Vinco advanced on me with his knife in hand.

“Overconfidence, Commander, will be your downfall,” I said. Weak, but all I could come up with.

“And a sharp blade through your heart will be yours,” Vinco replied.

Why didn’t I hold on to Karla’s stunner? I thought fast. “Actually time is against me right now.”

“Time?”

The admiral answered. “She doesn’t have any left. Finish the job.”

Vinco raised the blade to slice my throat. Movement across the room caught my attention for a second.

“The admiral’s wrong,” I said. “What I meant by time was I didn’t think I had enough of it to distract you. But I did. So I guess I was wrong, too.”

Armed scrubs streamed into the room. Before the room erupted into chaos, a number of uppers had been stunned.

Vinco managed to dodge the initial blasts. With his knife still aimed at my throat, he lunged at me. I kicked him in the chest. Instead of cutting deep into the skin, his slash skimmed my neck.

Single-minded, he stepped closer. My back hit a wall, trapping me. He grinned with satisfaction as he pressed his blade under my chin. The steel bit into my jaw. Then strong arms yanked him from me and spun him around.

Riley gave him a mocking salute.

Vinco was amused. “Okay, boy. You first, then the scrub.” He pounced.

Riley twisted his hips to avoid the knife thrust and knocked Vinco’s arm aside with his hand. Vinco tried again and this time Riley grabbed Vinco’s wrist, pulled him off balance and pressed a palm to his elbow, forcing him to the ground.

“Thanks for all those lessons, Commander,” Riley said. “They’ve really paid off.”

After the takeover of the Control Room, events blurred together. Lack of sleep and the stress of the previous eighty hours caught up to me. With my body aching from Vinco’s attack, I blindly followed Riley back to the infirmary to have the cuts on my neck stitched. At this rate, I would use up all the thread.

The male doctor who had helped with Doreen was pressed into service while the others decided what to do with Doctor Lamont.

I woke hours later in the infirmary’s extra bedroom. Searching, I found the doctor bustling about the infirmary, tending the others wounded in the fight.

“Go back to bed, Ella,” he ordered.

I didn’t bother to correct him. Trella, Ella or Sadie—at this point I didn’t care. Instead I said, “Every bed is full. You’ll need my help.”

He scanned the room. “Nothing serious, thank air. And only a few Pop Cops were recycled. You need your rest. Once things settle down, it’s going to be…interesting around here.”

I shuffled back to my room, thinking my task was complete and I’d leave the others to figure out the rest.

The second time I woke, Riley sat on the edge of my bed. He beamed as if he knew something I didn’t.

“What?” I asked.

“You look much better.” He smoothed a strand of hair from my face.

“I’m sure you didn’t come here to tell me that.”

“No, but it’s nice to see. Especially after…you know…Vinco.”

I shuddered at the memory of his wicked knife. Touching the tender area on my throat, I remembered how it could have been worse. “Thanks for saving me.”

“Anytime.” He flashed me another overly bright smile.

I pushed to a sitting position. “Okay, Riley, tell me what’s going on.”

“I found my brother.”

“Wonderful. How—no, let me guess. You went to the lower levels with Mama Sheepy and found the man who still had Dada Sheepy.”

“Yep. The Sheepy family is whole again. His name is Blake and he works in the kitchen.” He beamed.

I squinted. “You have more news.”

This time, he shot me a nervous smile. “I was hoping—” he pulled a necklace from his pocket “—we could make a commitment.”

A brief pulse of fear shot through me. “You mean be mates?”

“No. At least, not yet. Our tradition is to give a gift as the first step. Sort of a symbol that we plan to see how well we get along.” He laid the necklace in my palm.

A silver pendant swung from a thin chain. “A sheep?” I asked.

“I thought it appropriate, considering what has happened.”

So much had happened, and Inside would no longer be the same. But the thought of Riley by my side sent a comforting pulse through my body.

“How do I accept?” I asked.

“You wear the necklace.”

I marveled at the detail of the sheep. “Are you sure? You don’t know everything about me—”

“I do know I felt as if my heart had been shredded when I found you in our storeroom, unconscious and bleeding. And leaving you with Vinco in the holding cells was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.” He wrapped an arm around me and pulled me close. “We can take it slow. We have plenty of time.”

He kissed me. A sizzle traveled through me that didn’t stop when he drew back. My mouth tingled.

“Your answer?” he asked.

I kissed him, enjoying the sensation of happiness blooming inside me for the first time. Too soon, we parted.

“I’ll take that as a yes.” Riley unhooked the clasp of the necklace. “Another one of our traditions is for me to make the pendant myself, but I had help from Logan and Anne-Jade.” He looped it around my neck then secured it, sweeping my hair out of the way.

I fingered the sheep. “Logan and Anne-Jade? Is it one of their gadgets?”

“Yes, but,” he hurriedly added, “it’s inactive. If you ever get into trouble and need help, you can squeeze the pendant and it will send a signal. We can trace the signal to your location and send reinforcements.”

I laughed. “Do you really think it’s necessary now?”

“I may not know everything about you, but I do know that if there is trouble, you’ll be in the middle of it.”

He stifled my squawk of protest with another kiss. After a while, I forgot to be mad.

The transition from the Travas controlling Inside to a more democratic method wasn’t smooth. Even though each family elected a representative and each scrub “family” had a person attending organization meetings, many uppers still viewed the scrubs with suspicion and the scrubs in turn made planning difficult with their distrust and bitterness.

I had hoped to avoid all the political wrangling, but, since I understood both sides, I attended all the meetings to smooth relations. Even so, we had a long way to go. Overcrowding remained a problem, and a few people resisted the change in their lifestyles. Violence erupted on occasion, and Anne-Jade organized a security detail with members of all the families to keep the peace.

Being able to walk the hallways of the upper levels without worry felt liberating. Domotor also enjoyed his freedom from the hideout. He was busy preaching to everyone to be patient and understanding. All the Travas had been incarcerated for now. The Committee would decide their eventual fate. Doctor Lamont had been confined, too.

It was week 147,007, and I had received a message to meet Logan in the Control Room at hour ten. He had been camped out there since the takeover, using the computers to harvest lost information.

He hunched over a keyboard, muttering and humming to himself. I touched his arm and he almost jumped from his seat.

“Don’t scare me like that,” he said, waving a hand in front of his face.

“I’m sorry. Should I have bowed and announced my presence first? Have they coronated you fleet admiral yet?”

“Go ahead and be sarcastic.” He swiveled back to the screen. “I’m not going to tell you—ow! Let go of my ear, I’ll tell you.”

I released his lobe. He rubbed it.

“Logan?”

“All right. I found the answers to those final three files and accessed the information. Outside is something called Outer Space. It’s an airless and pressureless environment unable to support life.”

Sorrow and guilt welled. If we just had waited, Cog wouldn’t be floating out there. “Thanks for the reminder.”

“Sorry. Ah…well, we are actually traveling through it. Seems it is so vast that it takes an incredibly long time to get from one planet to another.”