We got closer and our shoulders collided as we slowed to a jog, our attention elsewhere. To our right, the glow of a compound that would normally be sleeping slowed our pace. Sirens howled. A yellow haze of artificial light hung in the sky.

Matt stopped and put his hand on my shoulder, panting. “I’m not sure this is safe. They must be on high alert searching for you.”

Between breaths, I said, “No. The place is in chaos. I think we probably have a good shot of going unnoticed tonight.”

Matt was just a shadow in front of the glow and the trees. “Chaos? What do you mean?”

The words didn’t want to come out my mouth. If I spoke them, it made them true. It released some of what was inside, and I wasn’t sure I was ready.

“We need to keep moving,” I said, taking a step forward and trying to ignore him.

He caught my shirt and pulled me back. “Joseph. What happened in there?”

Just say it. I killed Superior Este. I killed all of them.

“Superior Este is dead,” I said.

Coward.

Matt’s hands fell to his sides. Even as a shadow, his body language was clear. Shock. “How?” he asked, his voice high with disbelief.

I shrugged, unwilling to admit it to anyone.

Matt ran a hand through his hair. “Was it Rosa? Is that why they have her?”

I didn’t answer. Which was as bad as saying yes. What was wrong with me? I was letting the girl who saved my life take the blame for my actions.

“Oh no,” he said. “I think we should leave.”

We were so close now. I could hear the red dot on that screen screaming for me. I needed it. Orry needed me.

“You can leave if you want. I have to find her handheld,” I whispered tersely. I picked up the pace, pulling away from the glow, from my crimes that felt like they were written in the sky. I needed to know where Orry was. He was my home now.

Matt lagged for a few seconds but caught up with me. We jogged silently, one ear out to the compound, ready to sprint away if we heard soldiers coming.

Cold air cleaned my lungs. I concentrated on the pain in my side and the burn of needing oxygen to feed my working muscles. If I could focus on the mechanics, maybe I could forget the unnatural tearing my heart was doing. Matt puffed beside me. Then he stopped breathing and moving. His hand shot out and pulled me down to the ground with a sudden jerk.

“Look,” he said mutedly, pointing his shadow of an arm. Twenty meters in front of us, torchlight crossed like swords in battle.

Loud voices whined through the dark. “This doesn’t seem important. Este’s dead for God’s sake!” a woman complained, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation.

“Mmhmm. Superior Grant wants everything back the way it was.”

Two women were tying the wolf coats back on to a newly raised line.

“Ugh! Who cares about this, though?”

“Maybe they will.”

“Who?”

The woman paused and teetered on her ladder. “The murderers.”

My throat closed, memories of loud shots and falling bodies clamping around me.

Murderer.

I gulped and tried to push it down, hide from it, until I could get out of there.

Matt signaled to me, pointing to a pile of rocks at the foot of the tree the wire line was tied to. My head rolled to the sky. Of course it would be there.

The women were still yapping as I crept closer, keeping my body low to the ground. One stood with the torch in her mouth, her hand clamped over the dried-up paw of one of the creatures. She put an iron peg in it and climbed down her stepladder. As she dragged it along the ground, I stole as close to the tree as I could. When they started talking again, I reached into the pile of rocks to find the handheld. My hand searched for something smooth and plastic and found nothing.

I turned back to Matt several meters behind me. He put his hands up as if to say, I don’t know. Desperately, my mind started to hope that maybe she had managed to get here first. I withdrew my hand carefully. It was shaking from fear and hope meshed together. The rocks tumbled, the noise seeming louder than a landslide, and the women stopped talking. Shit!

I picked up a stone and threw it across the gap in the trees where they stood, just as the handheld nudged my other hand, which was still braced against the pile. The stone hit a turbine, sending a gong-like sound up the tube, and the women turned in its direction. I grabbed the handheld and retreated slowly. Equally crushed and relieved at the same time… more crushed.

We crept backwards for at least another twenty meters, painfully slow, our knees squishing in the mud and leaves. Once we were sure they weren’t coming for us, we turned and ran back to the camp.

Running away from the compound a second time hurt just as much. It was final now. I would not be going back there, ever. If she were alive, she would have to find her way back to me. On her own. The words stabbed me—I was useless.

As we approached the camp a few hours later, I grabbed Matt by the shoulders to stop him from entering before I told him, “Don’t say anything about Este and Rosa, please.” My arm tensed at the lies I was telling, and I squeezed his shoulder too hard.

He shook me off. “I’ll tell them about Este but I won’t say how it happened, okay?”

“Thank you,” I said, with no relief.

We walked into the camp, and I went straight to Desh. I whispered close to his ear, standing over him like the menace I was. “Have you told anyone what I did?”

He pulled back and made eye contact, shaking his head in disappointment. “Of course not, Joe. It’s not my information to share. But I really think we should talk about it.”

I laughed bitterly, “There’s nothing to talk about, Desh. It’s over. Done.” I sliced the air with my hand.

“But…” he started to say, but I stopped him.

“Please man. Not now,” I begged.

He let it go, but I could tell this wasn’t the end of it. I pulled him down to sit next to me and turned the screen on. It remained black. I shook it, panic dropping a curtain on my restraint. I was about to throw it against a tree when a man came to me, someone I recognized from the Monkey City.

“It’s on standby,” he said, his breath sour and hot on my face. He snatched it from my tense grip and flipped it over, opening up the back and flicking a switch under the battery. “See.” He held the screen in front of our faces until it lit up.

Icons gleamed in front of me. But when I went to the map, nothing came up. My frustration was boiling up inside me. I wanted to smash the thing against a rock until it was nothing but splinters of black glass. The man rolled his eyes and said, “Turn on the GPS signal.”

Desh took it from me and manipulated the screen until he had what I wanted. A blinking, red light far away from here.

I pointed to it and nudged Desh’s shoulder. “That’s where the boys are.”

We stared at it for a few seconds before it was snatched from Desh’s hands.

“Now turn it off before they all get a lock on where we are!” Gus snapped. He switched it off.

Both of us sighed. Desh smiled. He’d been waiting a long time for this and now, Hessa was closer for him. Whereas I felt like a doll being pulled by the arms in two different directions. Soon the stitches would pop, and I’d be torn in two.

ROSA

I remember this feeling, my insides electrified, my head buzzing with healing. But I was safer.

With the blue comes the memories. People I hold onto, people I need. Safer than me, I pray.