The world around her seemed to slow. Her field of vision tunneled. Winter wasn’t here. He didn’t make it.

  No. She didn’t know that for sure. Stairs first. Her mind lurched back to her task. She was pushing her lungs past their abilities, and she felt them protest, her breaths turning rapid. Still, she hopped up the steps, then slammed herself against the door leading into the bridge and burst into the space.

  Penelope Morrison was already here.

  She stood with her arms behind her back, watching Sydney with a deadly calm. A few of her men stood around her, their guns pointed at Sydney. And behind Penelope was the bridge’s control board, the lights flickering on and off against the lengthening evening.

  Stabs of pain shot through her chest, sharp enough to make stars explode across her vision. Sydney could see the phone behind the girl, her signal out to the rest of the world, her chance to alert Panacea to their location and their status.

  But the phone’s line was already cut.

  Her link to the outside world was severed.

  “Shoot her,” Penelope said simply.

  Sydney threw herself to the floor as the first shots fired. She reached into her pocket, found her pen, and shut her eyes. Then she slammed it against the ground.

  Light exploded everywhere. Penelope flinched back with her hands up, partly shielded from the blinding glare by the bodies of her men. They cried out, their hands flying instinctively to their faces.

  Sydney could see the glare even through the lids of her closed eyes. The world flashed a searing red. She knew it was bright enough to leave spots in her vision for a while.

  Memorize every room you ever walk into, Niall had taught her. You never know when you’ll need to escape it blindfolded.

  She didn’t have time to wait around for her vision to steady. Now she thought of where each person had stood and where their cries came from. She rushed toward the first guard—before he could blink the glare from his eyes, she hit him hard in the throat. He made a choked sound before crumpling. She rammed into the second, then used the momentum of his body to knock into the third.

  He cracked his head on the floor and went limp.

  The phone was out. Her mind raced, urging her to stop lest her lungs seize.

  If you can’t be fast, be smart, she reminded herself.

  The ship’s signal flares.

  She felt the cold barrel of a gun press against her temple.

  “Stubborn as me,” Penelope grumbled, her firing arm steady.

  Where was Winter?

  They’d caught him. He was dead.

  The thought rushed through Sydney in a blitz of grief. She’d been on missions before where agents had been killed. But Winter—

  A burst of rage hit her. Sydney jerked to one side and flung a fist out at the same time. She struck Penelope’s arm right as the gun fired.

  The blast sounded like an explosion, so close that Sydney felt the heat of it against her skin.

  Penelope swung the gun back toward her, but Sydney brought her head back and butted her as hard as she could.

  Penelope stumbled backward. Sydney lunged at her, aiming to knock the gun out of the girl’s hand—but Penelope had already recovered and turned to one side with surprising speed. She looked dazed, though. The girl wasn’t trained for combat, not with that fragile body.

  But that didn’t mean her guards weren’t still ruthless.

  Already, Sydney saw the men recovering, two of them dragging themselves onto their feet and the third up and facing her. The spasms in her lungs pulled her breathing tight—once, twice, so acutely that she hunched forward for a second. She couldn’t keep fighting so many of them. Sydney turned her eyes toward the bridge’s windows.

  “It’s too bad,” Penelope said to her as she circled in an attempt to get closer to an exit. “I think we could have been friends.”

  “And why’s that?” Sydney shot back, her voice thin with pain.

  “Because loss drives you, too.”

  There was no disdain or taunt in her voice. Only genuine empathy. Somehow, Penelope could sense it in Sydney, the wounds that she worked so relentlessly to fill. Their conversation before the concert flashed back to her. Maybe people like them were always drawn to each other.

  The first of Penelope’s guards lunged at Sydney. This time, when she darted away from his hit, he pivoted with her and caught her on the jaw with a glancing blow.

  Stars exploded in her vision, and pain lanced through her jaw. She whirled, knocking against the bridge’s console board.

