His hand slips higher, thumb tracing the hem of my underwear.

“Don’t stop.”

His teeth graze my jaw. “What are you suggesting?”

“I’m— I—” His lips hover over mine. So close. “I want someone for the end of the world.”

The moment I say this, the sky flashes green, like it’s signaling the impending apocalypse. He nudges my chin up with the bridge of his nose.

His tongue glides across my collarbone for one bright moment. Pressure builds in my abdomen and I bite on my lip so hard I taste blood.

I see blood.

Trickling from the eyes of a little girl.

I choke on my scream. Casey notices the girl, scrambling to his knees and pulling me to him.

“I can’t find my mom.” She squeezes her eyes shut, blood trailing down her cheeks and dripping off her chin, catching on the ends of her black hair.

Mine and Casey’s breathing rattles in sync. I hold on to him for dear life.

“I can’t find my mom!” she shrieks and takes off with a limp, her jeans torn to shreds, blood seeping from the wounds beneath.

“She’s running toward camp,” Casey says.

I tug on my clothes. “We need to hurry.”

A scream rips through the air. Jace. Once I’m dressed, we race back to camp.

The girl stands between the tent and the newly smoking fire. Tanner’s on his feet, fists balled. His eyes dart between us and the girl. Stella hugs her knees and rocks back and forth in the dirt.

Jace presses herself to a tree, Valerie her shield. “I told you I was sorry.” She clings to Valerie’s shirt. “I’ll give you anything.”

The girl stands so close to the fire that her bloody tears hiss when they splatter inside the ring.

“My life back.”

Her moans build on top of one another until she’s screaming, blood oozing—her cheeks a curtain of sticky crimson.

“Leave,” Valerie commands.

The girl shudders. “I want my mom.” She can’t be older than twelve. Young. Vulnerable. “I want to find my mom.”

“Look for her somewhere else.”

“But—”

“LEAVE,” Valerie growls.

The girl hangs her head, her cross necklace dangling below her chin. “But I’m so alone now.” Dragging her bare, bony feet across the dirt, she turns from our camp, disappearing into the shadow of the forest.

“I’m so alone.”

So alone.

So alone.

Stella cranes her neck toward Jace, flashing a wicked smile “She must be yours, then? She is lovely.”

* * *

The girl was the last one to die from the wreck that Jace caused. She was in a coma for three days before her body gave out. Jace had been the one to drag her from the car before the police came. She was drunk off vodka but sobered by the accident.

The girl had cuts beneath her eyes from the shattered glass. They made her look like she was crying blood.

“Why?” Casey prods some of the hot coals in the fire ring with a stick. “Why did she come into camp now?”

Valerie and Jace exchange glances. Jace wrings her hands in front of her. “We were talking about . . . the accident.”

She means her own accident. Her crime.

“I think that scared the shit out of me more than anything else.” Valerie’s hand is still planted on Jace’s back, unmoving, like a ward of protection. “How she suddenly showed up right when . . .”

Jace starts to cry, and Valerie frowns and bows her head.

“I don’t mean to pry or be insensitive,” Tanner says, “but I want to know. Were you talking about the girl?”

Jace nods. Valerie drags her hand in circles over Jace’s back. Touch is the last luxury of comfort that we have here.

“So you were thinking about the girl and she walked into camp?” Tanner attempts to clarify with Jace.

“No,” I interrupt. Casey’s eyes are glazed. I wonder if he’s replaying the moment when the bleeding girl stumbled upon us, like I am. “Casey and I were by the creek and saw her first.”

“Was there anything strange about the way she appeared?”

Other than the fact that she was watching as he lay on top of me half-naked? “No . . . well . . .” I remember the light. “There was a strange flash of green before she appeared. Was that a part of your crime?” I ask Jace.

She sniffs and shakes her head.

“I don’t know.” Tanner rubs his chin in thought. “It’s so unlike the other tests.”

If it was a test at all. I think of Todd, and of Valerie’s sister. But they were images of comfort, not of terror.

Valerie stands, pacing back and forth in front of the campfire. “I’ll take the first watch tonight.”

“Me too,” says Jace.

“You need to rest. Especially—especially after that.”

“But I want to be with you.”

A silent argument rages between them. Finally, Valerie says, “You’ll be with Evalyn.”

Jace rests her head on her knees, tangling her fingers in her hair.

I walk over to her. “Let’s go in the tent, Jace.”

“It isn’t even that dark yet,” she says into her knees. “It isn’t even dark.”

“Come on.” When I help her up, she complies. Inside the tent, we lie down next to each other.

She gazes past the bug netting, to the sky deepening as minutes pass. “Yes. I deserve this.”

Maybe she’s right; maybe we all do. But still, I say, “Don’t think that.”

“It’s okay.” She takes my hand. “I’m ready to die again.”

“You shouldn’t be ready to die until you’re faced with it.” Maybe I should eat my words and not be such a hypocrite. “What about falling in love?”

Immediately her eyes shift to the open tent flap, to Valerie, who sharpens a knife with a stone by the fire.

“You’re into her.”

She scowls at me. “Am not.”

“Uh-huh.”

“No one should be into anyone here. Why wrap yourself in someone just to lose them?”

The tent shakes. Casey shuffles to the far corner. I swallow the lump forming in my throat. “Because it might be the last time you’re able to do it.”

She blinks, her head falling back.

“You okay?”

“I’m not sure. Nothing feels real anymore.”

“I think that’s all right.”

“Does it feel real to you?”

As my gaze connects with Casey’s, my pulse speeds. “No, but I’m letting that be my drug. I’m letting that drive me for as long as I have left.”

Sadness flickers across his face.

“Don’t leave me tonight,” says Jace. “Neither of you.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it.” I reach over her and take Casey’s hand. Tanner will stay on guard with Valerie tonight, and even if we invited Stella inside the tent, she’d refuse, so we don’t bother.

“What do you think death will be like?” Jace murmurs.

Casey squeezes my hand. It’s like he knows that my mind reverts to the moment when we were kneeling around the faux corpse of Casey’s father and waiting for death. I was so sure that every breath I took was going to be my last. It was the first time in a while that I thought about what would happen after my heart stopped beating.

Casey is the first to speak. “When the lodge lit on fire, I thought we had already died.”

“I don’t think hell will care about testing us,” Jace says.

“You believe in hell?” he asks her.

She thinks for a long, hard moment. “No. I believe in finding redemption, even after death. Somehow.”

That word again. Redemption.

“Evalyn?” Jace asks.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that my jaded mind can’t wrap around anything other than death being an infinite nothing—suffocating blackness. But I try to imagine for her. I try to play make-believe, like I used to when I thought of joining Meghan. “Death will be like floating on your back in the cleanest water you can think of beneath a hot sun. Nothing to worry about. Nothing to have a broken heart over. No one to lose.”

“Alone?” Jace asks.

“Yes. Alone.”

Casey squeezes my hand even tighter. Jace is right. Cycling through love is like wash, rinse, repeat. Falling for anyone now is as pointless as believing I would have Liam forever.

Nothing is forever except the loneliness.

* * *

The soft walls of the tent shake as someone fights to get out.

Everyone’s yelling.

I’m up.

“Valerie!” Jace screams, racing out of the tent.

Casey and I exchange bleary, startled glances before throwing our blankets off. He groans as he stretches his muscles for the first time in hours and I plow past him, crawling out of the exit and onto my feet.

Jace disappears into the woods, sprinting.

“What happened?” I cry at Tanner, whose fingers are clenched in his hair.

“Valerie said she had to pee. She . . . she . . .”

“Spit it out!”

“Was dragged into the woods. Something dragged her into the woods.”

Something?

I take off, Casey right on my heels. His breathing is labored—pained, and I know every step is work for him, but he doesn’t slow. He even speeds up when we catch a glimpse of Jace fighting the brush at her ankles up ahead. Down a hill all of us go, and I nearly stumble over my feet before the ground levels out. Valerie lies on her back in the middle of the clearing, clawing at something around her neck. Jace runs to her, dropping to her knees.

When I’m closer, I make out the object around Valerie. A noose. With Jace’s help, she’s able to untangle herself from it, gasping for air.

I drop to the ground on the other side of her. “What the hell happened?”

Valerie coughs, tears springing to her eyes as she rubs her neck. She chokes out, “It slithered around me, like a snake. Didn’t know what was happening until it was too late.”

Casey runs into the clearing, followed by Tanner. The noose slinks across the ground on its own, like it’s controlled.

“They see everything,” Stella sings from the edge of the clearing. She twirls a piece of hair around her finger. “They take their robot claws and rip apart your skin. I bet you they like it.”

“Shut up,” I snap.

I follow Valerie’s gaze to a baby doll, soft body and porcelain limbs, head chipped and scraped white. Glass pieces scatter the ground.

“Not funny,” Valerie murmurs, and the sky falls dark until there’s nothing left but a gray ghost of light. Mist curls upward, and my attention shifts to the three bodies that weren’t there before—three bodies hanging from nooses, their feet swaying back and forth.

The tree creaks with their weight.

A strangled whimper escapes Jace’s throat.

“Now you scream,” Stella says.

“No.” Valerie’s response is immediate. “I’m guilty as sin. My jury knew it. I know it. I’m not gonna sit here and pretend I’m going to survive this place.” She stands. “You hear me?”

She speaks to the Compass Room gods like Casey did, convinced someone is listening. Is it hope that molds her desire to contact them, or surrender?

“Stop,” Jace pleads, but Valerie doesn’t. She glares at the three swinging bodies, mismatched shirts and gray flesh. Purple lips. Bulging eye sockets. How will this end? Will they reanimate and drop to the ground, throwing their nooses one by one around Valerie’s neck to strangle her? Will they beat her like Casey’s father did to him?

Will they infect her? Will she explode?

No one says anything. Valerie is stone, challenging them, and then, when unoccupied minutes pass, she says, “I have to pee.”

And then she leaves.

The tree holding the bodies groans. Stella shrieks.

“No!” she wails, marching toward the center of the clearing. “Come back, you stupid bitch!”

I jump up, my fingers clamping around her stick-thin wrist. She yanks away from me. “They don’t end like this! She isn’t supposed to walk away!”

Something inside me snaps. I take her arms and shake her. “Why? Why are you so screwed up?”

She melts, collapsing to the ground and sobbing shamelessly, snot and tears dripping from her chin. “Am I . . . Am I the only one . . . touched? Again and again he comes. . . . H-he can touch me. H-he can make me hurt, and it’s NOT FAIR THAT I’M THE ONLY ONE WHEN I’M NOT EVEN GUILTY. IT’S NOT FAIR THAT SHE CAN WALK AWAY.”

Stella chokes, and wretches, and squirms on the ground. She won’t get up. Not even when we leave to head back to camp, away from the bodies that dangle below the sunless sky. I hold Jace’s hand as we follow Casey, wondering what happened to Valerie.

But she’s fine. She sits and rubs her neck right in the middle of our desecrated camp. Our food has been stolen.

Our tent, our blankets, our bags—shredded.

May 21, Last Year

School

We didn’t realize the brilliant concept we stumbled upon, Meghan and I.

She took the blog to her favorite professor, a man who had an eye for ingenuity. He loved the concept so much—the idea of transforming a beautiful photograph into an art form that both reflected the original work and created a new piece—that he wanted to create an entire gallery based on the concept.

“Next semester we will have the exhibit,” he promised in a meeting with Meghan and me. “The two of you will lead a team through the summer to start setting up partners and getting these projects rolling.”

We held hands the entire time under the table. This project was supposed to be satiating our interests, but it was more than that. It was something academic, something beautiful. A way we could leave a mark on our college. Artists didn’t have a lot to strive for, only the hope that we wouldn’t starve to death and someone would appreciate us.

“Are you up for it?” her professor asked. “I want to make sure you two are dedicated before I start sending e-mails and directing funds to next year’s opening gallery.”

“Yes!” Meghan squealed before I even opened my mouth. “Yes! Of course. We’ll start scheduling meetings as soon as possible, won’t we, Ev?”

“I . . . uhh . . . yeah, of course.” Of course we would. What kind of question was that?

* * *

That evening, we had a celebratory dinner with Nick and Liam at a nice New American place. The boys hardly knew each other, which was insane. Technically this dinner was something we should have done a couple months ago, when Meghan and Nick started dating.

The way he was so comfortable necking her at the table made it seem like we did this sort of thing every weekend.

“Nick,” Meghan said with an exasperated sigh when our food came. She acted relaxed the rest of the time we were eating, but when I got up to use the restroom, I saw his hand on the uppermost part of her thigh, beneath the material of her dress.

Maybe, if I liked him more, this kind of thing would have seemed like a sexual quirk he or both of them had—a way to get a rush. But I didn’t like him, which was why I did my best to shoot him glares for the rest of dinner. He wasn’t paying me the slightest bit of attention, though. Instead, he was talking politics with Liam, a conversation I had absolutely no desire to get into. Not to mention, the topic—war—had been beaten to death centuries ago.

“People need the pain of war in order to function.” Nick twirled the pasta on his fork. “Without something so chaotic, we wouldn’t feel emotion at all.”

Liam stiffened. He was a total pacifist at heart, and I knew there was no way he would let Nick’s proposal of chaos slide. I kicked him so he’d drop it.

He didn’t. “Of course there would be emotion. There would just be less grief.”

Meghan released a tiny gasp, and I wondered what Nick was doing to her under the table.

“There’d be no way to understand happiness or safety in a peaceful world,” said Nick.

I knew that statement was ludicrous. Just because a world had no war didn’t mean that bad or sad things wouldn’t happen. There would still be accidents. People would still die of illness. There would be room for peace with plenty of things left to mourn.

But I didn’t argue, because arguing philosophy with someone who obviously knew what they believed in was completely pointless. “Drop it,” I murmured to Liam.

A waitress walked alongside the table carrying a tray full of martinis.

Nick continued. “People have been trying to understand the purpose of chaos forever. Not just violence, but everything—mathematics, physics, climate change, the neurons in the brain, divine fucking intervention.”

Meghan squirmed in her seat and glanced toward the restrooms.

“I know what chaos theory is,” Liam said.

“Then you’ll agree with the logic that it existing within almost everything proves that it’s necessary.”

The waitress tripped near Nick, martinis sliding off the tray and hitting the stone floor with a horrible crash.

Meghan stood and tugged down her skirt.

“Holy shit!” cried Liam, and bounced out of his chair to help the waitress. Several others were getting up from their tables as well.

But Nick wasn’t. He remained in his seat, his attention trained on me.

I knew he’d tripped her. Liam said nothing about it on the car ride home, and since he would have been the one to see it happen, I didn’t bring it up.

On my phone, I searched Nick. I’d done this before, when Meghan first started dating him (that’s what friends do), and this search pulled the same results. Nothing. No news reports, no online profiles, no blogs—at least, not relating to the Nick Malloy I knew. I’d hoped that I missed an article that graphically described his arrest for some insane crime so I could show it to Meghan, but there wasn’t. He had zero online presence. I didn’t even know that was possible.

Liam decided to stay at his place that night, so when the boys dropped the both of us off and we were home, I had to ask, “How’s the sex with him?”

Immediately, she put up her shield. Her back straightened, and she plastered on that sly smile, the one she used when she wanted to blow something off. “Why are you asking?”

I wanted to say, Because he had his hand up your skirt all of dinner, but I refrained. “Because he’s sticking around and it’s my job to pester you about sex.”

We sat across from each other on the patio. She reached for the pipe on the corner table and started to dig in her purse. I had hit a nerve—I don’t know how, but that smirk and her sudden needing to smoke a bowl within a span of twenty seconds was a sure sign.

“What’s up, Meghan?”

She exhaled in relief when she found her baggie. Opening it and packing her pipe, she said, “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, don’t you even think about screwing with me.”

“He’s kinky, you know? Not like quirky kinky. But like the real deal.” She lit up, and I waited for her to exhale. “The first time, he tied me up.”

“He what? Okay . . . okay. But he asked first, right? It was consensual?”

“He didn’t ask. But, I mean, you gotta try everything once, right?” She lit up again.

“Was it consensual?”

“God, Ev. He didn’t rape me, if that’s what you’re asking. What’s your deal, anyway?”

“What do you mean, what is my deal? He was possessive of you tonight and I’m making sure you’re okay with it.”

“You think I wouldn’t know if I felt okay with it or not? I’m fine. I don’t sit here and ask you if yours and Liam’s sex is consensual.”

“What does that have to do with anything?”

“You’re supposed to trust me, Ev. Trust that I make the right decisions for myself. Jesus.”

This wasn’t going how I had planned. “I’m sorry, Meghan. He’s new and I’m only skeptical because I love you so much. You know that.”

“Yeah.” She set her pipe down and stood. “I’m tired. I’m going to head to bed.” She paused when she was halfway inside. “By the way, tell Liam to try and avoid conversations with Nick that have the slightest chance of leading to chaos theory. He’s obsessed with it. And it’s annoying.”

* * *

I should have grown a clue then. I should have realized that gut feeling doesn’t screw around when dealing with someone you care so much about.

But at the time, I was hoping she was right. I was hoping to God she was right. But she wasn’t, because Nick knew the truth.

The world is saturated in chaos.

8

At first, it’s hard to distinguish if this is an act of another inmate or of the Compass Room itself, until I remember that the only other person out there is Gordon. While he’s insane, he’s small—certainly incapable of doing this in the span of time that we were gone.

No, this had to be a mechanical decision the Compass Room made. Stella was right—we’d been pretending to be safe and sound with our provisions. It kept the fact that we were stranded within the wilderness at bay. I sift through shreds of tent fabric, of blankets and spare T-shirts.

Valerie kicks an empty can into the stream and curses.

“We were expecting this to happen sooner or later—run out of food,” Casey plops down on a stump and massages his temples. “We’re fine. We just have to think this through.”

“Welcome back to the land of the living, Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky,” Valerie snaps.

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

“Like I didn’t notice that for more than a day you’ve been moping around. Now suddenly you fake optimism because all of us are miserable.”

Casey jumps to his feet. “You want to know why I was so miserable? I can tell you right now that your little illusion was nothing compared to the bullshit I had to go through yesterday.”

Valerie’s voice rises. “Oh yeah? Well, I’m glad your pain makes you feel so entitled.”

“Stop yelling, please,” Jace asks, inappropriately polite. Surprisingly, it gets both Casey and Valerie to shut up, but not before Valerie groans and rubs at the bruises on her neck.

This place isn’t afraid to beat us up a little, that’s for sure. I guess the same kind of threat exists in the prisons, but that’s because of other volatile inmates. This time, it’s the actual place we’re trapped that’s causing injury.

We don’t deserve any less.

Most of the world would think we deserve to die long and painful deaths. Casey’s and Jace’s bruises, Stella’s escalating insanity—maybe this is only the beginning.

Stella.

“Where’s Stella?” I ask.

Even Tanner, who’s kept his distance from the rest of the party, scouting out the edges of camp to see if there’s anything useful left in the remains, shrugs. “I don’t think she ever made it. Last place I saw her was in the woods before we walked back.”

“Good riddance,” Valerie says. “Bitch was nothing more than a headache.”

I have to agree with her, especially after all of the crazy speak about how Valerie shouldn’t have been able to walk away from her test. Something is wrong with Stella, and I don’t think any of us have the ability to help her.

Suddenly Tanner asks, “What did you say before, Casey?”

“When?” Casey responds.

“You called the tests something. You called them illusions. What made you say that? They aren’t phantoms. If it weren’t for the fact that we know your father is dead, you would think that he was alive. Tangible.”

Casey flushes.

“What do you mean? What about his father?” Jace asks.

Casey tells them everything. Not spitefully, but almost like he’s using it as a peace offering. All cards on the table so we can figure this shit out together.

“He wasn’t real. Logically we know this,” Tanner says, sitting near the fire pit.

“Unless the government reanimated him for the sake of torturing Casey,” Valerie suggests.

Casey ponders this for a moment. “I’m not above considering zombies.”

Tanner rolls his eyes. “But for purpose of realistic circumstances, I think Casey’s term is the closest to what these things truly are. Illusions.”

“Well, virtual simulations were never out of the question,” I say.

“But how they become tangible, how they feel real . . .” Casey says.

Tanner scratches his head. “Technology. Has to be.”

But how is that technology even possible? I felt Meghan in my arms. She was there, dying. Casey’s illusion, so Tanner says, could pick up a shovel and leave real—very real—bruises on Casey.

“My uneducated guess is that these illusions are supposed to put us under enough stress to the point where our thoughts and actions become volatile and exposed,” Tanner says. “That’s when we die.”

