The Chancellor was silent for a moment. But when he spoke again, his voice was calm. “That won’t be necessary.” The Chancellor removed something from his desk drawer and placed it in front of Wells. It was a metal ring affixed with a chip about the size of Wells’s thumb. “Every member of the expedition is currently being fitted with one of these bracelets,” his father explained. “They’ll send data back up to the ship so we can track your location and monitor your vitals. As soon as we have proof that the environment is hospitable, we’ll begin recolonization.” He forced a grim smile. “If everything goes according to plan, it won’t be long before the rest of us come down to join you, and all this”—he gestured toward Wells’s bound hands—“will be forgotten.”

The door opened and a guard stepped over the threshold. “It’s time, sir.”

The Chancellor nodded, and the guard strode across the room to pull Wells to his feet.

“Good luck, son,” Wells’s father said, assuming his trademark brusqueness.

“If anyone can make this mission a success, it’s you.”

He extended his arm to shake Wells’s hand, but then let it fall to his side when he realized his mistake. His only child’s arms were still shackled behind him.

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CHAPTER 3

Bellamy

Of course the smug bastard was late. Bellamy tapped his foot impatiently, not caring about the echo that rang throughout the storeroom. No one came down here anymore; anything valuable had been snatched up years ago. Every surface was covered with junk—spare parts for machines whose functions had been long forgotten, paper currency, endless tangles of cords and wires, cracked screens and monitors.

Bellamy felt a hand on his shoulder and spun around, raising his fists to W/block his face as he ducked to the side.

“Relax, man,” Colton’s voice called out as he switched on his flashbeam, shining it right in Bellamy’s eyes. He surveyed Bellamy with an amused expression on his long, narrow face. “Why’d you want to meet down here?” He smirked. “Looking for caveman porn on broken computers? No judgments. If I were stuck with what passes for a girl down on Walden, I’d probably develop some sick habits myself.”

Bellamy ignored the jab. Despite his former friend’s new role as a guard, Colton didn’t stand a chance with a girl no matter what ship he was on. “Just tell me what’s going on, okay?” Bellamy said, doing his best to keep his tone light.

Colton leaned back against the wall and smiled. “Don’t let the uniform fool you, brother. I haven’t forgotten the first rule of business.” He held out his hand. “Give it to me.”

“You’re the one who’s confused, Colt. You know I always come through.” He patted the pocket that held the chip loaded with stolen ration points. “Now tell me where she is.”

The guard smirked, and Bellamy felt something in his chest tighten. He’d been bribing Colton for information about Octavia since her arrest, and the idiot always seemed to find twisted pleasure in delivering bad news.

“They’re sending them off today.” The words landed with a thud in Bellamy’s chest. “They got one of the old dropships on G deck working.” He held out his hand again. “Now come on. This mission’s top secret and I’m risking my ass for you. I’m done messing around.”

Bellamy’s stomach twisted as a series of images flashed before his eyes: his little sister strapped into an ancient metal cage, hurtling through space at a thousand kilometers an hour. Her face turning purple as she struggled to breathe the toxic air. Her crumpled body lying just as still as—

Bellamy took a step forward. “I’m sorry, man.”

Colton narrowed his eyes. “For what?”

“For this.” Bellamy drew his arm back, then punched the guard right in the jaw. There was a loud crack, but he felt nothing but his racing heart as he watched Colton fall to the ground.

Thirty minutes later, Bellamy was trying to wrap his mind around the strange scene in front of him. His back was against the wall of a wide hallway that led onto a steep ramp. Convicts streamed by in gray jackets, led down the incline by a handful of guards. At the bottom was the dropship, a circular contraption outfitted with rows of harnessed seats that would take the poor, clueless kids to Earth.

The whole thing was completely sick, but he supposed it was better than the alternative. While you were supposed to get a retrial at your eighteenth birthday, in the last year or so, pretty much every juvenile defendant had been found guilty. Without this mission, they’d be counting down the days until their executions.

Bellamy’s stomach clenched as his eyes settled on a second ramp, and for a moment, he worried that he’d missed Octavia. But it didn’t matter whether he saw her board. They’d be reunited soon enough.

Bellamy tugged on the sleeves of Colton’s uniform. It barely fit, but so far none of the other guards seemed to notice. They were focused on the bottom of the ramp, where Chancellor Jaha was speaking to the passengers.

“You have bt>

Bellamy barely suppressed a snort. The Chancellor had some nerve to stand there, spewing whatever bullshit helped him sleep at night.

“We’ll be monitoring your progress very closely, in order to keep you safe,” the Chancellor continued as the next ten prisoners filed down the ramp, accompanied by a guard who gave the Chancellor a crisp salute before depositing his charges in the dropship and retreating back up to stand in the hallway. Bellamy searched the crowd for Luke, the only Waldenite he knew who hadn’t turned into a total prick after becoming a guard. But there were fewer than a dozen guards on the launch deck; the Council had clearly decided that secrecy was more important than security.

He tried not to tap his feet with impatience as the line of prisoners proceeded down the ramp. If he was caught posing as a guard, the list of infractions would be endless: bribery, blackmail, identity theft, conspiracy, and whatever else the Council felt like adding to the mix. And since he was twenty, there’d be no Confinement for him; within twenty-four hours of his sentencing, he’d be dead.

Bellamy’s chest tightened as a familiar red hair ribbon appeared at the end of the hallway, peeking out from a curtain of glossy black hair. Octavia.

For the past ten months, he’d been consumed with agonizing worries about what was happening to her in Confinement. Was she getting enough to eat? Was she finding ways to stay occupied? Stay sane? While Confinement would be brutal for anyone, Bellamy knew that it’d be infinitely worse for O.

Bellamy had pretty much raised his younger sister. Or at least he’d tried. After their mother’s accident, he and Octavia had been placed under Council care. There was no precedent for what to do with siblings—with the strict population laws, a couple was never allowed to have more than one child, and sometimes, they weren’t permitted to have any at all—and so no one in the Colony understood what it meant to have a brother or sister. Bellamy and Octavia lived in different group homes for a number of years, but Bellamy had always looked out for her, sneaking her extra rations whenever he “wandered” into one of the restricted storage facilities, confronting the tough-talking older girls who thought it’d be fun to pick on the chubby-cheeked orphan with the big blue eyes. Bellamy worried about her constantly. The kid was special, and he’d do anything to give her a chance at a different life. Anything to make up for what she’d had to endure.

As Octavia’s guard led her onto the ramp, Bellamy suppressed a smile. While the other kids shuffled passively along as their escorts led them toward the dropship, it was clear Octavia was the one setting the pace. She moved deliberately, forcing her guard to shorten his stride as she sauntered down the ramp. She actually looked betterthan the last time he’d seen her. He supposed it made sense. She’d been sentenced to four years in Confinement, until a retrial on her eighteenth birthday that would very well lead to her execution. Now she was being given a second chance at a life. And Bellamy was going to make damn sure she got it.