  Sydney didn’t try to attack him again. She was running out of time and strength. Instead, she scrambled up onto the board—her hand found the sliced phone and she slammed it against the window as hard as she could.

  Once. Twice.

  The glass shattered. As the guard reached for her leg, she pulled herself through the opening, ignoring how the broken glass slashed her hand as she went.

  “I know what you’re feeling,” she called back at Penelope, her voice straining.

  Penelope’s jaw tightened, offended. “You don’t.”

  “I do.” She met the girl’s eyes steadily. “And this isn’t going to earn you the peace you want.”

  “And did you find your peace?” she said.

  “I left my nightmares behind me.”

  Penelope turned her head up at Sydney. She looked sad. “I think you just brought them with you.”

  Then Sydney was on the outside of the bridge and sliding down to the deck. Cold wind streamed through her hair.

  She hit the floor and scrambled up quickly enough to see Penelope turn back inside. The girl must know that Sydney was heading for the signal flares—and sure enough, Penelope burst out of the bridge’s door and headed toward its back side, where the signal flares were likely kept in a watertight container.

  She was going to destroy them.

  Penelope’s guards rounded the bridge and charged at her. She struggled up to her feet—but one of them had already gotten hold of her leg. In a single move, she was swept off her feet. Her chin hit the edge of the bridge window, and her vision went blurry for an instant from the impact. She kicked out blindly.

  Now the man swung her, sweeping her across the floor. She gasped as she felt her ankle twist the wrong way. Her body went tumbling across the deck. Her lungs pulled taut—she was having real trouble breathing now. Instinctively, she rolled—and felt a bullet ping off the metal of the deck right next to where her face had been. The guard pressed the trigger down at her again—Sydney’s hands flew up in vain to her face.

  The gun clicked empty this time. Out of bullets.

  He snarled and lunged down for her.

  Sydney kicked up with her good leg—her boot connected with his groin. The man’s eyes bulged; his entire body went stiff. Sydney kicked him again, this time striking him hard across the face. The light blinked out in his eyes, and he crumpled to the deck.

  Sydney pulled herself up, gasping for air, her chest pain making her double over with each labored breath. She thought of a past mission where she’d been captured and trapped in a prison cell, where a guard had kicked her so viciously in the stomach that she’d felt like she was drowning. Her eyes swept across the grid towering around her, the silhouettes stark against the lengthening evening and the artificial lights that now flared up. No sign of Winter.

  He was dead. The realization of Penelope’s earlier words to her now stabbed straight through her chest. The casual tilt of his face, the mischievous, sidelong grin he sometimes gave her.

  He was gone. He must be.

  Why the hell did she get attached to someone like him? Why did they have to take him away from his perfect life and put him in danger? What would they tell the world? His mother?

  Would she care? Would she be relieved?

  She never should have let him go. He was wounded. He never should have been climbing—

  No time. No time. Sydney forced herself to her feet again, tearing her eyes away from the grid and back in the direction that Penelope had gone. A new, white-hot rage engulfed her. She ignored the agony from her throbbing ankle and started hobbling as fast as she could around the bridge. Her focus narrowed into a bright tunnel. Her breath wheezed loudly. Her lungs screamed for her to stop.

  Contact Panacea. Contact the outside world.

  Right as she reached the wall where the flares were located, her lungs finally reached their breaking point. They seized—and Sydney collapsed, struggling for air. She was lying in a prison cell again, gasping like a fish.

  She felt the other girl’s presence more than she saw her. The shadows on the floor flickered, and Sydney looked up through her swimming vision to see Penelope jumping down at her.

  Somehow, through her fight to breathe, Sydney managed to roll out of the way—but Penelope saw the movement coming and shifted with her. Then Penelope was on top of her, pinning her down with her legs, and her hands were wrapped tightly around Sydney’s neck.