I think of Stella. Her state of mind is that of someone who’s been tortured over and over. Maybe the Compass Room can’t get an accurate reading of her moral arrow. Maybe they must drive her insane in order to make her crack, to see the evil within her.

“What now?” Jace asks.

* * *

We enjoy a bonfire of the desecration of camp. Everything goes in the pit. The shreds of fabric, the last of the wood from the shed. The five of us huddle next to each other and watch it burn.

In the early afternoon, when our camp is nothing more than a pile of ash, we leave with the clothes on our back.

Valerie is amazing at imagining the geography of the area. In her mind she can picture exactly how far away the lake is, as well as the burned-up lodge in the other direction. We don’t want to go back to either of those places because we know what’s there. If we’re lucky, we might be able to find another pocket of supplies.

Or we might run into another test.

But it doesn’t really matter, because wherever we are, we aren’t going to be safe.

So we head west.

Our path slopes downward into a shallow valley. At the top, I make out a black line cutting through the trees, curving around and back to the lake.

“The boundary,” Tanner huffs. “Should we go back?”

Valerie’s too curious. “If we follow the boundary for a little while and figure out the angle it’s curving at, we can tell how big this place is.”

“Geometry was never my strong suit,” Tanner says. “Now, calculus . . . Ask me to graph something and I got it covered.”

Valerie slaps his shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. I got your back.”

We follow an eager Valerie down into the valley, to a black wall. The material is metallic—titanium-like—it would be impossible to climb over. Pines nestle against it as if they always have, as if the wall has been here forever. The sun streaks through the branches in tiny fingers of light, not enough for me to feel safe.

We walk and walk until I can’t peel my tongue away from the roof of my mouth. Nothing changes other than the inclining ground as we follow the wall toward the direction of the lake. We must be trudging along for an hour before we come across a small outlet. All of us crouch together and gulp down as much water as we can.

In the middle of splashing my face, Jace releases a strangled cry. She coughs. I wipe my cheeks as Valerie says, “Oh God. Oh God, that’s—that’s fucked up.”

Both of the girls have a hand covering their mouths, Valerie’s arm flung around Jace’s shoulder, like she’s protecting her. Their attention is veered toward the bank to the left of us.

I stand, walking to the grassy patch they’re fixated on. Right as Casey says, “Evalyn, don’t,” my eyes fall upon the mutilation.

Bile rises in my throat. I cover my nose but the stench has already filled me. I dry heave once. The next time my stomach gives in, I spit a mouthful of yellow acid on the grass.

A hand rests on my shoulder. “You all right?” Casey asks. When I don’t respond, he says, “Here, let’s get you away from that thing.”

That thing. I can get as far away from it as possible in this damn place, but the image will still be burned into my brain. What was it—a raccoon? I couldn’t even tell the species of the creature with the way its brains were ripped through its mouth, eyes dangling from its sockets, intestines tied around the carcass like a fucking Christmas present. A chain wraps around its neck, like it was restrained for the mutilation.

I gag, and Casey guides me downstream. The others follow. As I plop down in the grass, Tanner says in a small voice, “That’s the only animal we’ve seen so far.”

He’s right. There aren’t even birds here. No skittish deer or the chattering of tree rodents. This is the first. A dead, tortured raccoon.

Tortured.

Tanner and I seem to come to the realization simultaneously.

“You think it’s him?” I say.

“Who else would it be?” he responds.

“Who?” Casey asks, understanding a moment later. “Gordon.”

“How the hell is he still alive?” Valerie begins to pace.

Jace’s attention refuses to leave the raccoon’s grave—she’s entranced, wringing her hands in front of her.

“We don’t know that he is,” Tanner says. “Especially if he really did dismember that animal.”

“What do you mean, if he really did?” Valerie snaps. “Of course he did. I don’t care what kind of crime any of you committed. Not one of you is a sick enough son of a bitch to do something like that.”

“There’s Stella,” says Jace.

Valerie halts, deep in thought.

“No,” I say. “Something happened to Stella that screwed her up in the head, but—” I think of the raccoon and lose my train of thought.

“She’s not capable of that. Evalyn’s right,” Tanner finishes.

Arms crossed, Casey says, “We need to get out of here. I have a bad feeling about screwing around in a place where something—no matter what it was—did that to that animal.”

None of us disagree.

We get up and continue on the same path we were on before the diversion. My legs threaten to give out on me any moment, and it takes every bit of concentration I have to keep moving, using the wall for balance when I have to.

No one speaks for a long, hard while, until Valerie says, “At the speed the wall curves, if the prison is somewhat circular, I’d guess a diameter of eight miles.”

“But you can’t be sure,” I say.

“Not without a map. But even if I’m wrong, it’s obvious this place is damn big. Which means a lot of undiscovered territory for our little party right here.”

Which means a lot of secrets that could either help us or hurt us.

“I say we walk straight across, see if we actually do have an eight-mile diameter,” I suggest.

Everyone else groans. “I’m all for discovery,” Valerie says. “But I wouldn’t go that far. I’m wiped. And starved. And grossed out.”

Grossed out doesn’t even begin to cover how I feel. Violated is more of the correct term, and there’s no way in hell I’m sticking around this part of the Compass Room for longer than I have to. “You see any food around here? There isn’t, unless you include that torn-up raccoon.”

“She’s right,” Casey says.

“Of course I’m right.”

We fill up on water at an outlet. I drink from the stream until another drop would make me sick. When we set out, we stray from the border perpendicularly. Valerie says that we’ll cut right between our camp and the burned down lodge and travel east—the place where Stella came from, but we’ve never been.

I lead the pack, determined to keep moving solely because of the fevered chill aching in my spine. Everyone’s quiet.

Even though we hike uphill, back out of the valley, the sky remains an underwater blue. The sun hasn’t fully shown today. Tension rests beneath my neck and no matter how I stretch my back, it refuses to disappear. Growth is so thick that I have to kick through the brush as it claws at my pants and boots.

Valerie huffs behind me. “Slow down, Ev. I’m not made for this shit.”

“I don’t . . . want to be caught . . . with nothing . . . in the dark,” I wheeze, smacking brush away. “Gordon might be dead but—but we don’t know for sure. He might be close.”

“A five-minute break . . . won’t kill us. . . . You know what, fuck you. I’m stopping.”

Valerie sinks to her knees and rubs her blotched neck. Jace takes the opportunity to stop too. Tanner’s so far behind, he’s like a figurine trekking over the trail we made.

“Fuck me? You’re the one who wanted to walk all of the way down to the wall. If it weren’t for you, we wouldn’t have to hike back out of the valley.”

“I thought everyone wanted to know how big this place was. Wasn’t that the whole point?”

“I don’t know what else to do, Valerie. You want to be stuck here in the middle of the night without protection?”

“You don’t know that we’ll find anything. You don’t know that our demise won’t be starving to death. Maybe that’s why they destroyed our camp. Because we’re all guilty.”

“So you’re going to give up?” I glance at Casey, but he’s as indifferent as Jace. Have they all given up?

Valerie answers my silent question. “This morning, a noose crawled its way into camp and dragged me through the forest. And then the Compass Room took everything I worked to find. You think that we have any sort of say in what this place gives us? If it wants us to starve, we’ll starve. End of story.”

Dammit, she’s so right that I hate her for it. And no one’s arguing, no one, because everyone is thinking the exact same thing she is.

Tanner reaches us and plops down near Jace, falling forward on his stomach. His back rises and falls.

I can’t stop the swell of disappointment in me, the bubbles of resentment toward all of them. I’m tired. I’m hungry. And the last thing I want to do is really admit that she’s right.

“Fine. You can stay right here and freeze tonight.”

“And you’ll do what, cut through that?” She nods ahead, where the ground levels. I nearly fall over when I see what she’s referring to.

Vines have threaded into a rounded wall, filtered light casting dark shapes onto the grass. Tall trees bend toward us like a cresting wave. A pathetic whimper escapes my lips.

“It. Doesn’t. Want. Us. To. Move. Forward,” she spits.

She’s wrong. It wants us to move forward, but in a very specific direction. At the corner of the wall is a hole—a tunnel, more like—at its mouth a pale pink mailbox with five curly address numbers and a gardenia painted across the aluminum.

The stump on which it sits is charred, but the box is so friendly, so unbelonging, that on instinct I wonder if I’ve stumbled into a Lewis Carroll novel.

An object in the middle of this forest prison. This isn’t a random placement. This is someone’s test.

I turn back to my party, to check if anyone sees what I do. “What’s that?” Jace asks, and as if on cue, they all turn. There is no recognition from anyone, because the object isn’t from one of their pasts.

Which means that one of the other two could have already seen it, could be going through their test right now.

Or could be dead.

I bolt to the tunnel. Casey calls my name, but I don’t turn back around. I reach out and press my palm to the pink paint, the very real metal, and the numbers that read 12830.

I slip through the tunnel of curled saplings. The path slopes downward.

Past the dense, dew-laden trees rests a wrought-iron gate. I open it, the noise of the hinge ripping through the quiet air. Hedges line the way.

A petite, boot-covered foot disappears behind the first corner of the maze. I scream Stella’s name.

The hedges are a one-way labyrinth. The sky darkens, not from the setting sun, but from ash—a paralyzed cloud blanketing the air above me.

Hedges shift to oak. The coal-black sky trickles downward like shredded lace. Before me, embedded into the side of the mountain, is a polished wooden door. The circular window mimics a crystal sundial. Vines creep over the wood like parasites, and the crack beneath the door coughs soot.

Heart racing, I grasp the handle and turn.

The door opens to an empty room. Wilted sunlight trickles through the dusty window, across the beams on which Stella stands. Before her is a fireplace set in stone, with a mantel hosting five frames. Pictures of people. A family, perhaps.

“You know I love you,” Stella says. “You know I’ll do anything to fix this. I’ve dreamt about you every night. All I want is for things to be like they used to.”

She speaks to a boy. He’s gaunt but handsome. Taking Stella’s face, he says, “Things will never be how they used to. It’s your fault. And you have to accept that.”

“No, Finn. You need to believe me. It wasn’t me. I’d never do anything to hurt you.” Her sob cracks through the empty air. “How could you even think that?” She’s angry now. “You know me. You know I’d never hurt you or your family!”

I take a step closer, and another. The floor turns to ash like a burned sheet of paper, gray petals curling away from each other. They rise from the ground and remain stagnant, as if they’re floating in water. I reach out and touch one. It disintegrates.

When Stella sees me, her eyebrows furrow together. “What are you doing here?” There is a clarity to her. She’s no longer chained by mania and fear.

“I’m getting you out of here. You don’t need to see him again.” I hold my hand out to her.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.

The mailbox. She was talking about the mailbox.

“You don’t owe him an explanation, Stella. He isn’t real.”

She wrings her hands in front of her and studies Finn. He seems as real as Casey’s father did. As Meghan. Stella reaches out and touches his chest.

“I know he feels real, but he isn’t. I promise you.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Finn says.

“I know, Evalyn.” A tear trickles down her cheek. “I know he’s full of lies. I know. He comes to me spouting these horrible things and it isn’t true. He isn’t true. But I make myself believe he is.”

The floating embers around us burn hotter. “Stella, we need to go now.”

“I wish he’d believe me.”

A green flash fills the room, and Finn is gone.

Stella screams and falls to her knees. At first I think the mania is back. But then she raises her hands. They’re charred black.

I race to her and drop down, grasping her wrists to hold her still. Her flesh is searing hot.

She shrieks.

“What’s burning you, Stella? Talk to me!”

The smoldering spreads, eating up the flesh on her forearms and elbows. She falls to her back, writhing in agony. I search for water, for anything that will staunch the burning, but there’s only one empty room.

The bottom of her shirt turns to ash. Her arms aren’t the only part of her that’s charring. The skin on her stomach peels and blisters and boils.

She’s dying.

“What is doing this to you? Stella! Let me help you!”

Her shrieks turn to ragged, choked gasps, and her eyes roll to the back of her head. She claws at my shirt with her marred, twisted hands, but I can do nothing. The smell of cooked meat fills the room.

She blinks and finds me, and I know she no longer feels the pain. Her blonde curls fan from her head like a halo.

I see Meghan, dying alone. Dying with no one to help her.

The invisible fire has burned a crater beneath the cove of her rib cage. Any deeper and she’ll no longer be able to breathe. I speak while I still have her.

“I’m so sorry.” I doubted her. I never took her seriously, not even when she stumbled into camp looking like the devil had his way with her.

“Why?” The word leaves her mouth quiet and garbled.

I can’t answer her. All I can say is, “It’s okay. Everything is okay.”

Her body trembles as she tries to breathe, and her lungs refuse. Before my eyes she suffocates, and I keep lying to her. I keep telling her that everything is okay.

Everything is okay.

It’s okay.

She’s gone.

I force down her eyelids with my fingers and wipe the sweat beneath my nose, contaminating my upper lip with the smell of her burned flesh.

My entire being down to my soul begins to shake. I shut my eyes and wait it out, wait for it to wash over me, rattling me until I’m flushed and dizzy.

When I open my eyes, the house and the ashes are gone. I kneel in a meadow, Stella lying before me. Sun streaks through the trees. A gust of wind cools the sweat on my forehead.

I think of Stella floating in the clearest water I can imagine.

A hand rests on my shoulder. “I’m not giving up either,” Casey says.

My Sentence Was Old News Now.

I could tell when I started getting smacked around less than the day before.

Valerie was much more fun for the others to torment. Every time I saw her, her face was different phases of healing and broken, black and blue and crusted yellow. I had sympathy for her, but at the same time, she really needed to keep her hands to herself.

I watched the rallies on TV in the back of the packed rec room. There were mobs of people in DC, Los Angeles, and New York City protesting the Compass Rooms that would launch in less than a month.

They were a new wave of soldiers who disregarded science as truth. Even though the ability to measure morality had been proven, painted signs flashed within the crowds that said we are not gods and your scientific method proves we are murderers and protect our children.

“There’s still hope,” a girl next to me whispered. She had a kind face. I was taken aback but I didn’t want to show it, so instead I nodded and said, “Thanks.”

I knew hope was futile, though. Hope for what? That before I leave, the government would decide to listen to the hippies and this would all disappear? When had the government ever listened to the hippies?

But in truth, it wasn’t just the hippies who were protesting. It was pacifist Christians, Buddists, humanitarians, and libertarians who didn’t want to front the money to build the Compass Rooms in the first place. It was those who doubted the accuracy of scientists to be able to determine a moral compass. That would have never been conceivable twenty years ago, so it must not be true.

I closed my eyes, drowning in the heat of a stress fever that had come on a few days prior.

Someone turned up the volume. Maybe a guard, to torture me.

“Compass Rooms have caused outrage among several human rights groups. Scientists argue that the genes composing us aren’t malleable. Genes for unforgivable crimes such as murdering and raping exist from birth . . .

“. . . exterminating them early would mean less crime in the future.

“. . . what Compass Rooms attempt to uncover is whether these criminals have these genes or their crimes were one-time flukes.”

* * *

That night, I dreamt of suffocating darkness. I knew it was death. I lied on my back, my arms and legs splayed as though I were creating snow angels in the thick, tangible black. I allowed the screams of my victims to wash over me, blanket me. I would soon join them.

And then all dues would be paid.

9

I can’t take enough air into my body. Stella’s stench is too much.

“Deep breaths,” Casey urges as he cradles me. “Deep breaths. In and out.”

I’m trying. I’m opening my mouth but my lungs refuse to cooperate. Finally my throat relaxes, and I suck in a ragged gulp of oxygen.

My voice bursts to life, my sob scraping through the silence. I make fists around the fabric of his T-shirt and cry into his chest. I shriek and choke and cough and he doesn’t shush me. He doesn’t tell me that everything’s going to be all right. He holds me until I’ve expended myself, until the only muscles still working are the ones in my fingers that cling to his clothes.

Every thought rolling through my mind is an unconnected fragment.

Casey helps me to my feet and guides me away from the meadow. Nothing is familiar, and I know it isn’t because I’m disoriented from Stella’s death. I had been led to the house via hedges, and whether those hedges were an illusion or not, they’re no longer here.

We head up the hill in the hopes of finding Valerie, Jace, and Tanner, but the sun is at the wrong place in the sky. This isn’t the hill they’ll be on.

We’re turned around.

“This is wrong,” I tell Casey.

“I know,” he says. “The ground levels out over there. We can start heading west.”

Casey picks up his pace and I follow suit. When the ground flattens and the trees clear, we’re released into an unfamiliar meadow.

At the center, a desk with a red cracked seat rests, vines entwined around its legs, as if it’s been sitting here for years.

Bury it, burn it, break it into pieces. It always comes back.

One thing after another. No downtime. No mercy. The Compass Room is fed up with us today. It’s been too easy on us. Now it wants to see us writhe.

And I’m next.

“Casey.”

I’m already in his arms as he drags me back, away from the meadow and into the darkness of the forest.

“It will only chase us!” I cry.

He knows there’s no escaping, and yet he’s still trying to protect me.

I muster up enough strength to wriggle away from him and run back down to the meadow.

Objects trigger illusions—objects scattered within the woods that we can’t escape. They will bring back our crime. Our black mark.

It will just be Meghan. Meghan with a bullet through her brain, lying out in the woods somewhere.

I feel Casey’s presence behind me. I know he wants to reach out, to grab me and throw me over his shoulder and make a run for it.

I walk to the desk. There’s a break within the trees, where the light shines through, right upon the peeled plywood, the chunk taken out of the red seat.

It can’t be a replica. It’s too flawless to be a replica.

“A good psychopath gets off on knowing he’s unbreakable.”

Oh God.

I’m so dizzy, I don’t know if I can manage to look up at him before I pass out. But I do. He waits at the edge of the clearing, dark hair catching in the unscathed sunshine. Bomber jacket, tight jeans. Even in the most angelic light I’ve seen in these woods, he is surrounded in darkness.

I could face a dying Meghan. I could face Casey’s father.

But now I run.

It isn’t in Nick’s nature to chase me. He isn’t like that. He’s the kind of person to appear and take part of your soul away from you like he’s playing chess.

So when he rematerializes in front of me, I know I can’t do this. Not after Stella.

Even though I want to hide my thought from the chip that’s reading me, it blossoms right at the front of my mind.

I’m glad he’s dead.

I sink to my knees.

He cocks his head slowly. Maybe he’s concerned I’m not willing to put up a fight this time, that I’m not willing to play into his game.

The light halos him. I shut my eyes.

His footsteps are slow and carefully placed, but I can hear every one of them. There’s a lapse of silence between his last step and the moment he presses the cold mouth of a handgun to my temple.

“I bet you’re enjoying this, dying just like her. Like you think you’re some fucking martyr,” he spits.

I open my mouth to respond, to release my biting last words. I choke on them.

“You don’t deserve that, though. You deserve to wait.”

Footsteps scramble behind me. The pressure of the gun evaporates, and I open my eyes.

He’s gone.

Casey sweeps me into his arms and releases a shuddering breath. We don’t have to speak. The way he combs his fingers through my hair says, You’re still with me.

I turn and crush my lips against his.

* * *

We finally find the spot where we left the rest of our group. The trees have unwound themselves from the vines, and the wall is no longer here.

But neither are Jace, Valerie, and Tanner. We call their names with no response.

“They could have gone searching for us.”

“We can’t stay here waiting.”

He places a hand on my waist. “We don’t have to.”

We know we’re close to the lake, so Casey and I make for that direction in order to ground ourselves. Reaching the shore is a relief, even if this place reminds me of the first trick the Compass Room played on me. We fill up on water, and then make for the only direction we haven’t gone yet.

East, toward the mountains.

Panic inches its way through me as the sun sets. We’ll be stuck in the cold, in the darkness, with only each other. At least the moon rises full, shedding enough light across the ground that we can find a path.

Casey and I don’t speak—the only thing I want to talk about is how lost I feel, how big this place is, how hungry I am.

I am starting to understand Valerie. Giving up, curling into a ball with this boy in my arms, sounds deliciously tempting.

“I think I’m starting to see things,” Casey says when we have to backtrack after running into too much brush.

“What kind of things?”

“My mom.”

“Your mom.”

He nods. I follow the direction he’s staring and spot her a handful of yards away. Jeans and a T-shirt, hair twisted into a bun. There isn’t enough light to see the similarities between her features and Casey’s.

“Follow me,” she urges.

“It could be a trap,” Casey says.

“We die if we’re supposed to die, right?”

“Okay, okay.”

Casey holds my hand tightly. He’s nervous. “This way.”

An actual path cuts through the trees in the direction she leads us before she disappears. We follow it for a couple hundred feet before entering a clearing occupied by a lone cottage.

