“You?” Starkey says. “Where am I? Why are you here?”

But he’s quick to figure out his predicament, and the moment he does, Connor turns from sworn enemy into savior. He begins pleading just like the others.

“Please, Connor! However much you hate me, you have to do something!”

Connor actually goes through the motions of trying to free him at first—but only for Starkey’s benefit. He knows that he can’t do a thing. If an escape artist like Starkey can’t do it, what hope does Connor have? Based on what he’s already seen, Connor knows Starkey has only five minutes before he’s unwound, but there’s nothing Connor can do other than stand beside him, keeping him final company. The helpless above the hopeless.

“Fund-raising!” Starkey wails. “The clappers told me I had a new job in their fund-raising division. How could I have been so stupid!”

He struggles, fighting the magnetic restraint just as the other kids did, and in tears he says, “All I wanted was to give storks a fighting chance! And revenge for all the mistreatment and unfairness. I did that, didn’t I? I made a difference! Tell me that I made a difference!”

Connor considers how me might respond, and says, “You made people take notice.”

If he could save Starkey, would he? Knowing all the death and destruction Starkey has caused? Knowing the maniacal direction his vendetta took? How his personal war actually furthered the cause of unwinding? If anyone deserves to be unwound, it’s Starkey . . . and yet Connor would stop it if he could.

He puts a firm hand on Starkey’s shoulder. “This is one escape you’re not going to make, Mason. Try to relax. Use this time to prepare yourself.”

“No! This can’t be it! There’s got to be a way out!”

“You’re on a plane in the middle of God knows where!” yells Connor. “You are in front of a machine that can’t be stopped. Use these last minutes to focus, Mason. Use what time you have left to put your life in order!”

And all at once Connor realizes he’s not saying these words just to Starkey—he’s saying them to himself as well. Conner thought that being awake would give him an advantage, but it has only emphasized how dire the situation is. He tries to tell himself he’s been through worse, but there’s an intuition as solid as the airframe carrying them across the sky that tells Connor he’s not getting out in one piece. It’s only a matter of time until he’s the one lying before the mouth of the monster.

Starkey does calm himself. He closes his eyes, takes deep breaths, and then when he opens them again, there’s a sense of resolve that wasn’t there before.

“I know how you can keep me from being unwound,” he says.

Connor shakes his head. “I told you, there’s nothing I can do!”

“Yes, there is,” Starkey tells him with steely certainty in his voice. “You can kill me.”

Connor takes a step back and stares at Starkey, unable to respond.

“Kill me, Connor. I want you to. I need you to.”

“I can’t do that!”

“Yes you can!” Starkey insists. “Think about the Graveyard. Think about how I stole that plane. And I killed Trace Neuhauser—did you know that? I could have saved him, but I let him drown.”

Connor grits his teeth. “Stop it, Starkey.”

“Kill me for the things I’ve done, Connor! I know you think I deserve it, and I’d rather die by your hand than go into that machine!”

“What good will it do? You’ll still go into that machine!”

“No, I won’t. My body will go in, but I’ll be gone. I’ll be harvested, but I won’t be unwound!”

Connor can’t look at Starkey’s pleading eyes anymore. He looks away and finds his gaze landing on the shark. The brutal, angry, predatory shark. Connor drops his gaze down to the habitual fist at the end of that same arm. He loosens the fingers, and clasps them again. He feels the strength in them.

“That’s right, Connor. Make it fast—I won’t resist.”

Connor glances to the intake door of the machine. It could open at any moment. “Let me think!”

“No time! Do this for me. Please!”

Can cold-blooded murder be just? Could it be an act of compassion instead of cruelty? If he does this, will Connor ever be the same? If Starkey’s alive, he’ll be unwound. If he’s dead, it will just be a harvest. Starkey’s right—Connor has the power to prevent this from being an unwinding. It’s a horrible power. But perhaps a necessary one.

“What if it were you?” Starkey asks. “What would you want?”

And when Connor thinks of it that way, his choice is clear. He’d never want to know what lies in store within that awful black box. He’d want to die first.

Before he can change his mind, Connor clamps Roland’s hand on Starkey’s throat. Starkey gasps slightly, but as he promised, he doesn’t resist. Connor squeezes tighter . . . tighter . . . then, the instant he feels Starkey’s windpipe close off, something entirely unexpected happens.

Roland’s hand unclamps.

“Don’t stop,” hisses Starkey. “Don’t stop now!”

Connor squeezes his fingers closed again around Starkey’s neck. He holds it, feeling Starkey’s pulse in the tips of his fingers—and again, his hand inexplicably releases. Connor starts gasping for air himself, not even realizing he was holding his breath along with Starkey.

“You’re a coward!” Starkey wails. “You’ve always been a coward!”

“No,” says Connor, “that’s not it.”

And finally it occurs to him what’s wrong.

Roland tried to choke Connor with this same arm the day before he was unwound, but he couldn’t do it.

Because Roland’s not a killer.

Connor slowly looks from his right hand . . . to his left. His own hand. The one he was born with. That’s the hand he brings to Starkey’s throat. That’s the hand that digs in until he feels Starkey’s windpipe collapse beneath his fingers. That’s the hand that is tenacious and determined enough to do what must be done.

Roland never had it in him to kill, thinks Connor. But I do . . .

It’s harder than Connor could ever imagine. Tears cloud his eyes. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I’m so sorry.” He doesn’t even know who he’s apologizing to. He holds eye contact with Starkey, whose eyes begin to bulge and dart in physiological panic. His limbs quiver, his face deepens into bruise shades—yet even so, Starkey forces the corners of his mouth up in a faint grin of triumph.

Just a few moments more . . . just a few moments more . . .

Connor knows the exact moment Starkey dies. Not because he sees it in his eyes but because a vital signs transmitter on Starkey’s ankle lets loose a piercing alarm. He pulls his hand from Starkey’s throat and, hearing the outer door being unlocked, Connor leaps to the wall of Unwinds, climbs up to his niche, and vaults himself in just as the inner door opens.

First in is a medic, then the man who must be Divan. Connor watches the drama unfold from his perch, trying to slow his breathing so they can’t hear him.

“How could this happen?” says Divan. “HOW COULD THIS HAPPEN?”

“I don’t know,” says the nervous medic. “A heart attack maybe? A congenital condition we didn’t know about?”

“I’ve just auctioned him! Do you have any idea how much money I stand to lose? BRING HIM BACK! NOW!”

The medic scurries off and returns with a defibrillator. Five times he tries to revive Starkey, and although his chest arches with each blast of electricity, the end result is the same. Mason Michael Starkey, the bloodthirsty Lord of Storks, is dead.

Through all the attempts to revive him, Divan paces, and after the final attempt, his fury resolves into direction. “All right, he’s dead, but we can still harvest him.”

“Not his brain,” says the medic. “It will already have started breaking down.”

“We’ll assess its viability later—but even if we lose the brain, we can salvage everything else if we’re fast enough. Set the machine to express mode, skip the anesthesia, and lower the temperature to thirty-six degrees.”