  Penelope wasn’t nearly as strong as her, but Sydney was too exhausted to fend her off. She fought to suck in enough air—her chest exploded with pain each time—her eyes widened in agony. She was going to drown here. She tried to roll the girl off, but when she glanced to her side, she saw two more of Penelope’s guards running toward them. One of them pointed a gun at her.

  It was over. Sydney knew her lips must be turning blue now, her mouth opening and closing in gasps. The darkness was closing in, along with the inevitability of her death. So, this was how she was going to go. Alone, on board this ship, after having failed a mission, out of breath. Her partner gone.

  Sydney clawed for Penelope’s face, but the lack of air had weakened her and thrown her off, and Penelope stayed grimly on. The girl’s eyes had gone flat now, but behind it, Sydney could still see the pulse of that strange empathy, as if Penelope were choking herself.

  This was how it would end. Tears sprang up in Sydney’s eyes as she struggled to breathe. Her head tilted in the direction of the flares.

  And only then did she see him.

  He looked hunched, and the hand clutching his wounded shoulder was covered in blood, and his black hair was streaked with blood, and his arms were slashed in blood, but Winter was standing there, right by the flares, with something clutched in his other fist. Sydney’s lips trembled.

  Winter.

  Blood sprinkled his arms and leaked down his chest. But he was here. He was still alive.

  And suddenly, she remembered being rescued from the prison cell during her past mission, of Niall’s gruff, kind face bending down to her, his hands helping her to her feet. Time to go, kid, he’d said.

  Winter lifted his good arm and pointed the object high into the air.

  A flare.

  And right as Penelope noticed where Sydney was looking, Winter fired it.

  33

  Worthy

  He didn’t wait to see if the flare went high enough, or whether or not it burst. The instant he’d fired it, he just dropped it and sprinted for Sydney. His wound sent spasms of agony through him, but all he could focus on was the sight of her there on the floor, of Penelope’s hands around her neck, the tears glossy in her eyes. All he could do was react to the look in her eyes, the blueness of her lips.

  As if she was making peace with her own death.

  Oh, hell no. Winter’s hands clenched into fists as he ran.

  As the first guard approached him, he turned sideways and kicked off the wall of the bridge, then twisted so that his boots connected right with the guard’s face. The move caught the other man completely by surprise. Winter took the moment to kick straight at the man’s armed hand. The gun flew out of his grasp and spun across the deck toward Penelope.

  As if in slow motion, he could see Penelope reaching for the spinning gun. He forced himself forward.

  His boot hit the gun before she could reach it. It spun sideways. He dropped and rolled with it. Tears seared his vision from the pain. He clenched his jaw and reached for the weapon with the last of his strength.

  Then his hand closed around the grip. He twisted against the floor to point it at Penelope. Pinned beneath her, Sydney’s movements had stilled.

  Penelope stared at him, then gave him a hard smile. Her hands stayed locked around Sydney’s neck.

  You can’t do it, her eyes said. Strangely, in this moment, he saw a spark of something he recognized in her, some wild, deep well of anger that he’d first noticed at her apartment.

  Suddenly, he felt someone barrel hard into him. Hands clawed at his face and scrambled for his gun.

  In the blur, he recognized his attacker—it was Connor, his face bloody from the Paramecium that had exploded in the storage room, his eyes bloodshot and teary from the chemical burn. His growl rattled harshly in his throat, as if he were dying.

  Still, he was strong. Winter fell to the floor at the attack. He fought to hang onto his gun—but Connor seized his wrist, forcing him to drop it. Winter kicked it before the man could grab the handle. The weapon went skidding across the deck.

  Somewhere in the distance, Winter thought he heard the sound of helicopter blades.

  Connor swung a fist at his face. Winter managed to duck the blow—but a second fist caught him on his jaw. Stars exploded across his vision. He twisted away and rolled, recalling a bit of choreography he’d once learned, then struggled to his feet.

  But he was no trained fighter. All he had were tricks and illusions. And he was running out of time.