From the outside it’s nothing more than a shack. Warmth spreads through me at the thought of what could be waiting for us.

“We need to be careful,” Casey warns.

I’m over being careful, and to prove it, I let go of his hand and race up the rickety steps. I trace the doorknob, grip, and turn.

“It’s open.”

The air inside the cottage is stale. There’s no electricity and no sink.

One room with a furnished bed and a stack of cabinets. Behind their doors we find provisions—some dry food and canned fish. Not in a million years would I have been caught dead eating anything like this, but now I could eat wet cardboard and enjoy it.

We find some soap, toothpaste, and brushes. I check outside and spot a water pump I missed upon entering.

We stuff ourselves with everything we can find, not bothering to ration.

“What were you thinking . . .” We sit cross-legged on the bed across from each other. “. . . when the gun was to my head?”

The moonlight reflects in his irises. “That either of us might die in the next several days. And I’ve been a selfish ass for the past two.”

“You have not. You’ve handled shit quite well, given the circumstances.”

“I’ve been feeling sorry for myself, Evalyn. I’ve been so busy feeling sorry for myself, and you could have died today.”

“I should have.”

“What?”

“I should have died today.”

He frowns.

“I’ll be like Stella. They’ll have their way with me before finishing me off.”

He cups the back of my neck and kisses me. His lips are rough and chapped and perfectly warm. We part, but he doesn’t let go.

“You will not be like Stella.”

“If I had died today, it would have been better for you,” I say. “For us to not get too involved.”

His lip twitches, and the light waltzes in his eyes, across mottled green and brown, mottled like his bruises but somehow much more beautiful. “What do you think I’m going to do to you?”

“You smell like fish.”

He laughs. Oh, does he laugh. I forgot what that noise sounded like.

When sunlight first starts to filter through the windows, I go outside and fill the basin with water from the pump. It’s still so cold, but I want nothing more than to be clean.

He joins me to brush his teeth, and when he leaves, I strip off my sweatshirt and hang it on the porch and then remove the rest of my clothes and toss them into the filled basin.

I know he’s watching me while I wash my clothes completely naked. Using soap from the cabinet, I take my time scrubbing down each garment and rinsing it, even though I’m shaking. As I hang them up near my sweatshirt, I spot him staring at me through the window. His gaze flickers down to my breasts for a split second. I turn away from him and step into the water.

Casey walks outside. “I think you like washing in front of me.”

I bite my lip. “I think you might be right.”

“Do you want help with the pump?”

“That would be nice,” I say nonchalantly.

I can tell he’s trying not to stare as he stoops near me and pumps water into the basin. I cup my hands beneath the stream, dump the water over my shoulders, and soap up as quickly as possible. There’s no way this can be sexy. I’m more than likely like a shivering, wet dog. I splash him in attempt to lessen the awkwardness.

“If a water fight is what you want, Ibarra, I can bring it.”

“I’d rather you take your clothes off and join me.”

I don’t have to ask twice. Still hunched over, he takes off his shirt. Then he reaches out, cups the back of my thigh, and plants a kiss on my hipbone.

I whisper his name and suddenly he’s in the basin with me, his pants still on. His mouth crushes mine. I fumble with the button of his pants and slide them off.

“Why are we doing this out here again?” he asks.

I grin and pick up the bar of soap from the water, rubbing it over his chest. When he’s rinsed off, we run inside. There are no towels, so we rub ourselves dry with one of the blankets from the bed. I tie my hair up.

He pulls me onto his lap. I trace my finger across his forehead, swiping the hair from his face.

“I don’t mind my last memories being you,” I say.

I wish I knew him better. I wish we had the opportunity of a coffee date without the threat of our lives hanging over us, and I could hear him laugh when I crack stupid jokes. We’d talk about the places we’ve traveled and the college classes we’ve taken so far. Maybe we’d decide that the other person is nice, but not quite right, and we’d never get to this part. He closes the distance between us and presses his lips to my bare shoulder.

No matter what, it wouldn’t be like this.

It would be without some pervert engineer watching us, if this were happening after a hot bath at my apartment or a nice hotel. I’d smell like lavender, not sweat and laundry soap.

We’ll never have that.

This will be the only Casey I’ll ever know.

His tongue glides over my throat, and he falls back onto the bed. When I lie on him, he rolls me over until he’s on top, his fingers tracing the inside of my thigh.

He rests his forehead on mine, our rapid breaths dancing with each other. Boldly meeting my eyes, he says, “We’re making it out of here,” and then he pushes himself inside me.

It’s like we’ve been lovers forever. I arch my back as he drags his fingers down my spine. With every thrust I feel him weaken, becoming malleable, like he was after his test when he was bruised and bloody and broken. But this surrender is different. He isn’t surrendering his life. He’s surrendering to me.

We roll over, and I sit up. I trace his lips, and he opens his mouth and drags his teeth across my finger.

I move on top of him and his eyes flutter shut, his breaths shortening to match mine. He grips my hips, begging me to slow down before he loses it. With the pads of his thumbs, he draws light circles on my skin.

I haven’t been this vulnerable with a person in a year. No one has wanted me to feel this vulnerable with them.

“Are you okay?” he asks.

I slide off of him and lie on my back, trying to disengage the feeling of him inside me. “I . . . uhh . . .”

“It’s been a while,” he says. It’s kind of cute that he thinks he’s the one at fault here, like he isn’t good in bed. I actually wish he were bad, because this, this familiarity, as if we know each other’s bodies so well, isn’t right.

“I’m not adjusted to being with someone is all. It’s . . . It’s too much.”

He turns on his side, fingers finding my inner thigh. “How about this?”

The energy from his hand is fire and ice at once. “Okay,” I whisper.

He lowers his head until his lips barely brush mine, his hand creeping higher up my leg. I say his name, and he slides his fingers inside of me, his face above my own and just out of reach.

He watches me the whole time, as his hand keeps the perfect rhythm, and before long I’m unraveling beneath him, every muscle clenching. He covers my mouth with his, like he’s trying to feel my orgasm himself.

The way he relaxes afterward tells me it might have worked.

He leaves the bed once to wash his clothes and hang them like mine, and for the rest of the day we lie in our new bed naked, facing each other as we talk about our childhood, high school, and college.

I like it. I like pretending that, for a morning and afternoon, we’re normal.

He grew up in Tennessee, but moved to Illinois with his parents when he was thirteen. He’s an only child, and experienced half a semester of college, where he planned to major in construction management.

And he’s only nineteen.

“I feel like a cougar,” I say.

“You’re only three years older than me.”

“It makes a difference, though, at our age. I was a different person when I first started college.”

“Yeah, but . . .” He trails off. I know he was going to say that I was a different person before my crime. I’m sure we all were. He shakes his head—he’s decided he doesn’t want to mention it. Instead, he swings an even tougher subject. “Did you have a boyfriend?”

“I—I did.”

“You love him?”

“Excuse me?”

“Just a question.”

“I did. And then he abandoned me.”

He stalls in his response. “Sorry.”

“It’s—fine. It’s fine.”

He blinks and glances away. His freckles make him look so young. I don’t know why I didn’t assume he was nineteen in the first place.

“And you, a girlfriend?”

He stretches out the arm beneath his head. “A couple. None that stuck.”

“Why not?”

“Got issues with people being too close to me.”

“Is that what some therapist told you?”

“Nah. I just didn’t want to be with someone if I ended up like my dad. Saw how it made my mom. Loved him so much, she took all the shit he threw at her. No one should go through that.”

“You’re not him. What about me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Are you afraid to get too close to me?”

He thinks for a long moment. “Think I already fucked myself over with that one.”

“Not necessarily.” I casually run my finger down the center of his chest. “Even if we both make it out of here, we could shake hands, part ways. Never see each other again.”

He chuckles at this and loops a lock of my hair around his finger, tugging gently. “That’s very funny.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re not just some girl, Ev. You’re this gorgeous catastrophe. You’re unreal.”

“That isn’t a compliment. You know that, right?”

He shoots me this devilish smirk that’s somehow perfect on him. Then, as his next thought arises in his mind, he sobers up.

“You know what it’s like to love so hard you’re willing to kill for it.”

A thought dawns on me, so I speak it out loud. “You believe that what I told the jury was true.”

“I believe what I saw when we were down in the cave. That girl was the one who was your friend, right?” He must see the way I flinch up when he mentions Meghan. “I’m sorry, Ev. I didn’t mean—”

“Don’t apologize.” I see her. Reminds me of when I used to pretend she was with me in my cell, during the most desperate time of my trial. “I had to relive that day over and over. I’ve become numb to it.”

“You’re a liar. You told me so yourself. You don’t become numb to tragedy.”

I realize why I’ve moved so fast with Casey, even though we wanted to rip each other’s heads off when we first met. Casey and I—we’re passionate enough to kill for someone we love. I’m sure many would say they’d do the same. But they’re liars.

I tilt my head until my lips brush his earlobe. “Take me again,” I whisper.

He rolls on top of me, kissing me until he’s hard, his tongue gliding across my lower lip. He whispers my name the second he has a chance to breathe, and I wonder if it’s even possible to be in love after a handful of days. Or if the circumstances are only fooling me.

It isn’t fair.

It isn’t fair he feels so perfect in this moment.

* * *

Quiet fills the rest of the day. With our clothes folded, we eat and wash again in the basin. I fall asleep in Casey’s arms, his lips on the back of my neck. I remember trying to match my breathing with his when I awake hours later in the dark.

A dark shadow lurks over our bed.

July 13, Last Year

Mom’s House

Todd had taken his afternoon nap right on top of me while I was babysitting for Mom. She didn’t deserve any help from me, but I missed the little rascal. It wasn’t fair that I was avoiding him because of her.

I reclined in front of the television for hours. When I knew Todd was asleep, I changed the program to something more suitable to my tastes—the sitcom Meghan and I couldn’t get enough of. It was nearing dusk and I was starting to get antsy. Meghan and I had our wrap-up meeting tonight, where we would touch base on the projects to make sure that most of them were almost complete. I’d told Mom I could only babysit Todd until six.

It was six ten.

She wasn’t picking up her phone, and I couldn’t leave Todd here alone.

Todd stirred when Mom came home at six thirty.

It was hard to leave him when the moan he made was so needy, like he was desperate for my warmth, as though I was the only touch he’d had in months. This made me feel powerful—like I could be this affectionate mother without ever experiencing motherhood at all.

I slowly lowered him onto the couch, tugging the fleece throw up to his chin as he squirmed in discomfort. I tucked the edges in around him, waiting through every dry second that she huffed and flung her belongings all over the dining room table. I knew she was only trying to be as dramatic as possible.

And still, she continued to let her actions speak for what she was trying to convey, refusing to utter a word. So I spoke for her.

“You’re late,” I said.

She plucked the bobby pins from her hair slowly, like she had all the time in the world. I knew she was doing it on purpose. Her endless nagging to get me to babysit Todd was only a ploy to make me miserable. Not that I thought she enjoyed making me miserable. It was a power play, one I knew well. Impatience was my weakness and she knew how to wield the pace she gave.

“I’m going,” I said, slinging my coat and purse over my shoulder.

“Don’t show me attitude because I was a few minutes late.”

I had done her a favor, and there wasn’t a thank-you in sight. “I have a gallery opening next month. My gallery opening. And now I’m going to be late to our most important meeting.”

I was almost out the door before she said, “You didn’t tell me that.”

I paused. “I didn’t think I had to. I thought you’d respect the fact that I drove up here and told you I needed to leave at a specific time.”

“That’s not what I meant, Ev. I’d like to go.”

The second the scoff left my mouth I knew it sounded mean, but there was no taking it back now. “It’s really okay, Mom. You don’t have to pretend that you want to be interested in my sad excuse for a major.”

I was fired up, fueled by the wrath I felt for her the moment I slammed the door. When I sat in the car, I hoped Todd would forgive me for my momentary lapse in judgment—my desire to storm out on Mom stronger than my need to say good-bye to him. I’d have to make it up to him—maybe take him out for ice cream or something.

The next time I saw Todd—or Mom—was in the prison visiting room.

10

This has to be a test.

One can hit us at any time—of course I wouldn’t be safe here. Valerie had been dragged right from our campsite.

The shadow yelps and stumbles back. “Jeez, Evalyn, cover your tits!”

Startled, I yank the sheet up to my neck.

“Tanner?” Casey’s awake. “Tanner?”

My vision has adjusted, and I can see him now, one hand covering his chest. “Had no idea you guys were here. Scared me shitless.”

Casey wraps a blanket around his waist. I tie a makeshift dress out of my sheet and stand. I want to run forward and hug him, but I don’t think he’d like that too much in the state I’m in. “How did you get here? Are you all right? Where are Valerie and Jace?”

“Slow down,” he gasps. “Gimme a sec, let my heart restart itself.”

I wait anxiously for Tanner to catch his breath, sitting back down on the bed as I wring my sheet in my hands. Casey leaves the bed and pats Tanner roughly on the shoulder. “We were worried about you guys.”

“Guys is just me,” he says.

I turn ice-cold. Jace and Valerie. If he’s alone, then—

“I lost Jace and Valerie the same day I lost the two of you.”

I blow a sigh of relief through my lips.

They could still be alive. They could be okay.

“Curiosity got the best of me,” Tanner continues. “I figured the mailbox was the beginning of the test, and the more I thought about it, the more I had the sick desire to see what was beyond it. Valerie and Jace didn’t want to, for obvious reasons. The tunnel led me straight to the bottom of the hill, and the hedges began to fold in on themselves.”

“Like the Compass Room didn’t want you to go back.” I rummage the cupboards and scrounge up the rest of the crackers and canned fish, thrusting it into his hands. “Eat.”

“I’m fine. I’m not that hungry.”

“Dammit, Tanner. Eat before I make you eat.”

He sighs and sits on the bed, laying the food out in front of him. “That’s what I thought too—that the Compass Room didn’t want me to go back. Anyway, been wandering by myself since I lost everyone. I . . . uhh . . .” He crinkles the cracker package in his fist. “I was tested.”

“How’d it go?” The way Casey says it sounds like he’s asking about a ball game, and some sick part of me wants to laugh. I backhand him in the shoulder instead.

“Not too bad,” Tanner says. “Not dead, am I?”

“What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?” I say.

He spreads fish paste on a grainy cracker. “Had been walking for quite a while. Was trying to resituate myself, searching for the lake so I could get water. I ended up finding my trigger object out in the woods.”

“Trigger object?” I ask.

“A fishing pole. The thing that triggered my test. I’ve been thinking about it a lot, and after your stories, and Valerie’s test with the baby doll, I thought back even further, to our first night here.”

“When Salem and Erity died,” Casey cuts in.

“Yeah. And although vague, I remember Salem saying something about a particular liquor bottle in the cabinet, how it brought back ‘good times and bad karma.’ Obviously it reminded him of his crime.”

“And Erity?” Casey asks.

“The knife,” I answer. “Remember? Jace said she recognized it as her own.”

“Anyway, I had two tests.”

“Two?”

Tanner nods. “Same trigger object. I was an idiot and ran into it a second time. The illusion was slightly different—just as terrifying, though. But I made it. I survived.”

Casey hands me my clothes, and Tanner looks away as I put them on, although I don’t really care. I think out loud. “So these tests, these—uhh, experiences of our—crimes, I guess, start off with an object. An object linked to our crime. And they trigger the illusions?”

“How would they trigger them?” Casey asks.

“How should I know?” I say bluntly. “Why do dead people show up who can’t really be with us?”

“Illusions,” Tanner says.

“Illusions that can hurl a shovel around,” adds Casey.

Illusions that can kill.

“But these things can’t be in our minds,” I say. “If we were hallucinating, then others wouldn’t be able to see them.”

Tanner pushes up his glasses. “I don’t know. I don’t have an answer for you. So, long story short, I’m alive. Barely—thought I was going to pass out from hunger before a backpack full of dry food literally fell from the trees.”

It’s only then do I notice the straps on his shoulders. Casey and I happened to stumble upon shelter right when we were feeling hopeless.

It’s like this place knows.

“How’d you find this cottage?” Casey asks.

“My best friend led me here. Crazy, huh?”

“It was Casey’s mom for us,” I say. “This prison isn’t so heartless.”

“At least it shows you where to go when it doesn’t want you dead.”

“Or when it’s done with you,” Casey says.

Which reminds me. “Stella’s dead.”

Tanner’s expression is similar to when we told him about Blaise.

“I guess she wasn’t so innocent after all,” I add, because saying anything else will remind me of too much that I’m desperate to forget.

He shakes his head, but says nothing. He’s thinking hard about what I’ve told him.

We leave the conversation at that. Light peeks over the horizon, so Casey and I give up our bed and let Tanner sleep. We curl up on the porch, a blanket around our shoulders. The rolling hills illuminate.

It isn’t some trick of my mind that I saw Meghan dying in front of me. Or that Casey’s father came back to life. Are these tests essentially some form of punishment?

It’s fair that each one of us is put through this torture.

Even those of us who are morally good at heart need to be reminded that what we’ve done is still, at its core, unforgivable. The only people who could ever forgive me completely are those here, in the Compass Room, because they are asking for the same forgiveness.

I rest my head on Casey’s shoulder, and he kisses my hair. Then, after a few moments, he says, “I’m seeing things again.”

“Aren’t we all,” I say.

He straightens. “Oh shit.”

Dancing on the hills, at the very crest, is a strange shimmer. A rippling reflection of the sun. When I squint, I notice all the trees on the hill bending forward with weight.

Water. Water flowing over the hills.

Not rain water. Not storm water that causes a mudslide after several hours. This is an immediate flood, a lethargic tsunami. I curse under my breath as it glides to the bottom of the hills and collects at the base, stretching toward us and our small cottage, refusing to slow.

I jump to my feet. “Where is it coming from?”

“The lake?” He stands. “That’s the largest water source we’ve seen and it’s in that direction. But how?”

It’s like the entire lake has taken a life of its own—the water within it suddenly crawling toward us.

We’re in a basin, and a narrow one at that, though the hills behind us aren’t as high. The water won’t keep moving down into the valley.

It’ll fill up right over the cottage.

Sheets flow in steady layers, water collecting dirt and grass and twigs as it rolls toward us. Within seconds, it’s washing over my feet. Smacking the porch steps. The entire cottage groans with a warning. I turn back and hobble toward Casey, who grabs my hand.

“We need to get out of here, now!” Casey yells.

I hurl myself toward the door. Tanner’s standing by the bed and staring deliriously at the window, as though he isn’t sure if this is a nightmare or not.

“Water,” I explain. “It’s going to flood the whole basin!”

We’re going to have to swim out.

He doesn’t need any more explanation, grabbing his glasses and backpack from the bed.

Water splashes the porch when we race back outside, slipping over the land mutely. It’s as if I’ve been here before when I was asleep, the pressure of danger coming from somewhere, even though it’s so beautiful, gliding toward us so softly. I link my arm through Tanner’s and grab Casey’s hand, boots sloshing through two feet of cold as I trudge off the porch. Casey drags me on.

The flow is slow. The immediate danger never reaches us, like this is scripted. We go as fast as our burdened legs will carry us, the water never rising past our knees. We haul ourselves through the field and to the northern hills, and when we ascend, the water stays right on our heels, even when Tanner becomes tangled in underbrush and we have to stop and tear him free.

Like the flood is slowing for us.

We reach the top. I fall to my knees. The water has stopped trickling from the adjacent hills, and the new lake sits tranquil, cottage completely submerged. As if it had never been there.

“Illusion or real?” Casey gasps.

“I don’t know,” Tanner wheezes. “The water. Didn’t seem. Real.”

Tanner is right. The way the water glided toward us was surreal and dreamlike, as though the entire lake decided to slide over to the basin because of us. The water felt cold and wet, but still unlike anything I’ve ever seen. Like it was trying to scare us, and not kill us.

Afraid the flood will continue to rise, we hurry down the hill, the air occupied only by the sound of our trampling feet. We’re nearing our destroyed camp. We called it home for a handful of days, but at least I felt like I belonged somewhere.

Now I’m not sure if Valerie and Jace are alive.

The pine thickens around us, and I squeeze my arm tighter to my side, pinning Tanner’s elbow.

Every one of my muscles shudders on its own, begging me to stop, but I can’t—the boys keep me on my feet, keep me moving. Tanner is wheezing and gasping, and I pray to God that he isn’t about to keel over.

Casey skids to a halt, and I soon follow.

A shovel.

That shovel, propped up against a tree.

“Fuck,” Casey gasps.

Keep running! I want to scream at him. Why are you stopping? But I can’t. I’m chained by fear.

