“Joss?” Ryan prods, pulling me back to reality. “Lay it on us.”

Trent is sitting beside Ryan across from me on the floor. The long lines of the tall windows shine huge rectangles of light into the room around us, casting the boys partially in shadow, partially in light. Trent’s eyes watch me intently from the dark and I think it’s no accident, the way he’s sitting.

“When I was in the Colony,” I begin, spinning the ring on my finger nervously. “I made friends with some people. One of them was a pimp from The Hive.”

Ryan scowls at me, surprised and obviously annoyed by this information. Trent couldn’t care less.

“He was in there with two of the women from their stables. One of them went full native, but the other wanted out just like us. I ended up making some friends in the kitchens too. Eventually, they told me that the people in the Colonies aren’t happy with how things are being run. They’re locked in, just like I was, and being preached to about keeping the unclean out. Their cleansing process when you go in there is creepy thorough, I can vouch for that. But worst of all, they’re separating families. They’re doing it to keep people in line, to have a threat to hang over their heads. I think the higher ups must know their people are getting pissed at being locked in and they’re trying to keep them under control. Otherwise, why do it?”

Trent nods in silent agreement.

“And these people,” Ryan asks, disbelieving, “the angry ones, they want out of the Colonies?”

“Not entirely. They don’t want to come live in the wild. It terrifies them.”

“Then where will they go? And how will they break out?”

“How did Joss do it?” Trent asks, his eyes on me.

I don’t flinch. “That’s not important.”

Trent grins slightly, but he doesn’t respond. He knows. Not even because Ryan told him, which he might have, but he just knows.

“We’ll have to break them out,” I tell Ryan. “After that, they want to gain control of the buildings again. Get their freedoms back.”

He laughs. “Seriously? They want to stage a coup? And you and I, we’re going to break them out? How?”

I’m annoyed he’s laughing at me, but I’m grateful he’s lumped himself in with me as well. I hadn’t hoped for that.

“We won’t do it alone.”

“No, because that’s impossible.”

“We need help from The Hive.”

His smile disappears. “Now I know you’re joking,” he says seriously.

I shake my head faintly. “I’m not.”

“Joss, that’s insane,” Ryan says, his voice rising. “You can’t work with The Hive. You can’t ask for help from The Hive.”

“I have an in.” I hold up my splinted left arm, showing him my finger wearing the ring. “Vin, the guy from The Hive, he gave me this when I left. He said to take it to Marlow, the head of The Hive. He said to tell Marlow that he sent me.”

“This is the guy who got stabbed, isn’t it?” Ryan asks, his voice going low.

I nod. “He was stabbed because of me. Well, partially. Partly because he was a careless man whore, but also because of me. I owe it to him to go back for him. I owe it to all of them.”

“And this guy, this pimp, he thought Marlow would help you if you showed him that ring?”

“No. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t work.”

Ryan frowns, his face exasperated. “Then why are you even thinking about doing this?”

I don’t have a good answer for that. Not a smart one. So I give him the only one I do have.

“Because I made a promise,” I say firmly. “I don’t do that very often. I’d like to keep it.”

“That’s honorable,” Trent tells me.

Ryan shakes his head at him. “It’s stupid is what it is.”

“Most honorable things are.”

“I need you to take me to the market,” I tell Ryan. “I need to go there and make contact with someone from The Hive so I can try to get an audience with Marlow.”

“The market isn’t the place to do it,” Trent tells me.

My shoulders sag, deflating with my meager hopes. “Then where? The market is the only place I know of where you all come together.”

“Really?” he asks, his eyebrows raised.

“Oh man,” Ryan mutters. He runs his hand over his face quickly, looking annoyed. “Don’t.”

“Are you talking about the fights?” I ask. “The Risen fights?”

Trent nods solemnly. “There are more members, more high members, of The Hive at the Underground than you’ll ever find in the markets. If you go to the market, you’ll only get the run around and end up owing a favor to some ugly people who got you nowhere. You want Marlow or one of his inner circle, you have to go to the Underground.”

“Can you take me there?”

“Yes.”

“No,” Ryan says firmly.

“Why not?” I demand.

“Because this is stupid, Joss. This whole entire thing is crazy. What are you hoping to gain from talking to Marlow? His help? He won’t help you. They’re not a helpful bunch.”

“I know that,” I say indignantly.

“Then what are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking I have to try!” I shout, losing myself. “I’m thinking I care for once and I want to help people. Vin and Nats, they’re like me, Ryan. They’ll die in a place like that. It will break them just like it would have broken me. And I care so that bothers me and it sucks but the switch has been flipped and you flipped it so you can’t tell me to undo what’s already been done.”

Ryan stares at me in the falling light, his face looking strong and golden in the amber glow. He’s changed everything and he knows it. He can hate this plan all he wants, but he has to understand that if I’m going to care about him, I’m going to care about others as well. It may get me killed, just as I knew feeling anything for him could, but it doesn’t make it any less worth it. I can see it in his eyes, what Nats warned me about. It’s harder to live than it is to survive, but he’s worth it. Going to sleep knowing I tried for the others, even if I’m sleeping in the stables of The Hive, will be worth it.

“I’ll take you there,” Ryan tells me quietly. Reluctantly. “Give me two weeks and I’ll take you.”

“Two weeks? Why not tonight?”

He snorts, shaking his head. “You can’t go with that splint on. They get off on weakness and you’ll have to at least be able to pretend your arm isn’t useless. Besides, I haven’t been there in a while. I can’t just show up one night with a girl no one’s ever seen before on my arm, asking to talk to the boss.”

“You’ve been to the fights before?”

“A time or two.”

I turn to Trent. “You too?”

He simply nods.

“And they know you down there?”

“Yeah,” Ryan says, smiling sadly. “They know me there.”

Chapter Five

A week later, while Ryan and Trent show their faces in the Underground on the regular, I make a visit to Crenshaw. It’s a little scary going out with my arm in the splint and the Risen population still bloated from the fall of the Colony, a Colony I have now lived inside of, but I’m going stir crazy in my apartment. I have to get out and I have to face Crenshaw.

When I go to my wall of weapons to pick something out, I nearly burst into tears. There, hanging in its home, is my ASP. It must have been here this entire time, I just never noticed it because I didn’t need to, but now that I see it I’m nearly crying with relief. After Trent saw me taken he must have told Ryan where it happened. Maybe Trent told him that I’d lost my weapon or maybe he found it on accident, who knows. The important thing is that it’s here, right where I need it.

And I do need it. The Risen population is still high, still an ongoing problem reminding me of the old days. They shuffle and bumble down the streets, through alleyways and into everything. I stand in my doorway for a bit watching and remembering as they walk into each other. Into the remnants of cars. Into old sign posts. It’d be comical if it weren’t such a pain. If it didn’t remind me of the worst times of my very, very worst case scenario life.