  Connor lunged for the gun that Winter had kicked across the deck. Winter bolted after him. He managed to catch the man’s shoes. They both tumbled to the floor.

  Connor looked back and twisted his wounded lips at Winter. When he spoke, the words came out in a gurgling rattle. “You’ll die with me,” he hissed. He kicked at Winter’s arms. Winter winced as the man’s shoe hit his knuckles. A second kick.

  Winter couldn’t hang on any longer. He released Connor, and the man pulled free. He reached for the gun.

  It was over. Winter looked on helplessly as the man neared the gun, braced himself for when Connor would grab the weapon and swing it around at him. Nearby, Penelope was getting off Sydney.

  Again, he thought he heard helicopter blades, but everything seemed slow and far away. They weren’t going to make it out of here alive. Sydney moved a little against the floor, her head still turned toward him, but he saw her eyes flutter closed. Her body was contorting in pain as she fought for air.

  No. No.

  It was losing Artie all over again. It was waking up at six A.M. to the sound of his mother’s anguished voice from downstairs, her asking in disbelief over and over if they had identified the right body. It was him sitting helplessly at the top of the stairs, knowing he had just let his brother go off to his death without ever saying his proper goodbyes. It was being unable to save a person he loved.

  A person he loved.

  He could feel himself deteriorating rapidly, the adrenaline that had carried him this entire time finally crashing as his blood loss began catching up to him. His chest felt numb, his limbs tingling. The run he’d done just minutes earlier up on the steel grid seemed impossible now.

  Sydney seemed to turn weakly in his direction. For a moment, he thought they exchanged a final look.

  Then something made her look up and away from him. He blinked slowly.

  How did Artie feel, when he finally died? Was he afraid?

  And for a moment, Winter thought he saw his brother crouching beside him, those thoughtful dark eyes turned down at him and a furrow in his brow. He gave Winter a sad smile.

  Winter looked up at him, yearning to reach him, knowing even now that he couldn’t.

  I really thought I had more time with you, he whispered, more to himself than anyone else. All I ever wanted was to be like you.

  The last thing he saw was Artie reaching down for his hand.

  No, it wasn’t Artie. It was—

  —a soldier in black gear?

  And then the beating of helicopter blades became overwhelming, seemed to engulf him. Was he imagining things?

  The bullet from Connor’s gun never came. Instead, the black-clad soldier was shouting in his face, asking if he could hear him. Winter could only stare back in confusion. He must be hallucinating.

  The world around him was fading into nothingness. All he wanted to focus on were the words that seemed to come from somewhere in his past, as if in a dream, words that echoed in his mind right before he slipped entirely into darkness. Words from Artie.

  Be like you, Winter.

  34

  Breathe

  The helicopter.

  Then, two more.

  And then there were agents everywhere. She heard a voice blaring from a megaphone overhead. The wind whipped up by the helicopters sent dust flying and her hair whipping against her face.

  Panacea must have found them. They must have seen the flare.

  But all Sydney could focus on was the overwhelming pain in her lungs, the feeling of drowning in the air, of being unable to draw her breath. As if in a dream, she saw a team of paramedics rushing to them, dropping from the sky one after another, could vaguely feel the shudder of their boots pounding against the deck. All she could do was struggle to keep Winter in her fading view as their bodies clustered around them, peeking between the jumble of legs to see his still figure even as they checked her pulse and her limbs for wounds.

  Their shouts rushed past her with the sound of the wind.

  He might not make it.

  As if from a distance, she felt an oxygen mask press against her face. Everything in her body surged forward at it, her soul flinging itself at the air in a desperate attempt to breathe it in.

  She knew she should be listening for Penelope’s arrest, looking on as agents cuffed the girl’s arms behind her back, noting the look on her face as she met Sydney’s gaze, as if this wouldn’t be the last time they’d cross paths.

  She should be thinking about what to say when she had to confront Niall and Sauda.