One moment, the space between two silhouetted trees is vacant, and the next, it’s filled by the shadow of a man. Denim shirt and scruffy face. Casey’s father is back.

All I can think about is that shovel in his hands, the way he heaved it over his shoulder and down as Casey lay there. Maybe he’s out for revenge, because he wasn’t supposed to fail in the first place.

He was supposed to kill.

He takes one step forward, stretching out his hand and grasping the shovel’s handle.

“Thought you finished me off, didn’t you?” He takes another step forward, head cocked.

“Please,” I beg. “We need to get out of here.”

“He’ll only chase us,” Casey responds. “You know that.”

I turn to Tanner, but he is entranced by Casey’s dad. I want to shake him, to get him to help me convince Casey that we’re insane to wait, but there’s no time.

From the grove behind Casey’s father, Meghan appears.

“What the hell?” Casey cries.

She stuns me. I can’t say anything, even when Tanner whispers, “Who’s that?”

Blood from the bullet wound drips down her temple. How can she be here if my desk is nowhere in sight?

“What would we do, Ev?” she asks. “We’d sink that son of a bitch if he weren’t such a pussy and killed himself. Look what he did to me. Look!”

Casey’s father lifts the shovel and lunges at Meghan, bringing it down on top of her head. She falls. He beats her to a pulp, sprays of blood showering the grass.

I can’t help it. I know it’s not real, but I can’t handle her dying all over again right in front of me. My knees, even with all of the strength I will into them, give out.

I scream so loudly, I hear nothing but myself.

Casey scoops me up and I fight against him, even though I know I can’t save her.

Her corpse is a mess, skull crushed, eyes soaked in crimson.

The sky flashes green. The whole sky, like a sheet of green lightning. A voice booms.

Module seventeen, disengaging.

Meghan and Casey’s dad evaporate.

In their place floats a little silver sphere. Can’t be more than the size of a softball. It hovers in the air for a moment, and then soundlessly zips away from us, through the trees, and out of sight.

“What,” Tanner gasps, “was that?”

I sniff and wipe my nose with my hand. “I don’t know.”

“Half a test for me, and half a test for you?” Casey asks me.

“Pieces of both of your pasts?” Tanner says.

“The girl . . . The girl was Evalyn’s. The man was mine. But what was that ball thing?”

“I think it glitched,” Tanner says. “The light, the voice from the sky. What did it say?”

“Module seventeen, disengaging.”

“Evalyn.” Tanner’s fingers find my wrist. He squeezes tight, but he isn’t staring at me. He’s staring at the space where Meghan and Casey’s dad evaporated. “When was the first time you saw that green light?”

“When the little girl who Jace killed walked into camp.”

“The girl who magically appeared out of nowhere.”

“Don’t they all appear out of nowhere?” Casey asks.

“No, usually there’s an object that seems to trigger them. Did you see the light any other time, Evalyn?”

Slowly, I understand where Tanner is going with this. What he’s suggesting doesn’t have to do with the fear of watching my own best friend die over and over.

“Stella,” I whisper. “Green flashed through the house, and Stella began to burn. You can’t possibly think . . .”

I can’t finish my thought. I bend at the waist and rest my palms on my knees as the ground wavers beneath me, like it’s still covered in water. We saw a green light flash through the sky the first night we were here too.

Around the time Blaise probably died.

“Evalyn,” Casey rests his hand on my shoulder. “Talk to me.”

I swallow the thick spit in my mouth before responding. “If the Compass Room has been glitching, you don’t think that the glitches are substantial enough to affect the outcome of who lives and dies, do you?”

Tanner sits on a nearby log rubs his temples. “I don’t know. Any speculation is just guessing. We have to remember that. Maybe what we saw wasn’t a glitch. Maybe the green light means something completely different.”

“Stella burned alive with nothing touching her. All of the other executed inmates were killed by something, at least the ones that we’ve witnessed.”

“But we’ve only witnessed two others,” Tanner argues.

“Who’s to say that Blaise’s death wasn’t a glitch too?”

“That’s right,” Casey says. “Evalyn and I saw a flash the first night we were here. What if we were close to Blaise?”

My chest tightens. My hands shake so badly that they keep slipping off my knees. When I stand up straight, I rest my head on Casey’s chest.

This is me overreacting. Glitches that kill people can’t be possible in here. This is a certified death penalty. It’s been tested. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t accurate, right?

“Maybe we’re thinking too much into this,” Casey suggests. “We should get out of here.”

“Where?” I step away from him. “Where could we possibly go and not run into more bullshit?”

“I don’t know! I don’t know what to fucking do. I want to be safe. I want you to be safe, and no matter what, that will never happen. Not in here!” His brow scrunches up like he’s ready to cry, and then he sits on the log with Tanner, burying his face in his hands. “I’m sorry.”

There’s enough of a calm break for me to notice the shovel is gone.

The shovel is gone.

We’re in a cove in the woods, a shelter where trees curl in on us and the light shines through the leaves, sending a sparkling assortment of shapes across the ground. It’s beautiful, morbidly beautiful. I’m wondering what would happen if I lie down here and fall asleep.

If I gave up.

Would I be dragged from my slumber like Valerie was from camp? Would the trees surrounding me unfold like petals and place me face-to-face with Nick? Would the ground beneath me collapse and send me plummeting back into the cave?

“Sleep,” I say. “Let’s sleep here.”

Casey’s eyes flutter shut in defeat.

“There is nothing we can do to stop it. No place to run. And it’s nice here.”

“You’re delusional,” Casey remarks.

“You know she’s right,” Tanner says.

Casey huffs. “Fine, but we’re building a fire. And I’m eating your food.”

Tanner manages a grin before he falls back into thought.

“I’ll help find firewood,” I offer.

Casey stands and I take his hand. “We’ll go together.”

“I’m not leaving you until I’m dead,” I say, and I mean it.

“Please,” he begs. “You aren’t dying before me. I won’t let it happen.”

He can’t make that promise, not here, but I don’t say anything. With his determination, it would be pointless.

My fingers laced in his, we head out together, finding wood to build a decent fire. Our lighters were some of the things we managed to salvage from the wreck of camp. I build a fire as Casey and Tanner go through the food left over in Tanner’s bag and decide on a meal of canned applesauce and sardines. When we finish, the breeze picks up and Casey slides behind me, his legs resting on my hips, arms slinking around my stomach.

I soak in the luxury of his warmth. Tanner watches us closely.

“You were with Casey when he had his test—when he saw his father the first time,” he muses.

“Yes,” I say.

“Were you emotionally affected by it?”

“Of course.”

“Okay, but to what degree?”

I think for a moment. I acted out because I cared for Casey. I killed again for him, even though it was a man who should have already been dead. “Very much so.”

“Do you think you had the same emotional connection during his test as you did with your own test? Your own crime?”

“I’m not sure.” The question is too difficult, and I’m exhausted.

“Were the emotions you felt reminiscent of your own crime?”

Casey squeezes me gently. The wood crackles and shoots orange sparks into the twilight.

“Possibly.”

“Interesting,” he says.

“What?”

He shakes his head. “Nothing.”

“No, there’s something here,” I challenge. “What are you thinking about?”

Seamlessly he changes the subject. “Did you read through our entire contract? The one we had to sign before we entered the prison?”

“I skimmed it.” I memorized it.

“Same,” Casey says.

“Why?” I ask.

“There’s a clause stating that if the Compass Room glitches, all remaining candidates would be removed from the premises and be retried using whatever accurate information that had been gathered by the CR.”

“I remember,” I say. “So, are you suggesting that the Compass Room can’t be malfunctioning because we haven’t been removed yet?”

“Unless the engineers are still trying to determine whether or not the CR is malfunctioning, like we are.”

“Which means that it might only be a matter of time before this Room is shut down.”

I muse on the possibilities of what we’ve uncovered. A couple of weeks ago, the thought of a retrial was worse than the thought of death.

Casey kisses me, warm lips against the hollow above my collarbone.

I can’t say that I still feel the same way.

Our Time Outside Was Monitored.

Just like everything we did when we weren’t in our cells. The system could only afford to give us an hour a week. No one was comfortable allowing us more time in the sun, even with the fences and bars and alarms that separated us from the outside world. They never wanted us in groups of more than fifteen to keep the chaos at a minimum. The mess hall was enough.

A week before I was sent to the Compass Room, I spent my time lying on the concrete. The basketball from the near court pinged against the ground with every bounce, the asphalt beneath my head quaking.

I was in nirvana—a moment where I could have all the heat and the sun beating down on me and be so utterly safe, even if some other inmate took advantage of my vulnerable position and decided they wanted to beat the shit out of me. I was safe because I chose to be. This would be the last moment I could force myself away from fear, away from the knowing that I was going to die very soon.

I couldn’t keep my head clear for long. I had trained myself in this prison to obsess over Nick any time my mind wasn’t consumed with other thoughts. So up he popped, my entire Nick database, which was nothing more than a name and the sparse moments I had spent with him.

I obsessed about how little I knew of him—if his online absence was purposeful because he’d been planning an epic crime his whole life, and the person he’d pin his crime on would forever be doomed if there was nothing to solidify how truly fucked up he was.

No online records, no therapy visits, no prescription drugs. Just a meek mother who claimed her son had always been “a bit off.”

A bit off proved nothing.

All I had was Liam’s and Nick’s conversation on chaos theory. My mind continued to return to it, picking apart everything within that night as if there were some secret hiding in my memory I could decode.

Chaos theory simply noted the existence of disorder within an obedient system. It justified Nick’s innate hunger to cause destruction. Why no one—his mother, a teacher, a friend, a school counselor—sensed his hunger prior to his crime, I’d never know. And this aspect was simply part of the chaos.

I was part of the chaos too. The Compass Room would do its best to make sense of my criminal urges, and if it couldn’t, then the law would do what it needed to do.

It would permanently eliminate the disorder.

11

In the morning, the fire has gone out, and I’m so cold that every joint in my body is stiff. Smoke rises from the coals, giving off some heat. It’s my back that’s freezing—my back, where Casey should be.

Casey.

With a groan, I turn over. He’s gone. Tanner sleeps on the other side of the fire pit, hood up and drawstrings cinched tight.

He probably went to pee.

So I wait, first trying to go back to sleep, but the ache of worry is too much and I can’t nod off. Minutes pass.

He got lost coming back. That’s all.

I curse under my breath. Standing, I brush off my pants. The trees are still—not even a breeze disturbs the leaves. I study the woods closely in hopes of seeing movement, or hearing footsteps.

Nothing.

Tucking my hair into my sweatshirt, I pull up my hood and start to walk.

I can ignore almost any nagging feeling long enough to assess the problem, but this time it’s dizzying, a cold prick of sweat washing over my back.

“Please,” I whisper with every step. “Please, please, please.”

Farther from camp I venture. Tanner may wake up without either of us there, or Casey may come back and I’ll still be out searching for him. But my feet don’t stop moving.

My mind flashes to the noose that dragged Valerie away from camp. What if something similar happened to him, and I was out cold?

I can’t think like that. I can’t.

A rapid breeze picks up, washing over me. It ripples through the canopies, leaves turning up their discolored underbellies.

I listen closely as the wind dissipates and a faint male voice arises, musical and calm.

A voice that doesn’t belong to Casey.

My palms ache as fingernails dig into my skin, my heart pounding so furiously that it’s making me nauseous.

Slowly, I take a step toward the opening in the rock. And another. The voice warps until it resembles something familiar, and I recognize it. I recognize that I distrust it.

Gordon.

He says my name. “I see you.”

This is so very wrong.

“Evalyn,” he sings. “Come see what I have found.”

I could run. I could run, but my gut tells me the stakes are too high. Like an instinct—an intuition—more overwhelming than I’ve ever felt before.

I have to go into that cave.

I inhale, overwhelmed by the rank stench of death. A light ignites, dying to a soft yellow glow. The light of a fire—of a lamp—broken by his silhouette.

“Evalyn. Come see my prize.”

I can see his prize already, which is why I step into the cave. I don’t have any other choice.

The light isn’t enough to challenge the darkness, the blood splashed over the walls, the mangled, dismembered corpses. I remember now, his crime, in perfect detail. The media called it a cult, even though that’s not really what it was. Just a bunch of psychopaths finding each other over the Internet, giving themselves a platform for living out their desires, their fetishes.

The news called them Misery Eight. So melodramatic, but that’s what fear creates. A monster with a big name. They kidnapped teens and took them to abandoned buildings, where they tortured them—bled them, until their souls gave away and their mutilated corpses were thrown in the river.

DNA on a found body was what convicted Gordon. A boy whose crime wasn’t out of passion, but sickness.

And I know why he’s lured me into his lair, with illusions of corpses strung from the ceiling, their stench proving they must be real. A lair with empty meat hooks draped through the air like chandeliers. Medieval weapons line the walls.

His prize is Casey.

Wrangled by chains, Casey slouches in the corner of the cave, unconscious. I bite down on my lip to stifle my scream. I won’t give Gordon the pleasure of seeing me terrified.

“What do you want?” I try to order it, but the voice escaping me is weak and petrified.

“Hmm . . .” He pats the blade in his hand against his thigh. “That’s a great question.”

“You know they’re monitoring our every move, right? Knocking a boy out and holding him captive doesn’t necessarily keep your record spotless.”

He chuckles darkly. “Oh, I didn’t knock him out. The Compass Room did it for me. Wasn’t that nice of it?”

Why isn’t he dead yet?

He’s a kid—barely bigger than Tanner. But his eyes are old, like he’s seen too much, like he’s carried an exhausting burden. Yet somehow they dance with the light of an excited schoolchild, desperate to play a game.

He motions to the hanging corpses above. “And then it created this lovely display for me to perform my work.”

Work. My stomach lurches.

“You know this is a test, right?” I ask with a hint of nonchalance. As if I really don’t care what he’s planning. “They’re trying to see if you’re evil, and you’re stupidly falling right into their trap. You’re going to die.”

He laughs. “Oh, Evalyn. I’ve got to tell you, I didn’t think I’d last this long. And waiting patiently has never been a strong suit of mine.”

He begins to pace, meandering back and forth in front of Casey, whose head has rolled to the side. Beneath the chains that bind him, I can’t even tell if he’s breathing.

“I thought the end was near when I ran into an injured raccoon with a chain around its neck. I hadn’t seen any animals until that point, and being that a chain is my signature”—he reaches up and flicks one of the chains dangling from the ceiling—“I knew I had come to my test. I didn’t start out with people, you know.”

I swallow the bile rising in my throat.

“I was sad to uncover that the raccoon was not my test, even after I dismembered it. But finally, finally, after all these shitty nights on the ground, all of this god-awful food, it has come for me, and I’ve got to tell you, they’ve done a wonderful job.”

Something cold clamps around my wrists and tugs me backward. I stumble right into the cave wall, bound to stone.

“Amazing,” he says dreamily.

I struggle against the chains, but they only squeeze the air from me, cutting my flesh.

He isn’t afraid of death. He isn’t afraid of anything.

“What do you want?” I cry, hoping this is some sort of disgusting joke. At the sound of my voice, Casey stirs and moans.

“I want to have my last bit of fun before this is all over.” Gordon makes a fist around the handle of the blade.

“You’re playing into exactly what they need to kill you.”

“No, Evalyn, they already have what they need to kill me.” He pushes his forefinger into his temple. “Right here.”

“So, that’s it, then,” my voice trembles, eyes glued to the blade he waves back and forth with every flick of his wrist. “You have no desire to redeem yourself.”

“Evalyn?” Casey moans.

“Redeem myself! Oh, you really have no idea.” He strides to Casey and stands behind him. Reaching down, he cups Casey’s jaw with one hand. Casey tries to squirm away, but Gordon holds him still, cutting into his cheek.

Drawing blood.

I try not to react. So does Casey. My mouth opens, a scream lodged in my throat. Casey cringes, but he doesn’t give Gordon the satisfaction of so much as a groan.

Gordon’s psychotic smile widens. “Oh, now, what is this? A friendship—or something more? Two felons in love. I hope he’s pulling out. Your kids will have all sorts of fucked-up genes.”

“You don’t have to do this,” I whisper.

“You don’t get it. Cute little college girl, good grades, friends. A girl who wound up in the wrong situation. I saw your prime-time special. You couldn’t pull off a stunt like that. Look at you.” He shakes his head and drags the knife, nicking Casey’s jaw. Blood streams down his neck. “People like me don’t wind up in the wrong place at the wrong time. We were born getting off on this.”

He clenches the knife, driving it toward Casey’s neck.

“Stop!”

And then he does. He stops, inches away from Casey’s jugular, and shoots me a wicked grin. “So there is something here. This adds an interesting twist to our game.”

Casey’s eyes hold defeat, and then terror as Gordon shifts, moving toward me.

“Don’t you fucking touch her,” Casey warns, but his voice is stiff, groggy. Pathetic instead of threatening.

The metal binding me tightens. Gordon stands before me, lacing his fingers through my hair.

What if the Compass Room lets him kill me?

Prisoners die in jail, but this place is different. Erity didn’t kill Jace. The engineers have a way of stopping him.

They’re watching. They have to be watching.

I think of the chains anchoring me to the ground, chains that have taken on a life of their own.

Maybe I failed, and Gordon is supposed to kill me.

He rests the point of his blade on my lower lip. “Sometimes, with the girls, I force it in this way first. It’s sexier.”

“Motherfucker,” Casey growls.

I clench my teeth together as hard as I can when he tries to push it in. He clucks his tongue. “You know, the difficult ones are the most fun. Once you break their jaws, the knives slide in just fine.”

Anger bubbles in my stomach. I’m not going to play the victim. I’m not going to die afraid. I dare to speak, even with his knife on my lips. “Go ahead and try.”

He drags the knife down until I can feel the sharp point at the hollow of my throat. “How about right here, and your boyfriend can watch you choke to death on your own blood?”

Casey thrashes relentlessly.

Behind Gordon, someone tilts their head into the cave entrance. I try my damnedest not to react.

Tanner.

“Go screw yourself.” I keep my gaze trained on Gordon, but out of my peripheral vision, Tanner tiptoes into the cave and picks a knife up off the ground.

“Fine, then,” Gordon says, increasing the pressure of the blade at my throat.

I can feel every layer of skin ripping apart, feel the warmth dribble down my collarbone. Casey screams my name and the cave spins around me. I sense every individual bead of sweat that breaks through the skin on the back of my neck, my forehead.

Tanner races forward and plunges the knife into Gordon’s back. Gordon howls, dropping his blade.

And then, before Gordon even knows what’s happening, Tanner picks up a metal bar that’s half the size of him, heaves it through the air, and strikes Gordon on the head.

Gordon crumples to the ground, and the chains imprisoning me give way.

When Casey’s free, he crawls over to me and wraps me in his arms. I sit with him until I’ve regained composure. When I can stand, I walk over to Tanner, brave little Tanner, and fling myself around him.

“You idiot,” I sob.

He clutches my shirt, shivering. “I d-don’t like bullies.”

I laugh for a sliver of a moment before I burst into another fit of tears.

Casey hunches down by Gordon. He removes the hilt from Gordon’s shoulder with ease. The end is dissolved. Casey shakes his head. “Maybe we can’t kill each other, no matter how fucked up the other may be.”

I cross my arms. “Shame.”

“I could snap his neck,” Casey suggests. He may be trying to be funny, but there’s no humor in his voice.

I shake my head and look around, like I’ll suddenly see cameras that the engineers are observing us through. I don’t, though, of course. “Don’t risk your well-being for this pathetic piece of shit.”

* * *

We roll Gordon down a ravine.

It’s humorous and sadistic—the least we can do. He’ll be disoriented when he wakes up. If he wakes up.

I can only hope.

I wonder if my hateful thoughts toward him are dooming me. I don’t know what anyone would expect, though, really.

We decide it’s best to head to the only part of the prison that we haven’t traveled through—north of the lodge. At this point, we can only wander and do our best to search for food.

“Bastard didn’t get what he deserved,” Casey spits. He’s been picking blood out of his hair since we started walking. The cuts Gordon gave both of us were only surface, but on our faces and necks, they bled like crazy.

Casey hangs on to the thought of Gordon with every fiber of his being as we walk through a meadow on the brink of the groves that surround the lodge.

“He is sick.” I know Tanner’s not trying to validate Gordon, just attempting to remind us that he’s not all there, and probably has never been all there.

“We’re all sick,” Casey argues.

“No, Casey. He’s really sick,” Tanner says. “Does that mean that he deserves to die?”

“Yes,” Casey says.

I cringe. Casey and I committed our unthinkable crimes because we were so desperately in love with people in our lives. We felt as though we had no choice. But Gordon—maybe he was immune to the feeling of love. Maybe torturing people was the only way he could feel anything.

Doesn’t he deserve to die?

Nick deserved to die. He harbored the same twisted fetish, the same desire to create pain.

Tanner shakes his head, but drops it because there’s something up ahead. Laughter trickles through the air. Around the bend, two girls appear. They walk with a bounce in their steps, full packs on their backs.

Jace and Valerie.

August 23, Last Year

School

Our gallery was more beautiful than Meghan and I deserved it to be. We cared about our work, but it was the group we had that made it so professional—a committee of seven photographers and seven painters who partnered up and created masterpieces over the summer. What was most amazing was that it wasn’t some shit summer job they all half-assed, but a thoughtful endeavor. Every photograph was stunning and the reimagined painting represented the image, but also transformed it.

My favorite, other than mine and Meghan’s sunset image, was a spilt ketchup bottle on a diner table. The photographer had amped up the contrast of the image and the painter had replaced the ketchup with water and a fat goldfish that plugged up the mouth of the bottle. Everything else within the painting was almost identical to the photograph.

The gallery opening was busy. Not packed, but you couldn’t expect much from a college that was more sportscentric than anything else. People brought their girlfriends and boyfriends and study partners, and all of us artists stood in front of our pieces to talk about our inspiration and what it had been like to collaborate.

There was a man standing in front of mine and Meghan’s painting and photo for quite some time. He dressed professionally—nearly unapproachably—and I nudged Meghan in the ribs to get her attention. Her expression shifted to shock. “Holy shit.”

“You know him?” I whispered back.

“I—no—it can’t.”

I nudged her. “Spit it the fuck out.”

“That’s the dean at California Institute of the Arts.”

“No way.”

“I know,” she said. “I know, it can’t be.”

The man glanced over at us and smiled. “You two apply to grad school yet?”

I was too busy gaping to respond, so Meghan pushed back her mane of blonde hair and said, “I—uhh—no. To be honest, I wasn’t planning on grad school.”

“Why?” he asked brazenly.

“I can’t really afford the loans. I know I won’t be making that much money after I graduate.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.” He handed us both cards with the CIA logo stamped on them. I must have been in such a state of shock, because the only thing running through my head was that I didn’t know the faculty of colleges carried around business cards. But there it was, with his name and title of “Dean of the School of the Arts” in fine italic script beneath.

“We offer both scholarships and TA positions to promising applicants and, more important, solicited students.”

Now it was Meghan’s turn to be dumbfounded, so I asked, “Who would be considered a solicited student?”

“Both of you. I will solicit you, if you are interested.”

From both of our mouths came some babbling form of “Of course we are interested! Absolutely! Wow! Thank you!” It may not have been as clear or concise as any of those things, but I think our point was made. Meghan held out her hand and introduced herself, and he said, “Yes, I know who both of you are.” He held up the back of another business card. Both of our names and e-mails were scrawled across it. He’d already written our info down from the panel next to our art. “You’ll be hearing from me.” He shook our hands. “It was nice to meet both of you.”

When he was out of sight, Meghan and I had as private a freak-out as possible. I could swear, as she talked about our work to strangers and people we knew alike, that her eyes were welling up.

Liam didn’t show up until the end of the gallery opening. He was going to take Meghan and me home. As we walked out onto the sidewalk together, she spun toward me and threw her arms around me.

“CIA . . .” She was trembling.

“Are you crying?” I asked in a voice that kind of sounded like I was crying, but I wasn’t. I was just so damn excited for us. For her, mostly. I’d only been painting for a handful of years, but she’d breathed photography since we were in high school, when she’d been working for the yearbook. It wasn’t a dream, it was her life. And grad school wasn’t something pretty to go on her résumé. It was a place for her to explore her work, a place for her to learn.

That’s what Meghan cared about most.

I started to laugh, and then she did too. It bubbled from our mouths and built and built until we were in hysterics, clutching each other on the sidewalk in the dark. Liam flipped the car around and she broke away from me, saying, “We haven’t even applied yet; it could be nothing. He might have just been in a good mood.”

“Shut up. You’re incredible, and he saw that.”

“He saw us.”

“And I hope to never fail you, because you need to get into that damn school.”

Liam rolled down his window. “The two of you done making out? I want to get some celebratory drinks.”

“Only a lemon drop would distract me from your girlfriend,” said Meghan.

“I’ll buy you both one, now come on.”

We had already slid into the back of Liam’s car when Nick pulled up. He’d missed our opening and it unnerved me, even though Meghan had told me in advance he wasn’t going to show. When I said, “What is he doing here?” I knew it sounded more hostile than I meant. They’d been dating for five months now. I needed to get over the fact that they were serious and she wasn’t going to easily let him go.

Since we’d gotten into an argument on the porch, I hadn’t brought up her relationship with Nick in a negative light. It wasn’t worth the few days we’d been upset with each other. And Liam seemed to like him well enough. It was probably just me who had an issue with him, jealous from the attention he took away from me.

That had to be it.

He parked across the street and swaggered over to us. Even before Meghan rolled down the window and I smelled his breath, I knew he was drunk. He opened the door. “Come on.”

“I was going to get some drinks with Ev and—”

“You’ve been with Ev all day.”

That’s your fault, I wanted to say, but I bit down on my tongue. I trusted Meghan. I knew her like I knew myself, and she loved this guy. He hadn’t seen her all day, and they were serious.

“Why don’t you come with us?” I said.

“It’s fine, Ev.” She turned back to Nick. “Only if you let me drive your car home.”

Nick shot me a look that I swore was full of fury, the kind you rarely see so intensely from a human. I verbally questioned the look later, when Liam and I returned to the apartment. It had been harrowing on the car ride over, but now, in a safe, confined space with Liam, Nick’s attitude was something that I had to force myself to bring up.

“I think he hates me.”

I giggled as he picked me up and sat me on the kitchen counter.

“I think he’s a creep and he hates everyone and Meghan shouldn’t be with him.” Liam’s fingers caressed my neck and slid down to the first button of my blouse, popping it. “But, to be perfectly honest, I’d rather pretend that he doesn’t exist right at this moment.”

My heart sped up. Liam peeled back the fabric of my shirt and slid in between my legs. He leaned forward, kissing the swell of my breasts. “I think that you accomplished something phenomenal tonight, so I don’t want to think about Nick. I want to think about you.”

“Do you?” I asked as slyly as I could.

“I’m your biggest fan.” He popped another button. “Unequivocally devoted to you and your work and your brilliance.” His tongue glided across my skin.

“By brilliance, you must mean breasts,” I said when he slid my shirt off of my shoulders.

I wrapped my legs around his waist. As he carried me to the bedroom, he said, “Your breasts are nice and all, but they’re not what really turns me on.”

* * *

It was the last time we ever had sex.

I wonder if that night was what made him so much harder to get over. Our last time wasn’t stale from five years of being together. He revered my body like it was the first moment he’d ever seen it, exploring every inch of my skin like new territory.

If we could still feel this way, it meant that we could always feel this way.

Unless, when I lay on my stomach and he kissed and licked his way up my bare spine, he somehow knew that this was our last night together.

If not, then the universe wanted my tragedy to resonate with every aspect of my life, including the fact that my final time with Liam was perfect.

* * *

When he fell asleep, I stayed up, wondering if every creak of the apartment was Meghan returning. It wasn’t until then that my mind traveled back to the look Nick had given me. Perhaps it was only a momentary figment of my imagination, my secret annoyance with Nick that had suddenly come bursting to life.

In prison, I had ample time to ponder that look for hours. And by then, I knew how real it had been.

12

I don’t believe it at first. The remaining Compass Room inmates have run into each other again, even in the vastness of our prison.

Jace squeals and sprints to us.

It’s fate.

She throws herself around me. Valerie laughs. My body floods with warmth, and I realize now how much I care about both of them.

How much I missed them.

It’s only been two weeks since I woke up in the lodge, but the Compass Room disobeys laws of time. I feel like I’ve known these girls my whole life. Seeing them now, I can’t contain the relief, the flares of hope bursting inside me.

Jace steps back. “Are you crying?”

I shake my head, even though I am crying. When I have contained myself enough to speak, I say, “It’s been a long day.”

I hug Valerie too when she approaches. To my surprise, Casey lifts Jace off her feet and swings her through the air. Jace even places a kiss on Tanner’s head. It wasn’t like this before. Other than occasional flirting, we didn’t touch each other. We worked together, but we didn’t acknowledge the fact that friendships were being created.

That’s all behind us now.

“Well, dammit, let’s find somewhere to situate ourselves,” says Valerie. “We have food. And booze.”

It’s Casey’s turn to squeal, and I laugh harder than I think I’ve ever laughed. The feeling is so foreign. So cleansing.

We walk east a bit because Valerie swears there’s a stream that way, and Jace catches us up on what has happened to them since we’ve separated. They were lucky, to say the least. They backtracked to the lodge and found undamaged food and alcohol in the wreckage. They traveled north, where Jace was tested.

“What was it like?” Tanner asks.

Jace shrugs.

“Oh, don’t even.” Valerie kicks a tangle of brush from her boot. “She was terrified. Sobbing.”

“Thank you for painting the picture so vividly,” Jace says dryly, and Tanner chuckles.

“Not saying I wasn’t scared, because I was,” Valerie said. “If she was a goner, I’d be stuck in the middle of the woods alone.”

“Oh, is that the only reason?” Jace elbows Valerie in the ribs, and Valerie grins.

I think of Stella and Gordon. “Nothing good comes from being stuck in these woods alone.”

“Exactly,” Valerie says.

“Anyway,” Jace continues. “It was the same as everyone else’s. Some twisted version of my crime scene. We were walking in the dark, Valerie and I, and we came across a pair of keys lying on the ground. Right when I noticed they were my keys, an engine flared up. I knew it was the engine to my car, because there’s this little hitch in the sound, right before it fully gets going—old piece of shit. The headlights came on. The car was right in front of us.”

“I got out of the way when the engine was revving,” Valerie cuts in, “because I knew what was happening. I knew it was going to run us over. But Jace wouldn’t budge.”

They share a look. There’s a bit of contempt that Valerie holds for Jace, but it’s almost playful. Loving.

Thankful.

“I remembered what you all were saying about your own tests,” Jace says. “And I knew that whatever was about to happen, I could run, but I wouldn’t be able to escape it.”

She pauses as we reach a log. Casey scrambles over it first, helping me. Jace and Valerie toss their packs to us as they shimmy under, followed by Tanner. As soon as we’re hiking again, Tanner says, “And?”

“And I saw them, the family I killed. Their body parts were everywhere—all around me. The car kept revving. And, I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ve always been sorry about what happened.” Her voice gets quiet. “It’s like it knew. I mean, the car sped forward and everything. The headlights grew and so did the sound. And then I shut my eyes and all of it stopped.”

“It passed right through her,” Valerie says. “Thought she was dead. Thought the car was going to flatten her.”

“But that didn’t happen,” I say. “Obviously.”

Jace smiles. “It’s stupid of me to say this, I know. But I feel safe now. Like I can beat this thing.”

I nod. “I think that’s an accurate assumption.”

Valerie grins at Jace. She takes her hand, and their fingers lace.

Jace isn’t evil—I’ve known this since my first few minutes in the Compass Room. Jace thinks she’s worthless, and she’s ridden with guilt.

She made a terrible mistake. But she’s not evil.

The sky flashes green.

At first, I think that it’s my imagination, until I notice that Casey has stopped.

The sky flashes again. Jace gasps. This time the flash lingers, staining the sky so what’s left is a strange, vibrant turquoise.

A booming voice breaks through the empty air.

Warning. System error. Candidates, please stay where you are.

Female 48089.

Female 98771.

“What the hell?” says Casey.

Male 92354.

Female 39286.

Male 62201.

Male 04571.

Stay where you are. Repeat, candidates, stay where you are.

Tanner and I exchange glances. A burst of hope fills me. I find Casey’s hand. “It’s malfunctioning.”

“You’re shitting me,” Valerie cries. “You know what that means, right? They have to let us out of here!”

Tanner holds his hands out, motioning for us to be quiet. We obey and listen to the turquoise sky.

But it says nothing.

We wait.

Valerie huffs impatiently, and I sit on the ground. Tanner starts to pace. Soon, everyone gets bored with craning their necks. Jace and Valerie sit on a near log, and Jace rests her head on Valerie’s shoulder. Casey plops down next to me on the dirt.

I rest my head against my knees and listen. If we’re being extracted, then how will it happen? Will engineers hike in and lead us away from this hell? Will we be asked to find our own way out?

When an hour or so passes, I say, “I’m hungry.”

Right when the words leave my mouth, it’s like the Compass Room responds.

Candidates, please proceed to the nearest campsite and stay where you are. Full functionality will return in approximately fourteen hours.

“Functionality?” Jace questions.

Tanner gapes at the sky. “That wasn’t in the contract.”

“We’re supposed to be extracted, right?”

Tanner nods slowly. “Maybe that’s what they mean. Maybe the CR has to be functional in order for us to be extracted.”

Something about this doesn’t sit right with me.

“Welp.” Casey stands and claps off his hands. “Who’s up for making camp?”

* * *

There’s a flat spot by the creek that’s perfect for setting up camp. As we work to pitch the tent, the sky remains an eerie, vibrant turquoise. A part of me is comforted by the reminder that the Compass Room is malfunctioning, while the other part is anxious. What is going on?

And, more important, when did the Room start to malfunction?

My thoughts soon evaporate when Valerie and Jace lay out their spoils in front of us. Three blankets, some silverware, and enough food to last us another few days. The last thing Valerie lifts from her bag is an unopened bottle of brandy.

She holds the bottle up for everyone to see. “You think we can all manage to get a little drunk without turning completely evil?”

Everyone yells some form of hallelujah, followed by an obscenity.

“Hold it, hold it!” Valerie raises the bottle above her head. “There is one thing. This is my bottle. Jace, back me up here.”

Jace sighs. “Yeah, yeah. She found it.”

“And I don’t care if the sky turns fucking orange, there are rules concerning my bottle. First rule, or more of a consideration to make, is that I can only guess that there is one reason they gave us booze in the first place. They want to try and loosen us up so we unleash our inner demons. So know that when drinking from this bottle, you are subjecting yourself to Compass Room shenanigans and there’s a nine-point-eight-seven-percent chance that you will die.”

Tanner blows a raspberry and makes a thumbs-down.

Valerie points the end of the bottle toward him. “My thoughts exactly. Second, this is my bottle—”

“You already said that,” Jace says.

“And I am not cracking open this bottle until one of you seriously, seriously entertains me. I have a bit of power now, and it’s my turn to start playing the cards.”

Tanner says, “I’m not screwing you.”

We lose it. Casey falls off his log and into the dirt, clutching his stomach.

“Dammit,” Valerie says. “I mean real entertainment. No offense, kid.”

“Asshole.”

“We’ve been stuck here for two weeks and now I found booze and that’s my price.” She lowers the bottle and smirks. “So entertain me. Whoever does so with my stamp of approval gets the first pull.”

Casey sits up. “Wait. WAIT. Are you ready for this?” He extends his arms out on either side of himself, eyes filled with intensity. Slowly, remaining transfixed on Valerie, he lowers his left arm to the dirt and when he snaps it back up, he holds a spoon. Bending his elbow, he brings the spoon in toward his face, placing it on his nose.

It sticks.

“How the fuck did you get laid?” Valerie says.

Casey juts his chin, spoon swinging across his mouth. “Mad skills.”

He winks at me and I roll my eyes.

So we attempt to entertain Valerie. Or at least remember that we’re supposed to be trying to entertain Valerie at random intervals during the afternoon and then quickly conjuring up something. Jace is by far the most impressive, and the most eager.

First she juggles pinecones. She starts out with three, finding a rhythm. Then she asks Casey to throw in another, snatching it out of the air, changing the rhythm, and asking for more. When five of them are rotating, I jump and holler like I’m already drunk.

When Jace misses a cone and they fall to the ground, Valerie crosses her arms and says, “Cool. I’ve been to the circus before.”

All of us groan.

Jace attempts again before any of us can think something up, this time using her old gymnastics skills to her advantage.

“Someone wants to get waaaasstted.” Valerie smirks.

Jace performs a series of back walkovers right on the steep bank of the creek, so that any crooked step could send her tumbling into the water. On her last one, she rotates herself all of the way around, and lands in the splits. Casey, Tanner, and I give a standing ovation, waiting for Valerie’s response.

“I don’t know whether to be impressed or creeped out,” she says bluntly.

Jace jumps up. “Oh, come on! Do you know how hard it is to do that?” She stomps her foot. “I’d like to see you try!”

Valerie seems pretty entertained by Jace’s temper tantrum. But I don’t point that out.

We all follow Jace’s lead and then, for the most part, give up. Tanner tries to impress Valerie with logarithms drawn in the dirt. She threatens to throw him in the water.

I try thinking of something, but camp is limited and the only talent I have that’s slightly entertaining is my painting. Even if I did have acrylics and a canvas, or even my natural paint, I’d probably bore Valerie to tears.

Dinner comes and we still haven’t cracked open the bottle. Casey takes to begging.

“I’ll make you dinner for the next week.”

“From the canned food that’s mine.”

“I’ll rub your feet?”

“I don’t want a boy rubbing any part of me, but thanks.”

I try to think of the most entertaining party I’ve ever been to. What happened. It was the summer after high school, right after I lost my virginity to Liam, and he was getting all overprotective because of the eight-person strip poker game that I was losing.

I stand.

Valerie grins. “Evalyn has something.”

I nod seriously, pivot, and march toward the creek, right to the closest swimming hole.

Jace squeals in anticipation.

“Take it off!” Casey hollers.

I swivel back around to the group. “Don’t ruin it.”

Grabbing the hem of my T-shirt, I tug it off. The sound of shock is instant because I’m not wearing a bra. I can’t tell who is screaming and cheering; it’s all melding into one sound. I unbutton my pants and push down all of my bottoms, trying to gracefully kick my jeans and underwear off without falling over. I fling my garments away, run, and jump.

The first thing I see when I emerge from the icy water is Valerie scrambling from the bank with my clothes in hand.

“Bitch!”

“Sorry, Ev!” she calls when she sits back down by the fire. “But you made it too easy.”

“I’m getting that drink,” I yell.

“You weren’t that entertaining!”

I swim to the bank. The waterline recedes, uncovering my chest, my waist, my hips, and then everything else.

Jace shrieks and laughs hysterically behind her hand. Tanner’s peeking through his fingers. Casey’s jaw’s to the ground.

I stand at the edge of the fire, one hand on my hip, the other extended toward Valerie, palm up. “Give it up.”

She hands me the bottle. “Solid play, my friend. Solid play.”

The seal cracks when I twist the cap off. It’s a delicious noise. I bring the mouth to my own and tip it back, holding my naked Superman pose, and take a long pull. It tastes like hairspray, piss, and floor cleaner.

When I’m finished, I screw the cap back on. “Now give me back my fucking clothes.”

The bottle split five ways is enough to get all of us decently tipsy. Casey’s hand traces little patterns along my back as I sit next to him, taking my last swig of the night. I pass the bottle to him.

“You look pretty amazing naked,” he says when he swallows.

“Is that so?”

His only response is a lazy smile. I’m positive he’s done for the night; the booze seems to have relaxed him to the point of no return. Tanner passed out a while ago. It’s kind of pathetic when alcohol acting as a sedative is reward enough.

It isn’t even dark yet. I remember the exact moment it became acceptable to drink before it got dark—my twenty-first birthday, when suddenly drinking wasn’t a secret, delicious sin, and there were such things as happy hour and being able to buy beer for the beach and drinking on trains.

The memory is raw and hits me like a punch to the stomach. One of Meghan’s photos, vivid in black and white. Bird’s-eye of a diner booth, ugly coffee ring dried on the table, a cup of tea and half-eaten bagel and the top of a woman’s head. She was scrawling a note on a paper napkin, pencil between her fingers.

I was day drinking

When you called me to say

You were sorry.

Meghan loved that photo. She had it set as her tablet background for months.

Months.

“You okay?” Casey asks. When I nod, he says, “I’m tired.”

The eerie green still coats the sky like a filter, and suddenly I want to sleep for the sake of not having to see it. “Me too. Booze does that.”

I follow Casey to the blankets. Before I can find my toothbrush, he’s already asleep on his back with his mouth open. Tanner’s pretty motionless as well, so I brush my teeth by myself at the creek. I’m passing the fire pit when I hear a small gasp.

I stop walking, my attention caught on the smoldering ring. It casts enough light that I can easily see the two girls on a blanket between the pit and the logs.

Valerie lies on top, her fingers twisted in Jace’s dark curls, mouth on her throat. I’m too afraid to move and have them see me, watching something I shouldn’t be watching.

But I can’t tear myself from Jace.

She isn’t in the Compass Room anymore. She’s with Valerie, invested in everything Valerie’s doing to her. Her mouth parts as Valerie’s lips alone dominate her. Valerie trails to her ear and Jace’s back arches off the blanket.

When Valerie fumbles with the buttons on Jace’s pants I know I have to get out of here. I risk moving my feet, slipping back to the boys.

I slide beneath the blanket next to Casey. Fear rolls over me. It isn’t just me and Casey.

Valerie and Jace have found each other too.

I don’t know if it’s a fling, if they’re using each other to pass our horrible time here. But I know that if either of them die, it will be devastating for the survivor.

I can’t think this way. The Compass Room malfunctioned and we’ll all be extracted tomorrow. Because if I can’t bring myself to think about either Valerie or Jace dying, I can’t imagine what it would feel like for one of them.

Casey rolls over, his arm falling across my stomach. I lace my fingers through his and fall asleep.

* * *

I wake up with a parched mouth. Dawn is only flirting with the sky, the space around me cast in shadow. The green light melds with tranquil blue, creating a strange teal forest.

I roll from beneath Casey’s hand and crawl to my feet. As I’m walking toward the creek, I discover I’m not the only one awake.

Valerie sits on a log near the water. She isn’t alone. A girl with long, ash-blonde hair sits next to her, her arm around Valerie’s shoulder.

I pause in my tracks, holding my breath. She isn’t an inmate. Which leaves only one other option—she’s an illusion. Whether or not the Compass Room has lost functionality, it is still operating.

Valerie hangs her head and the girl leans in and kisses her on the cheek. She gets up and turns toward me. Her belly is round and swollen beneath her sundress, and her face—her face is almost identical to Valerie’s.

She smiles at me and disappears between the trees.

When the shock leaves me, I walk toward Valerie and rest a hand on her shoulder. She doesn’t even flinch, only lifts her head enough to recognize it’s me.

I sit with her as the sky brightens—more turquoise—until she says, “I told her to get rid of it. With a glass window between us when I was in prison, I told her to get rid of her rapist’s baby.” Her whole body shudders with a breath. “The next time I saw her she was still pregnant—four months along. I told her—I told her that she didn’t love me, and I didn’t want her to come visit me anymore. She listened. Still haven’t seen the baby. He’s two now.”

“What did she say to you?” I ask. “Just now.”

“She forgives me.” Valerie shakes her head. “I don’t believe her, though.”

I’d tell her to not be so hard on herself, but I know it would be meaningless. Instead, I say, “You should get to sleep.” I’m surprised when she listens without hesitation.

I wait alone by the campfire as the sun rises, wondering if Valerie will ever be able to tell her sister that she’s sorry.

* * *

Tanner’s the first to wake when morning rolls around. I start a fire and we sit next to each other. It’s still early—the others won’t be up for a while.

This isn’t the first morning I’ve craved something hot to drink, but today, the need is so much worse. Green tea or scalding black coffee. Maybe it has something to do with drinking last night.

“And the sky is still green,” he says groggily.

“It’s been more than fourteen hours, and they haven’t issued another warning. What do you think?”

He ponders for a long time and huffs. “I think they’re just screwing with our minds now.”

“If that’s the case, they’ve been screwing with our minds all along.”

“Especially if Gordon’s still alive,” Tanner adds.

I frown. “How do you know that?”

“Yesterday, when that voice listed us, there were three males.”

I shake my head. How is someone like Stella dead when someone like Gordon isn’t? If the CR really is malfunctioning to the point where deaths and survivals are being affected, wouldn’t the test be stopped, like the contract said?

Yet there’s nothing we can do about it.

“I wanted to kill him,” Tanner says, his voice hushed.

“Of course you wanted to kill him. We all did.”

Tanner solemnly stares at the creek. “I tried to kill him because I wanted to watch him die. To suffer like all the people he hurt.”

I place my hand on his knee. “Tanner . . .”

“I went to so many psychologists after I killed that kid. All I needed was to be diagnosed bipolar and my lawyers could point my madness to a fit of rage.”

“Tanner, stop.”

“I wasn’t bipolar. Some people need to die, Ev. Doesn’t mean I’m not sorry that I think it. But I can’t help thinking it.”

My limbs turn ice-cold. “Stop talking.”

“Doesn’t matter if I say it out loud. We can’t hide how we feel from them.”

I hold my breath, as if that will somehow build a bubble around us that the Compass Room can’t penetrate.

“Statistics say we’re all doomed.”

I exhale. “Fuck statistics.”

* * *

When the rest wake up, we decide to make this spot our permanent camp until the sky turns back to its normal color, or we run out of food. Whichever comes first.

Casey and I volunteer to get firewood. As we’re gathering, I realize that, with the rest of the group, our moments alone are going to be seldom from now on. And there is something that I need to get off my chest.

Maybe it’s because of the strange sense of hope that the vibrant turquoise sky gives me. We could both get out of here. If that’s the case, then he needs to know the truth.

I drop the wood in my hands. “I need to tell you what happened that day.”

He deadpans, his bundle of sticks falling out of his arms.

“You don’t have to,” he says. “I know you’re not a bad person.”

He trusted me too quickly, because of my actions in here. But the truly sick at heart are the chameleons.

I shake my head. “I’m not.”

September 3, Last Year

Our Apartment

The morning was cold. Meghan always set the AC back to seventy-five when she woke up, as our thermostat liked to reset itself at night down to sixty. Liam was gone—he had to leave for work an hour ago.

I threw a blanket around my shoulders and trudged out of the bedroom, turning the AC off as my phone started to ring. Hurrying back to the room, I picked it up off the nightstand.

Mom.

I ignored the call. Maybe, if I had been on the phone with her when I saw what Nick had left for me on the dining table, I would have told her. She would have given me the sense to call 911.

She would have given me the courage not to do what the note said.

The slip of paper was written in my handwriting and held down by our spare apartment key.

Be at the east gym in thirty minutes or Meghan’s dead. No cops.

Next to the note was a crumpled-up grocery list, the one he had used to learn the way I form my letters.

* * *

The east gym wasn’t used anymore, save for some nightly yoga and swim classes. But it was unlocked that morning. A boy in black that I recognized from my philosophy class last semester waited for me outside, and without a word, grabbed me by the arm and led me into the building, to the basketball court.

When the door closed behind us, we were swallowed in darkness.

I heard a click, and the room began to glow green.

Seven dark silhouettes. The light grew and grew, and I saw Nick in front of me, in black cargo pants and a military jacket. Before him, Meghan sat at that battered old desk. Chunk taken out of the red seat, plywood peeling. Blindfolded.

He held a gun to her head.

“Just in time.” He smiled darkly. “A couple more minutes and her brains would have been all over the floor.”

I can’t say that I was scared in that moment. I wasn’t emotional at all, because this situation didn’t feel real.

“What do you want?”

“Easy. I’m not going to waste any more of your time than I have to, so here’s the deal.” He yanked on Meghan’s hair and she whimpered. Tears streamed past her blindfold, streaking her cheeks. “There’s a faculty brunch happening right now in the hall next door. You know, the kind where they give out awards and talk about everyone’s fucking achievements.”

He nodded to a masked boy standing near the bleachers. The boy walked to me, and from behind his back pulled out a handgun.

“Take it,” Nick ordered.

The metal was cold and heavy in my hands.

“Take the first shot. I don’t care who you kill, just kill one of them, and I won’t put a bullet in her head, or in yours.”

A cold, hard weight nudged the base of my skull as another boy held a gun to my head.

I processed for a long while what Nick was asking me to do.

I was right. All this time I had been right and I hadn’t done a single thing about it. I’d let her convince me that my instincts were wrong, that I’d been delusional in my impulse to hate him.

How foolish I’d been.

“Why?” was all I could manage. I didn’t try holding back the tears. There wasn’t reason to. But I wouldn’t whimper for him. I wouldn’t give him too much of what he wanted. “Why me? Why us?”

He gave this over dramatic sigh and began to pace back and forth behind Meghan. “Well, it was going to be her. That’s why I started dating her in the first place, if it isn’t obvious now.”

He’d come on so strong. So quickly. That was the one thing I did know about him.

“I needed someone like her—someone who had friends, someone who saw so much beauty and love in the world. The only thing that scares people more than a terrorist is one with absolutely no motive.”

He’d been planning this for a while.

“But when you gave me the cold shoulder, I decided to make you pay. Also, I don’t think she could have gone through with it. I think she would have let you die.”

Tears dripped from my chin. I couldn’t wipe them away. I couldn’t budge with that gun in my hands.

“No,” Meghan whispered.

Nick threw her out of the chair, and she skidded across the floor. He kicked her hard in the stomach. I screamed. I don’t remember what. I just remember thinking that my life was over.

Because I knew I had to go through with it. I couldn’t live without her.

“Go. My men will follow you out. If you run, they’ll kill you and I’ll kill her.”

I was brave enough to ask, “Is this about chaos theory?”

He cocked his head. “You remembered. And I thought that you weren’t paying attention at dinner.”

That dinner happened months ago, but I knew exactly which one he was talking about.

He stepped on Meghan’s rib cage, and she whimpered. “I thought you were too preoccupied with what I was doing with my hand beneath the table.”

The boy behind me removed the tip of his gun from my head and grabbed my hair, whipping me around.

* * *

The day was stifling, even for Phoenix in September. Dry grass crunched beneath my feet as I was guided right up to that banquet hall, hearing nothing but the booted footsteps of the boys behind me, the army I was leading. There was no one outside to see us, to stir a warning.

Two boys each grabbed one of the door handles. The one to my left held up three fingers, and then two, and one.

I’d been so passive about Nick. I’d given him a second chance—the benefit of the doubt. I’d never think twice again—especially now. I had to save her.

The draft of the AC harbored the stench of cheap breakfast food. A hush fell over the dull roar of faculty deep in conversation. I lifted the gun, aimed for the head of the nearest man, and shot. Brain matter and blood sprayed over the other occupants of the table, and he slumped over his plate.

My army swarmed around me, shots ringing over screams of terror. I ducked out and ran, only learning much later that the man I shot was named Jason Earhart, dean of the math department. But then, he was only a body—the way I would save my Meghan.

People saw me as a member of the murderous cult that Nick created. That’s why the world sees me as guilty. But this isn’t why I belong in the Compass Room. I am wicked because the moment Jason died, the only thing I felt was relief.

I murdered an innocent man in cold blood. Several people were slaughtered right before my eyes, but Meghan was going to live.

What made my sin even bitterer was my naïveté. I’d been blinded by fear.

She was dead before I stepped foot into the gymnasium, lying on her back on the cold linoleum—right where I’d left her. Her eyes were open, hair drowning in a puddle of her own blood. Another shot rang through the air. Later, I found out that it was Nick, shooting himself through the mouth in the bathroom. Not the bathroom he forged my suicide note in—no. That bathroom was upstairs.

Of course he wouldn’t let Meghan live. She was the sole witness who would prove that this wasn’t an act of chaos orchestrated by me.

This is all I can remember. I don’t remember screaming, or crying, or cradling her. My memory did a terrific job of blocking out the moments I had with her. I was told later, when the police found me, she was still on the floor. I sat at the desk near her corpse, her blood all over me.

I was waiting to die.

13

By the end of it, I’m not thinking about my crime. I’m thinking about her. How I only care that her life was taken. Not the others who died. Not the one I killed.

Just her. Proof that I will always be a selfish, wicked person.

“I hated you so much when I first learned about you,” Casey said. “When I learned I’d be in here with you, I couldn’t wait to watch you die first. I felt like when people thought of us they thought of you, that we were all as chaotic and destructive as you.” He shakes his head, tearing up. “I wasn’t sure whether I was evil, but I knew I was a saint compared to you.”

“I swear, Casey.” My voice shakes with every word. “I’m telling you everything. I’m telling you the truth.”

“I know. And you shouldn’t be here.”

“Don’t say that.” He doesn’t get it. “I killed someone. I gave in to exactly what they wanted. I’m as guilty as Nick.”

“You’ve held us together in here. You’ve taken the lead in everything we’ve done as a group.” His voice rises. “And for you to tell me that you think you’re as guilty as Nick . . .”

“It was my . . .”

“No!” He scoots closer, looming over me. “Everything you did was because you loved her, and nothing will change that. Not Nick, not a court ruling, not the Compass Room. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You’re better than that.”

“I’m nothing,” I say. His lips find mine.

He is rough without hurting me, demanding without being forceful. He breathes my name with every kiss, fingers in my hair. His mouth is wild and greedy, like he will never get enough of me before we run out of time. I dig my nails into his back.

His lips trail to my ear. “Don’t you dare, for one second, think you deserve this place.”

His cheeks are wet—I don’t know whether from me or from him.

“I’m sorry,” he says. “I kind of lost it.”

“Shut up and kiss me.”

And he does. He kisses me until my face is dry and he’s worn himself out. “And now I have to reflect on that?” he says. “It’s like reliving my own nightmare again.”

I know how he feels.

* * *

We walk back to camp hand in hand. Some deep part of me feels empowered, although I’m not really sure why. I should be miserable, having to reveal my doubts about myself to the one person I’ve grown to care about most. The one person who seems to respect the darker parts of me. Meghan would have, I know that.

Casey, I feel, is all I have left.

“I have to pee.” He releases my hand. “Meet you back at camp.”

I nod and continue along the creek after he leaves. The sun is a few hours from setting, and the light sits slanted in the sky, shadows stretching out for a night of play. It’s why I don’t see Gordon at first, because the entire opposite bank is shrouded in darkness.

When I notice him, I halt and don’t make a sound, forcing myself to rapidly come to terms with what I’m seeing.

One of Gordon’s arms pins Tanner to him.

I scream Casey’s name.

I’m not as frightened as I should be. Anger has made a hostage of me—he thinks he still has power to wield.

Tanner’s eyes are entirely vacant.

“You stupid, stupid boy,” I yell. “Wasting your time with your fucked-up fantasies. You know you can’t hurt him.”

Gordon’s face casts a demonic expression. I can’t watch him and stay sane all at once, so I focus my attention on Tanner. What is he doing? He can’t be paralyzed by fear—not with the way he attacked Gordon in the cave.

But his eyes tell me nothing, other than the fact that perhaps he’s given up.

Where’s Casey? Valerie, Jace—they had to have heard me scream. But no one’s coming.

“Fight him!” I shriek at Tanner.

I’m about to throw myself into the water to fight Gordon myself when Tanner opens his mouth. But instead of words, blood froths from his lips.

Gordon releases him. Tanner drops to his knees and flops forward, the hilt of a knife jutting from his back.

No.

Gordon twirls his hand in front of him and bows. “I hope my appearance has been entertaining.”

And then he runs.

I throw myself into the creek, thrusting my legs against the current. I fall forward on the bank, clawing at grass, crawling to reach him.

Blades disintegrate in the Compass Room. This is nothing but an elaborate illusion.

I grab on to the hilt and yank. From Tanner’s back I rip away a full, blood-slick blade.

I can’t stop. Can’t think about this boy, about the liquid heat trickling from him.

There’s no time. I jump to my feet and run. My body is a furnace. The flames have all but eaten my shell. There’s nothing left of me to feel. I’ve only been like this once before, the need to kill hollowing me out.

Gordon is slow. He is prey. I am on to him before he even knows he’s being hunted. I hurtle over a log and in midjump, grasp on to his hair.

I yank.

He falls to his back. For a brief moment before I plunge the knife into him I see the first flicker of terror in his eyes.

And then it’s done.

He ceases. Everything is artery red. His chest, my hands. I smell it everywhere, leaching onto the grass and into the earth.

There is no last sputtering breath. He is gone.

“Evalyn!” Casey screams.

“Take me,” I say to no one. “Take me. I’m ready to die.”

“Ev!” It’s Valerie. She’s closer.

The three of them crowd around me at once, garbled, blurry monsters. They touch me, but I’m far away.

Someone’s crying. It might be me. No, it’s Jace.

All of my nerves shatter at once. I ball my hand into a fist and raise it, but before I can slam it into Gordon’s dead chest, Casey’s fingers clamp around my wrist.

“You motherfucker!” I scream. “You fucking piece of shit!”

I fight against Casey until my energy is spent, until I’m soaked with the reality of what I’ve done. Whom I’ve killed, and whom he’s killed.

Casey presses his forehead to the back of my neck and cries.

I wait until he’s quieted before I say through a throat of cotton, “The Compass Room is going to kill me now.”

14

Tanner is dead. Gordon is dead.

The Compass Room is pregnant with sin. Not the ghost of our crimes, but real, pungent sin.

Beneath the green of the sky, the blood coating my hands is black.

“Gordon deserved to die,” Casey says.

We’ve regrouped around Tanner. Valerie turned him faceup so we can say good-bye. I brush the bangs from his forehead. Nothing outside my skin feels real.

“You know the Compass Room doesn’t see it that way,” Valerie says.

Actually, I don’t know what the Compass Room sees. Weapons were supposed to disintegrate when the owner had the intent to kill. I thought Tanner was going to make it out.

Or, at the very least, not die by the hands of our resident psychopath.

But he didn’t. But he was only a boy, a boy apologetic for what he’d done. He didn’t deserve the death given to him.

Two of my tears fall onto Tanner’s lifeless body. He doesn’t look at peace, more like a baby. A frightened baby.

“Jesus.” I cover my mouth.

Why is this justified?

The Compass Room should have killed Gordon after he proved his intent to kill Tanner the second day we were here.

The Compass Room should have killed me.

I crane my neck up to the dusky turquoise sky. “HEY! ARE YOU EVEN FUCKING SEEING THIS?” I scream at the top of my lungs. “GET US OUT OF HERE!”

My voice echoes endlessly through the air, but there is no response. Rage builds inside of me, my blood boiling.

At the very front of my mind, a memory emerges of Tanner asking me how emotionally connected I was to Casey’s crime. It was only then that he mentioned the clause in our contract about the Compass Room malfunctioning. Casey’s dad beat Meghan with the shovel, but Meghan emerged without the help of my desk.

I conjured Meghan from seeing Casey’s shovel, and by doing so, I made a part of the Compass Room shut down.

“What do we do? Do we wait? Do we sit back and do nothing?” Jace cries. “Why aren’t they listening to us? Why can’t they see what’s happening?”

I attempt to calm myself. “I don’t know, but we can’t be here anymore. We need to make them listen.”

I tell Casey, Valerie, and Jace my plan.

“The green lighting means the Room is malfunctioning, I’m sure of it,” I argue when I see the skepticism from all three of them. “We need to get out of here before anyone else dies.”

“But how do you know that forcing the machine to malfunction will get their attention?” Valerie asks. “How do you know they’re even watching?”

“I don’t.” I glance down at Tanner. We should have done something like this hours ago, when the sky hadn’t changed back. I should have acted on my instinct that something was wrong.

Every time I wait, people die. No more waiting.

“There is nothing else we can do,” I continue. “I’m not going to sit around and wait to die.”

Valerie nods in response. I think the truth has sunk in that none of us are safe anymore. It’d be one thing if every man was for himself, but that’s not the case. We were all stupid enough to start caring about one another. “Let’s do this.” Valerie plants a kiss on Jace’s lips.

“I c-can’t,” Jace says.

“You have to.”

“I’m scared.”

“For Tanner,” says Valerie. “For Evalyn. For all of us.”

Casey nods and takes my hand. “For Tanner.”

* * *

This might not work. I have to keep reminding myself that this might not work.

But that thought doesn’t stop my fire. We make brief plans, plans that don’t give too much away to anyone listening. We each take off toward the direction of our partner’s object. We find it.

And then we see what happens.

I think that Tanner believed Casey’s trigger object malfunctioned because somehow, we confused it. Maybe the trigger read my guilt as being similar to his. Maybe it’s that, over time, I grew to care about him and became as emotionally affected by his crime as he was, causing both of our chips to activate. Whatever the case, I believe that finding Casey’s trigger object and sending him to mine, Valerie to Jace’s, and Jace to Valerie’s may cause a mass malfunction. If we can create enough fireworks, they’ll have to pay attention and get us out of here.

They’ll have to.

My desk appeared in two places. Not knowing how to reach the one in the cave, Casey’ll run toward the second one we found, west of the lake.

He grabs my face and kisses me, and I grip the fabric of his shirt, trying my hardest not to hyperventilate. “Run as fast as you can. See what happens and meet back here.” He says it loud enough for Jace and Valerie to overhear. “And while you run, pray with everything you have in you that this works. I need you to make it out.”

“You don’t. You don’t need me, Casey. You’ll live through this and whether I survive or not, you will have an incredible life.”

“I need you because I love you.”

He breaks away from me and I stand there, stunned. He doesn’t let me respond. He gives Valerie and Jace a parting glance and grabs my hand. “Let’s go.”

Within a handful of feet, I second-guess myself. Casey loves me.

I can’t think about that now. I can’t be distracted.

Just keep telling yourself that there’s nothing to be afraid of, Ev.

If we can time it right, we’ll break it in all the right places. And maybe, just maybe, I’ll survive this.

I run. I run so fast that I can’t feel my legs. I try to keep up with Casey, who sprints, dragging me to my feet when I trip, clawing at the branches in our path with his free hand.

We stumble through the foliage for a mile, at least. When we reach the part of the creek where we’re to separate, we release each other.

“I’ll see you soon,” he says.

He turns and takes a few steps before I say his name. He stops.

“I love you too.”

With his back to me, he says, “Don’t you fucking die on me, Evalyn.”

I say nothing, because I can’t. I keep walking down the hill and toward the shovel. The shovel that might be my only hope. What I saw last time didn’t hurt me. But that doesn’t mean I won’t be torn up inside.

Don’t think about her. Don’t even imagine her name.

Steam from the hot spring twists and curls in the air. The last bits of sunlight fall onto the shovel.

I know it takes a few moments for anything to show up. A whimper escapes my throat.

This isn’t anything you can’t handle.

I count the passing seconds.

You’ve been to hell and back.

Nothing happens. I stare at the shovel and nothing happens.

The itch of silence burns in my ears.

It didn’t work.

I don’t know what to feel. Part of me was so desperate to avenge Tanner and get the rest of us out of here in one piece, to save Casey—to save myself. So why am I relieved?

I sit cross-legged on the ground. Such a simple object. Such a symbol in Casey’s life. The shovel, the desk, the baby doll, the keys. These objects will always bring back the grief, the reminder of what we’ve done. Every time we see one. Even if we do escape this place, we’ll never be completely free. Not any of us.

I know we won’t be.

The ground in front of me breaks, dirt spewing everywhere. On first instinct I think it’s an animal.

I creep forward on my hands and knees, closing in on the flesh-colored object that continues to jerk and seize. The sprawled digits, the fleshy palm.

A hand. A hand stretching toward the sky. The skin melts away, exposing rotting muscle and yellow bone.

I scurry backward and jump to my feet. But I don’t run. I’m too entranced by what’s happening, the ground decomposing right before me. Dirt crumbles away, a gaping black hole emerging around whatever reaches out and grasps at the ground, rotting elbow jutting into the air.

They sprout like flowers, the earth disintegrating around them. Fingers, hands, green flesh crawling toward me, until their mangled, balding heads appear from down below.

I’m within the graveyard I created.

A moan escapes my lips as I stumble backwards. Jason Earhart emerges, the wound from his eye socket leaking pus and blood. The others surface, half-eaten faces of my victims gnashing their teeth in rage.

“Zombies.” My victims have turned into zombies. They’ve come back to eat me.

“No,” someone says from the darkness. I know who she is before she steps forward.

I’ve memorized that voice.

She swaggers toward me, so very unlike Meghan. And she isn’t wounded either. She looks as alive as the day before her death. She walks past the shovel, snatching the handle. A glint rests in her eye, and along with her smile, familiarity creeps through my mind.

What am I still doing here?

The field of hands and wrists bend toward me.

“Zombies crawl.” She has the exact same drawl to her voice as Casey’s father. A drawl that shouldn’t be there. “Zombies hobble.”

The world around fast-forwards. Bursts of dirt fly through the air, and bodies rip away from the ground and hunch on all fours, like spiders. Bent elbows, curved spines, standing on their crooked fingers and toes. All fifty-six of them.

“Put me in the ground,” she drawls, “but I can still fuck with your head. I can still break you.”

Casey’s dad bursts through her. And this illusion isn’t passive.

The module isn’t shutting down.

We were so wrong to attempt this. I’ve created a monster.

I dart to the right and jump over one of the ghosts, a woman with eyes dangling from their sockets. Her hand latches on to my leg and I tumble backward. I scramble back, but it’s too late. They swarm around me, limbs skittering on the ground. One pins my arms down with cold, bony hands. Another claws at my hair, dragging me to the earth.

I scream.

“Stop,” Meghan says, bored. And they do. Except for the one holding my hair. A man with no jaw.

They cower backward, clearing a path for her. Her dead eyes lock on mine, and she raises the shovel. “I’m the one that’s supposed to drag her to hell.”

Meghan heaves the shovel over her head.

When it strikes me, my muscles give out. Oxygen won’t enter me. I curl into a ball, coaxing it into my lungs.

The shovel slams into my arm. I feel nothing this time, only the tingling that shoots though my entire left side.

Metal collides with my ribs.

I wait until she attempts again. Reaching up, I catch the shovel’s handle. We struggle, but not for long. I can’t be overtaken—can’t let terror cripple me. Infused by adrenaline, I rip the shovel from her and bounce to my feet. My body screams with the ache of freshly cracked ribs.

“You’re not Meg.” I swing with all of my might. The pressure of her head against my shovel is my entire world imploding all over, but I have no time to mourn.

When she hits the ground, I swing and swing, bashing in the already-loose brains of my attackers. Chunks of tissue and jets of blood fly through the air. My victims who shouldn’t be suffering anymore yelp and howl.

Not my victims.

Nick’s victims.

One final swing clears a path, and I run through the bodies and toward the direction of the closest inmate. Valerie’s test happened near our old camp. Jace should be close by. I need to warn her.

Every one of my wounds make themselves known. My legs have gone numb, and I have no idea how I keep myself upright.

Growls of the dead sound behind me. Meghan—the vision of Meghan—was right. These dead aren’t some contrived cartoon monster. They are a creation of a high-tech prison.

They have no boundaries.

Between every one of my gasps I hear them ripping up the ground. Voiceless animals. What part of my subconscious were these creatures created from?

I have no time to reflect on my own question, because I’m running the wrong way.

I’m trying to find Jace, but I’m running the wrong fucking way.

Valerie’s crime happened on the other side of camp. I had the entire map turned on its head. I’m running in the direction I just came from, toward Jace’s own trigger object. Better than nothing.

I’m losing steam, my lungs unable to keep up with my pace. But I can still hear those monsters right on my tail, ready to take revenge, to feast on my soul.

Jace’s crime happened at the base of the burned lodge. After endless minutes of fighting my way through forest, I cross the path.

I take the risk of turning my head. Their shadows bounce around the woods.

I find Valerie.

I forget that I’m running from something when I see what the Compass Room has created for her. Around the stump she sits on, a baby crawls. It shrieks—the cry of an infant being tormented.

And it bleeds from its eyes.

She hugs her knees. She doesn’t even react when she sees me. The sound of the tortured child fills the air around us.

I can’t hear myself think.

Her pants are torn, legs bleeding. “I can’t move! It’ll gnaw my legs clean off!” Her eyes widen, and she screams, “Behind you!”

For a split second I think that my rotting victims have caught up with me until the beams of headlights brighten up the woods, catching on the red tears of the infant. A car revs. I turn slowly, the headlights blinding me enough so I see only a face behind the wheel.

A melding of mine and Jace’s crime. Nick, ready to run me down.

“You’ve got to be kidding me.”

I’m creating illusions here too.

I didn’t need to know every physical detail of Casey’s crime. I just needed to care about him, and the guilt of his crime grew within me. I care about Jace enough to be skewing illusions here too.

“Move, Ev!” Valerie screams.

Nick’s going to run me over. He said he’d be back for me. I guess he’s trying to keep his promise.

I won’t let him.

I extend my hand, and Valerie sprints forward. Nick floors it.

“The trees!” I scream. He can’t reach us.

On the incline, Valerie trips and takes me down with her. We roll together, shovel head banging me in the nose so hard that blood gushes from my nostrils. When we stop, I drag Valerie into the brush, elbows and knees digging into the dirt, twigs scraping my face. We duck behind a trunk, hopefully wide enough to—

BOOM.

The ground shakes as heat flares up behind us, and Valerie holds me tight. I turn my head enough to see orange flames eating away at the crunched metal, and a man on fire steps out of the car.

“GO!” I scream.

Valerie and I jump up and run back the way we came, toward the monsters from my illusion.

One of them charges.

Not just one of them. The man I shot. Jason.

He isn’t real.

I swing the shovel. On contact, his head explodes, gray matter flying everywhere, just like it flew from the back of his skull the first time I killed him.

Here we are, committing the same crimes to save our own asses.

“Holy shit!” Valerie screams.

I stop, shaking so badly the shovel drops to the ground, and clutch my torso.

“Ev? Ev, what is it?”

“Maybe we do deserve this.” I’m fighting so hard against death. I fell in love, and what’s it worth?

I’m still guilty as sin. I’ll always be.

Valerie grabs my shoulders. I can hear the howls of rage and agony from my rotting victims that lurk out in the forest.

“No one deserves this,” she says. “No one.” Maybe I’ve spent all of my empowerment on her, because she suddenly becomes as strong as I once was, strong enough to drag me along, back to our old camp. Back to the place where Casey and I were spit up from the ground, where the five of us spent a handful of peaceful days realizing that we weren’t thrown into a pit of hostile criminals. That the five of us were equally human.

The sky flashes green.

Module eight, disengaging.

The brightness of flame disappears behind us.

“It worked.”

“It fucking worked!” Valerie screams, and laughs.

We can still do this. We can get out of here tonight.

“Let’s go find Jace,” I say.

She takes my hand and we run, up the incline to where our old camp used to be. My legs burn and threaten to give out.

We near the clearing, the space around us still. No frightening illusions, no screams of terror.

“Jace!” Valerie soon chimes in. We call her name all of the way into the clearing, until we understand why she isn’t responding.

“No.” Releasing my hand, Valerie runs and drops to her knees near the motionless girl.

She screams.

The world becomes clouded. Fuzzy. I stumble to them, my blood pulsing in my ears. I kneel next to Jace, whose eyes are wide and terrified and lifeless, a bloody noose around her neck, her fingernails caked in blood from trying to claw her way free.

The other half of the noose hangs loosely, ripped wires sparking in the air. They killed her. They killed the most innocent, guilt-ridden, broken one of us.

Valerie screams and I cling to her, cradling her close to my chest. We were preparing for all of us to die—every last one. But no amount of preparation can help me with this—for living when Jace isn’t.

She finally wanted to live. She wanted to love.

“I did this.”

“No,” I sob.

“I did this to her!”

The shriek dies and suddenly the prison is silent. The Compass Room has paused for once tonight, giving us a moment to grieve.

Half a minute to grieve.

Everything glows deep, vibrant green. Deeper than ever before.

The ground, the trees around us, even the dusky sky. Green bleeds from everywhere and nowhere at once.

The booming voice tells us, Evacuation procedure in process. Please remain where you are.

Valerie collapses on top of Jace.

Evacuation procedure in process. Please remain where you are. Module one, disengaging.

I trace Jace’s cold lips, then coax her eyelids down. She is beautiful. Even in the green light, she is so beautiful.

Please remain where you are. Module two, disengaging.

“Find Casey.” Valerie rests her head on Jace’s chest. “You find him and you bring him back here.” Her voice trembles. “You make sure they don’t take him too.”

Casey.

“They’re telling us to stay put.”

“When have they stopped you before?”

. . . Module three, disengaging.

“I’ll be okay,” she whispers, cheek still pressed to Jace. “Go.”

“Valerie . . .”

“GO.”

. . . Module four, disengaging.

I leave the girls in the clearing and make my way through the green world. The voice continues to narrate as different modules, whatever they are, shut down.

PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE.

We broke the Compass Room.

Module seven, disengaging.

CANDIDATES CANNOT BE SAFELY EVACUATED UNTIL ALL MODULES ARE SHUT DOWN. PLEASE REMAIN WHERE YOU ARE.

I’m numb to the demanding voice. The prison has entirely succumbed to the harsh, alien light. It feels like hours before I wander through the second place where my desk showed up. My subconscious must have remembered. My subconscious needs him.

When I spot the desk, I find him slouched against a tree, his face a sickly white in the evacuation light. He smiles expectantly when I reach him.

My name slowly rolls off of his tongue.

Dropping to my knees, I pry his blood-soaked hands away from his stomach.

“God . . .”

“Shh,” he says.

“Please, please . . .”

“That boy shot me. . . . I was trying to run. He wanted to kill me.”

Blood squelches as I press my hand to his wound, trying to stop the flow.

“What happened?”

Module eighteen, shutting down.

He nods over my shoulder. A silver sphere rests in the grass.

“Turned into that.”

“Stay with me,” I plead. “I was so wrong. We shouldn’t have done this.”

Jace is dead.

Casey is breaking beneath my hands.

“So wrong.”

The green light fades, and the forest submits to twilight. I help lower him to the ground. He shuts his eyes.

This isn’t happening.

I shake him. “Can you hear me? Casey. Casey!”

His lips fall limply apart. “Don’t cry for me. Just stay.”

This is the end. Hot blood squelches past my fingers. He’s losing too much.

“You need to be brave.” He finds my hand and squeezes.

I dissolve into tears. “No.” I don’t want to be brave anymore. I was alone for too long, and now I have to go back. I’ve realized too late that this plan was a mistake. Without him, life on the outside will be solitary. And I will carry the burden of this place on my own.

“I don’t want to be brave.”

I sense his soul drifting. I push harder into his side, like I can keep his life pinned to the ground, keep him from floating away. His wet, ragged breath is far too shallow.

“Please, stay.”

My fingers slip from his hand to his cold, pulseless wrist.

“Casey?”

A spotlight illuminates his white, translucent skin. The wind picks up, a monster from above growling loudly, drowning his words.

“I’ll never leave you.” His voice evaporates to nothing, and his eyes glaze over.

I cry his name, voice mute beneath the roar of the monster.

Hands grasp my waist and yank me back. I scream and thrash until glove-covered fingers clasp over my mouth. Four figures in blue medic suits rush past me and kneel around him.

The man who holds me jabs something into my neck. My jaw aches.

Everything is soft and dark.

15

This place reeks of latex and disinfectant. Everything around me is blurry and white. White—unnaturally so. There is nothing so blindingly pure in nature. My head flops to the side, and I study my veiny hand where a taped needle pierces the skin of my wrist, feeding me clear liquid.

This isn’t the Compass Room.

I’m not awake for long before the nurse—the same one who had injected the monitor into my head—walks into the room.

“Miss Ibarra,” she says. “Good to see you awake.”

She hooks her tablet up to the monitors next to me.

“Let me upload your stats.” A few seconds go by. “Wonderful. Looks like everything’s okay.”

Wonderful. Okay. With one shaky hand I wipe the drool trailing down my chin.

“I made it out?”

Suddenly everything rushes back to me. The malfunction. The plan to get us out. Jace. Casey. Casey.

I choke back a gasp as the thought of him dying in my arms floods my entire being. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this. One stupid decision after another and I’m killing everyone who ever loved me.

He loved me. Two fucking weeks and he said he loved me. And I destroyed him.

Tears burn in my eyes and I wish I could grieve, but the drugs work their way through my system, and the world—the clean-cut, whitewashed real world—is still a haze of stiff sheets and beeping machines.

“The remaining candidates were released early so the CR could be evaluated.”

“Candidates?”

She tilts her head to the right.

On the opposite side of the corridor, Valerie sits in bed with her knees to her chest. She’s fixated on the cup of green Jell-O in her hands.

She doesn’t notice I’m awake, not until my nurse leaves the room. We react at the same time, ripping the IVs from our arms and jumping out of our hospital beds. I almost fall on my face when my feet hit the linoleum. She stumbles and smacks into the wall.

We groggily limp toward each other, and when we meet, I throw my arms around her and sob into her shoulder, dragging her down to the ground with me.

Her skin is clammy and she smells like I do—of cheap soap and plastic.

“We made it out.” I breathe the words into her hair.

Her fingers close around the folds of my hospital gown, balling the fabric into her fists. The silent question is as clear as if she’d spoken it out loud.

Why does it still feel so unsafe?

“Everyone’s gone.” Her face crumples, like the thought is brand-new. She can’t hold herself upright, collapsing in front of me. I lean over her broken body, her broken soul, as she cries into the linoleum.

I killed them.

We should have stayed at camp. I’d clung so desperately to the idea of all of us leaving the Compass Room safely that it never occurred to me everything that could stem from my last-minute plan. In a truly just world, I would be the one to die while Jace had another chance. I was the one who kept proving myself to be a killer over and over in the Compass Room.

Jace—Jace finally wanted to live.

I took it away from her.

And Casey. Casey’s gone.

You should be numb to tragedy by now, he had said.

I rest my head on top of Valerie’s back. I am wicked in its purest form. I had gathered hope in the darkest of places for the sake of destroying it.

You should be numb to tragedy by now.

Casey was right, but he was a little too early when he said it. Now I think I finally am.

“This is all my fault,” I whisper.

I sit up when I feel her straighten beneath me. Her eyes are bloodshot, but somehow, after everything, I also see determination.

“No, Evalyn.” She takes both my hands in hers as a tear trickles down her cheek. “The only thing you’re guilty of is caring about all of us enough to not want to see us die. Promise me that you’ll never blame yourself for their deaths. You didn’t kill them.”

She squeezes my hands out of urgency.

“They did.”

* * *

I’m given back the clothes I checked into the prison wearing—a floral button-up and jeans that are much too big for me. But they’ll work.

A federal agent clips a thin titanium tracking bracelet around my wrist. I may be out of the Compass Room, but the water’s about to start boiling. I’ll be on probation until the events within the CR have been thoroughly investigated. Then I’ll be retried.

I don’t know what exactly I’ll be tried for, and I won’t until I have my debrief with a CR official. I might have to sit through a trial of the shooting again, but instead of a Compass Room, my sentencing will be different. Maybe better, maybe worse.

Or the crimes I committed in the Compass Room may be piled on top of the shooting.

The only thing that can redeem me now is the data on my thoughts and emotions stored in the CR files. If the Compass Room read me as redeemable, then perhaps I won’t be sentenced to death.

But the odds aren’t in my favor. Especially after killing someone in the place that was supposed to judge my morality.

The only thing I can do now is enjoy the few fleeting moments of freedom that I have.

The federal hospital in Los Angeles has a strict no-visitors-allowed policy, so I don’t see Mom until I’m released.

Valerie and I walk side by side out onto the lawn, where my family waits. Mom has a bouquet of flowers in one hand and holds the arm of one wriggly Todd in the other. She can’t keep him still when he sees me, so she lets him go. I drop to my knees, and he collides with me.

He’s laughing. Todd’s laughing.

“I’m never letting you go again, okay?” I kiss his pudgy little cheek over and over. “Never ever.”

He tugs on a lock of my hair. “Ice cream.”

I grin. “Every day.”

When I stand, Mom hugs me tight. I don’t want her to say anything, because this is enough. When she’s soaked through the shoulder of my shirt, I whisper, “I love you,” into her hair.

A car door slams. People run onto the grass, and a young woman shrieks. I pull away from Mom and turn toward the commotion, where a girl with golden curls and a face exactly like Valerie’s runs across the grass. She jumps into Valerie’s arms. The sisters are laughing and crying, and her twin is saying, “You did it. You did it. I knew you’d never leave me.”

A balding man waits patiently until the girls finish. He carries a child in his arms.

When Valerie sees him she instantly sobers up. Her sister takes the child and the man says something I don’t expect.

“Are you all right?”

Her face scrunches up, and instantly, she shifts from a twenty-five-year-old woman into a little girl.

“No, Dad.”

He pulls her close and holds her, pressing his lips to her forehead. She grips the back of his shirt until her knuckles are white. This must have been so hard for them, for her dad and my mom and the loved ones of all the other candidates, to harbor the doubt for a month and wait, wait, wait, hoping.

Praying.

Valerie turns to the little boy and reaches out, taking him from her sister.

“Say hello to your aunt, Charlie.”

He wraps his arms around her neck, and Valerie says, “He’s beautiful,” burying her nose in his blond curls.

Mom taps me on the shoulder to gain my attention. She hands me my tablet. “I met with an agent before I got to see you. He uploaded some information. Said you would be interested in taking a look at it.”

I uncover what she’s referring to, opening the file. I read the headline. It’s a summary of all the deaths in our Compass Room.

My hands tremble in rage. How cruel for an agent to think I’d need to relive the deaths of my fellow inmates. Salem Ramirez is the first on the list. Execution, it reads.

Erity Lin: Execution

Blaise Wilson: Execution

Stella Devereux: Execution

My fingers tighten around the tablet as tears threaten to spill. “Liars,” I hiss.

Tanner Saito: In-Room Homicide

Gordon Ostheim: In-Room Homicide

Jacinda Glaser: Malfunction

I turn the page. The tablet slips from my hands.

“Evalyn?” my mother says.

Nothing could have prepared me for this.

I sink to my knees and contain nothing inside me—nothing. Every moment spent with him bursts from my chest. His lips on mine, his arms around me. The way he began to say my name when the meaning of the word transformed from ally to something more.

The way he held me as Meghan died.

His expression when he told me that he loved me.

Sobs consume me, and I collapse on the grass.

Valerie finds me. She must have read the document. She must know, because as she holds me, she says softly, “Oh my God, Ev.”

“Oh my God.”

“Oh my God.”

* * *

I have to take a guard with me everywhere I go. It’s a complimentary federal guard at least, but he doesn’t seem thrilled that I’m making him walk everywhere.

The public wasn’t too happy concerning the agreement of our freedom. The media’s made us out to be monsters, deviants who misused the system to get out alive. And the world is eating it up.

Living in fear isn’t exactly freedom. But I guess I’ll take it, for now.

“I can get a car for you, Miss Ibarra,” my guard suggests. He wears a black suit in the near-hundred-degree Los Angeles weather. Sweat drips from his red face.

“I’m fine, thank you. It’s a short walk.”

After Mom gave me the clothes and belongings she brought for me, she and Todd took the train home. I told her I still had some things to do. A few loose ends to tie.

An ash tree stretches toward the sky in the center of a small, shaded park. Compass Room victims are scattered here by default, close to CR labs and headquarters. There are no plaques, no signs that suggest what this place is or who these people are. The government refuses to memorialize the evil. But there are flower wreaths, notes, and pictures. People never stop loving.

I stand at the edge of the park. A breeze catches my hair and cools the sweat on the back of my neck. I’m about to walk toward the tree when a horn beeps behind me. I turn. Valerie sits in the driver’s seat of a Porsche, her guard on the passenger’s side. She slides her aviators down her nose.

“Nice ride,” I say.

“Thank-you gift from Dad.”

“Thank you for what?”

“Not dying. Why are you walking?”

“Wanted some time to think.”

“Well, I’m headed out. I wanted to see if I could give you a lift.”

It’s strange that we’re having such a casual conversation.

“I’m headed to the—”

“I know where you’re headed,” she says. “You left the front of the hospital before a correspondent came outside searching for you. They moved him home.”

“Home?”

“It’s where his mom wanted him. She signed some paperwork and boom, he was hers.”

“Like, Illinois home?”

She raises her watch. “The next train leaves in fifteen. What do you say?”

* * *

Both of our huge guards are crammed into the backseat of Valerie’s Porsche. I almost feel bad for them. Almost.

When we arrive at the station, mine (his official name is James) actually gives a sigh of relief before opening the door and stretching his legs.

I touch Valerie’s shoulder. “When am I going to see you?”

She gives me a crooked smile and shakes her head. “Don’t know. Maybe gonna try and get my master’s between now and the time those fuckers bring us to court.”

“You know that if you need anything before then—”

“Trust me, Ev. You’ll be getting phone calls every week until the day I die, which may be soon, according to how important having a guard with me all the time was stressed.”

“Don’t joke like that with me.”

“But seriously.” Her face softens. “I’ll see you soon.”

I lean in and kiss her on the cheek. “Call me when you make it home.” I climb out and close the door behind me, bending down and meeting her eyes that have grown exponentially serious in the past few seconds.

“Let me know how Illinois goes. It’s going to be hard.”

“I know.”

* * *

My private car on the train is almost too quiet. I feel like I’m obligated to make small talk with James. Luckily for me, right when I’m about to ask him if he has any kids, his cell rings and he’s on it for the remainder of the trip, pacing the opposite side of the car where I can’t hear him. I gaze out the window for a bit, the hills rolling along. Finding my phone, I scroll through the national headlines.

Compass Room Mishap

Star Death Penalty Machine Hopeless or Hindered?

Secrets Behind CR Glitch Revealed: Criminals Tamper With System

Terrorist Evalyn Ibarra Back on the Loose: Are Your Children Safe?

I click off the screen, suddenly tired, more tired than I should feel well fed, well rested, and dressed in nice clothes. On a safe train. I can’t shake the butterflies in my stomach, and they’re so distracting that the only thing left to do is lean back and shut my eyes.

When we arrive at the Jefferson County Station four hours later, a car waits for us. My foot taps nervously on the floor as we roll through the countryside. Ten minutes pass. Twenty. I ask the driver how much longer. He replies with, “Almost,” as we turn onto a dirt road.

His mother’s house is cookie-cutter country, with flower boxes beneath the windowsills and a porch with a rocking chair. It’s almost unbearable. There’s a huge oak out front with a tire swing.

“Would you like me to wait here, Miss Ibarra?”

“Yes, please,” I reply, half-distracted as I slip from the car and close the door behind me.

The wind toys with the hem of my sundress. I’m frozen in apprehension at the memorial before me. A beautiful, white-stained cross leans against the tree. A single cabbage rose is threaded through the hook in the center of it.

My throat tightens, and I swallow.

The screen door slams. I recognize Casey’s mother from the illusion he and I shared in the CR. She’s dressed in dark jeans and a floral blouse. She’s beautiful and young.

“I didn’t call,” I say. “I’m sorry.”

“Oh no, no.” She glances to the cross and then back at me. “I was expecting you. Please come in.” As I climb the porch steps, she holds out her hand.

“I . . . Thank you. I’m sorry, I don’t know your—”

“You can call me Stefanie.”

“Stefanie. It’s nice to meet you.”

She takes me inside. The house smells like pine oil and lavender, the kitchen quaint, with blue curtains and a round walnut table. “Would you like anything? Tea, lemonade?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’m sorry if the cross bothered you,” she then says. I furrow my eyebrows in confusion. She continues. “People don’t understand. He broke my family in half.” She talks through the window at the cross like she’s talking to him. “My husband was a terrible man, but I can’t stop loving him.”

“I understand,” I say.

“I felt that you would.” Smiling, she asks, “So, are you ready to see him?”

My face flushes hot. “More than anything.”

She nods over her shoulder. “Down the hall.”

The floorboards creak beneath me, noise of the newscast trickling from the end room. I open the door.

He doesn’t see me at first, propped up in his hospital bed, a pint of ice cream resting in his lap, a large spoon hanging from his mouth. He’s transfixed on the TV and doesn’t notice me for so long that by the time he glances over, tears are already jetting down my cheeks.

Casey Hargrove: Extracted with injuries

The spoon falls from his mouth. I gasp a laugh and wipe my nose. “They didn’t tell me they moved you from the general hospital. I was waiting around in LA before Valerie told me you were here.”

A pause lingers between us. He gapes at me, jaw unhinged slightly.

“Did you need surgery?”

“Evalyn. What the hell are you doing on the other side of the room?”

Running to him, I take his face in my hands and kiss him. I keep my forehead on his when our lips part. “I thought I’d lost you.”

He grins. “Most of me is still here. Bullet missed my vital organs. Shattered my hip, though. Surgery was a bitch.”

“That’s the best news I’ve heard all week.”

“You have a thing for gimps or something?”

I pull away.

His expression falls soft, serious. “How are you?”

Me?

“I’m terrified.” I respond. I know I shouldn’t be. Not right now. Only he should matter. He is alive and breathing in my arms. This—this is a triumph.

And I know that in order to live—to really live—I must work to carry this feeling for the rest of my life.

Two Weeks Later

Home

There are two things that I’m afraid of. I don’t mean the blanket of anxiety I carry from everyone in the world wanting to kill me. I mean real fear, the kind that knots my stomach and keeps me awake for countless hours at night. The first is the thought of someone hurting Casey or Valerie. We are all over the television stations, the public radio, the Internet. Especially the Internet. Comments under articles are filled with nothing but torture suggestions and death threats for us. Conspiracy theories also, but those are usually correct. That we conspired together to break the Compass Room, and by doing so, killed an innocent girl.

The other thing that scares the shit out of me is the idea of seeing Liam.

I’ve bought a phone contract with a brand-new number, but somehow Liam ends up with it. Maybe it was Mom who gave the number to him. Maybe she thought she was being helpful.

When I hear his voice over the phone for the first time, it is even. Alien. And yet my breath still catches in my throat, tightening into a painful lump that refuses to let me speak.

“Ev? You there?”

This isn’t like when I heard his voice in prison. I had forced myself to be numb to everything, believing that he wasn’t even real. But those walls I built then are breaking.

“I’m here.”

He doesn’t say anything for a long time. I sit at the kitchen island at Mom’s house, clutching the edge of the smooth marble so tightly that my knuckles are white.

“I need to see you,” he tells me.

* * *

I don’t know where it would be appropriate to meet Liam. Any place except for Mom’s house is too public, and home can’t be tainted by anything that will make me feel vulnerable. But I don’t have another choice.

I decide to wait out in the backyard for him. Barefoot, I push myself back and forth on the swing. I remember when Liam and I were still in high school, we used to make out right beneath these swings, his body over mine as the chains creaked above our heads.

The wood gate opens.

He finds me right away, like he knew I’d be here, on this swing.

I stand.

He’s terrified, but somehow in awe too. I walk over slowly, and when I make to hug him, the old Liam comes back. He holds me to his chest, his lips finding my forehead.

“Oh my God, Evalyn. I missed you so much.”

His hands slide to my jaw and tilt me up.

“Why are you here?” I ask.

“The news is saying that you and the two other survivors are building a case against the Compass Room because it malfunctioned.”

“And you believe us?” When he nods, I say, “The rest of the universe thinks we conspired to escape.”

His lips are dangerously close to mine. I know he wants to kiss me. I spent five years learning the language of his eyes.

“I regret ever doubting you. I know you, Evalyn. I know you better than anyone alive. I made the mistake of listening to the opinions of people who have no idea who you are. I could have fought harder for you during your trial. I should have.”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference.”

“That doesn’t mean I didn’t screw up. But I won’t do it again, not this time. I’m standing by your side until this is all over. I promise you.” He leans in to kiss me.

“Wait,” I gasp, stepping back.

He frowns in confusion.

I can’t be with someone who doesn’t understand what it’s like to see a person—no matter how guilty they are—get shredded before his eyes. I can’t be with someone who doesn’t understand what it’s like to have so much blood on his hands that he will never be able to wipe away.

And he may say now that leaving me was a mistake, but he still did it. The months ahead will be harder than those that have passed. I don’t think he’s prepared to love me unconditionally like he wants to.

There’s no way of explaining this, let alone explaining that I’ve developed feelings for a murderer whom I’ve known for all of a month.

So I say, “I need a lot of time to find the girl I used to be. I need to start over.”

He nods. There is nothing in that statement he can argue.

I’m not lying to him.

But I’m not telling the truth either.

Two Months Later

Washington, DC

When Casey has healed enough to leave home, we’re allowed our debrief.

In a DC conference room, Valerie, Casey, and I sit at one end of the lengthy polished table. At the other end stands Gemma Branam—creator of the Compass Room herself.

She isn’t what I’m expecting. She must be in her sixties, with gray hair to her shoulders and a kind, heart-shaped face.

Two of her underlings sit on either side of her. They all wear business suits.

In the center of the table, hovering feet above the polished oak, is one of the spheres from the Compass Room, called a Bot. Bots are the things that made illusions tangible. They also killed most of us. The Bots hid in many places—underground, in tree canopies, within boulder crevices. The closest Bot to a candidate was activated when that candidate saw his or her trigger object, sparking memories of the crime. The brain activity would determine what kind of illusion a Bot would create.

“Evalyn, please hold out your arm, wrist up,” Gemma says. “I promise it won’t hurt.”

As much as I want to defy her, I’m too curious. When I hold out my arm the Bot floats downward, flashing a red light onto my skin. I feel the trickle of warm liquid.

“Blood,” says Gemma.

Hair tickles my skin, followed by a soft weight. I think of cradling Meghan back in the cave.

“The Bots can project a thousand different senses, and kill in a thousand different ways. Sometimes a simple laser beam does the trick, other times, we need to use more radioactivity to make someone explode.”

She says it so lightly. My stomach twists.

Many kinds of Bots were used in the CR. The mechanical vines and nooses were considered Bots, as well as the tentacle that dragged me beneath the surface of the lake. “Bots also helped us on more complicated illusions when we needed to move you. Couldn’t let you get comfortable for too long.”

Out of nowhere, a wave of water splashes across the table. All three of us jump in our seats, startled.

They flooded the basin. They flooded it to get us out of the cottage, but the water wasn’t even real. Casey and I exchange glances. He’s pale.

“How?” I say. “I still can’t believe that some experiences weren’t real. My pants were wet for hours after the basin was flooded.”

Casey’s father’s blood was caked onto my hands, but I don’t say that out loud.

“Your Bot often communicated with the chip in your brain to make you believe that you saw and felt things that weren’t really there.”

The idea of this communication makes me feel all too powerless, even now. Valerie sneers. I think she feels the same.

“If illusions that tested us were triggered by objects, what about illusions that forced us to move around? What were they triggered by?”

Gemma smirks, and I wish there were a way for me to wipe it off of her face. “Don’t think that you were alone the entire time. We were watching you, and specific illusions were my engineers attempting to either physically direct you somewhere or stimulate you emotionally for a more accurate chip reading.”

“You were watching us?” Valerie hisses. “When the Compass Room began to malfunction, you did nothing to stop it!”

“Oh, Miss Crane, don’t pretend that you know how this technology works,” Gemma chastises. “The CR system is far more complicated than you will ever, in your wildest dreams, be able to comprehend. The three of you jeopardized your lives and killed a fourth because of your refusal to listen to directions and your pathetic, destructive plan to escape.”

“Three people died because of your malfunction!” Valerie stands, her eyes lit in fury. I kick her beneath the table. The truth is, we aren’t supposed to give away that we thought Gordon’s and Tanner’s deaths were the fault of Compass Room engineers. Our lawyers don’t have enough damning evidence yet, and they don’t want Gemma to have a heads-up that they were planning on looking into those deaths.

My lawyer had found a patent involving dissolving metal that could be manipulated by nanotechnology. The description of its capabilities fit what we saw in the Compass Room perfectly. But we are still waiting for the paper trail to reveal itself, letting us know that this in fact is the technology used in the Compass Room.

If that is the case, than the warning alarm in the midst of the turquoise sky was because that technology had begun to fail when Gordon was able to cut me with a knife a few hours prior, and the engineers were trying to fix it before a candidate attempted to murder someone on top of the other malfunctions. At the very least, our lawyers can argue that we should have been removed from the Compass Room at that moment instead of after everyone had already been slaughtered by mistakes.

But Gemma isn’t fazed by Valerie’s assumption. In fact, she adds more fuel to our fire by admitting Valerie is right. “But two of those deaths were already deemed necessary, and the malfunction didn’t affect the outcome of Tanner’s or Gordon’s survival. Miss Glaser, on the other hand”—she points her finger at Valerie—“was entirely your fault.”

“How dare you.”

A thought comes to me. “Four deaths.”

Gemma raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me?”

“You act like the malfunction began when Casey and I made the Bot glitch.” I shake my head. “But you’re wrong. And you know you’re wrong too, if what you said is true. That engineers were watching us.”

Gemma frowns and shakes her head. “Miss Ibarra, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

So this is how the game is going to be played.

“Stella wasn’t supposed to die. I don’t think Blaise was supposed to either, but since I wasn’t with him, I can’t be sure. But I was with Stella. I saw the green light flash. The Bot burned her alive without a correlating illusion. The only thing she did was beg her boyfriend to believe her. I saw it happen.”

Gemma blinks and her lips twist into a conventional smile. “I’m afraid you are mistaken. Stella was supposed to die. It’s within our records.”

“You’re lying.”

“No, Evalyn. You are simply not willing to see the truth.” Her voice is soft and musical, making me hate her even more.

“How will you prove it?” It’s the first time Casey has spoken. He’s much calmer than either Valerie or me, but I blame that on the meds. He’s still in a lot of pain from his surgeries. “How will you prove that what you’re saying is true?”

Gemma forces another grin. She clasps her hands in front of her. “Well, because of this horrible debacle caused by the three of you, the Compass Room will be, for the first time, brought into the courtroom and dissected.”

“As it should be,” I say through clenched teeth.

“Then you will see everything, Miss Ibarra. Everything you thought to believe true and everything that actually holds truth. Everyone in that courtroom will see the data containing the dangerous spike your levels made when you killed Gordon in cold blood. They’ll see that it wasn’t just an act of self-defense.” Her shoulders relax. “And then you’ll be sentenced to death.”

Casey finds my hand and squeezes it hard. I think it’s to give me courage, but I no longer need it. Rage feeds by body, my soul. There is no more room for fear.

“And mark my words, I will drag you straight to hell with me.”

Valerie’s dangerous voice follows mine. “Count me in for that party.”

One Month Later

Washington, DC

Inside the limo, Valerie and I sit on either side of Casey.

We slow in front of the courtroom. I can hear the relentless crowd already.

Our elaborate argument is constructed upon our experiences. Three deviants. We will fight using the knowledge that the Compass Room was malfunctioning from the start, and that some deaths were the fault of a terrible, broken system.

If our plan works, then we may be able to stop the use of Compass Rooms for good.

I want to bring justice to Stella and Jace, but this fight runs deeper than the two of them. I’ve had months to think about every single inmate executed in my Compass Room. Each time my mind wandered back to the mechanics, I was left convinced that no one deserves to die by the hand of it.

Not even Gordon.

A human mind isn’t simple enough to be damned by a machine. And I will prove it. Somehow.

This trial won’t be like my last. I won’t go down without a fight.

Valerie’s the first to slide out when the car stops. She’s dressed in slacks and a jacketed blouse, unbuttoned so the bright color of her chest piece peeks through. With her aviators on, she looks a bit relentless.

Casey wears a suit that fits him perfectly. His sage tie brings out the green in his eyes. He’s gracious about taking the help Valerie offers him when getting out of the car. It’s going to take some time for him to get used to his permanently injured body.

I wear a gray blouse, a black pencil skirt, and pumps. My hair is tied in a loose knot and my big sunglasses hide any expression.

The three of us somehow fit together perfectly. When I stand upright on the sidewalk, I link my arm through Casey’s.

You’d think that after months of downtime, the protestors would have dwindled. But there must be at least two hundred people behind the gate in front of the courthouse. The scene is almost exactly like the one I witnessed leaving the train station four months ago. Neon signs wave back and forth through the air.

rebuke the cr

survivors are still criminals

1 peter 4:17

Photos of my victims are plastered on poster boards. People still want me to pay. But I was expecting this.

“Are you ready to start over?” Valerie asks, and we walk up the steps of the courthouse. Screams of haters and believers are a wall of noise as we move together, interlinked. Some of them want political justice. Some want a revolution. Others want the world to believe that God will rightly judge us when we die.

I don’t know what all of them think when they see us holding each other. But I know how strong it makes me feel.

Out of the chaos, I decipher one particular shout. “Daphne!” someone screams.

Somehow, with all of the police, the one person who breached the gate is a little girl. She must be Todd’s age, wearing a purple sundress and running to me with a daisy in her hand. Her mother screams her name as the police fail to notice her.

“Daphne! Get back here!”

I squat when she reaches me. She smiles, bites her lip, and hands me the daisy. Its roots are still dangling and dirt-covered—she must have picked it from a federal garden. She runs away, back to her mother, who seems relieved that I didn’t murder her daughter. She holds a Bible verse sign in her hands. I don’t know which verse it is, so I’m not sure if she has compassion for me or thinks that I should burn in the fiery depths of hell.

I stand, twirling the vibrant pink daisy between my fingers before snapping off the bottom of the stem. Casey and Valerie surround me.

“Put this in my hair,” I tell Valerie.

“Here? Now?”

I nod. She purses her lips but doesn’t question me, taking the flower. I turn around and stare at the crowd as her fingers work through my bun.

The front row witnessed the entire exchange between me and the girl. They’re evaluating what I’ve done with the flower. Over a year of the world evaluating every one of my actions. Two weeks where not even my brainwaves were safe from scrutiny. My time on the stage has only begun. There’s no going back. There’s no starting over.

There’s only continuing.

Valerie finishes.

“Looks beautiful,” Casey says.

I take his arm, and we climb to the doors of the courthouse.

Content

The Wicked We Have Done
Chaos Theory - 1
Sarah Harian

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