I run over and drop to my knees beside her trembling body. “What’s wrong?” I ask, reaching for her. Now that I have a chance to really look at her, I realize who she is: Victria. Harley and Elder’s friend. The girl who writes, stories or novels, I think. The last time I spoke with her, I told her about the sky on Earth and how it never ended, and she spit in my face, denouncing me in front of everyone.

She snatches her hand away. Sweat beads on her face and arms, and she’s panting hard. “Luthe—Luthor. He’s . . .”

Him.

My stomach drops.

He’s the one. The one who held me down three months ago, who used the Season as an excuse to try to rape me. He was like Harley and Elder—aware of the world around him without Phydus dulling his mind. He knew what he was doing when he slammed me to the ground and pressed his weight against me. When he watched hope leave my eyes. When I gave up struggling.

He told me his name was Luthe, but Victria called him Luthor. Like Lex Luthor, Superman’s arch-nemesis . . . but the exploits of a bald super-villain seem comical compared to the evil that lies behind this Luthor’s skin. I realize then—Luthe is his nickname. The name his friends call him. The idea of calling him that fills me with revulsion. I don’t like to think of him in the same terms his friends do.

The door zips open again. Victria whimpers softly, hiding her face. I jump up.

He stands in the doorway, scanning the room.

His eyes lock on me.

And he smiles. Slowly.

Seductively.

7

ELDER

THE DOOR IS LOCKED. JUST THE WAY I LEFT IT.

After—after everything—after

Orion was frozen and

Amy found out the truth and

Eldest died and

I watched him die . . .

I watched him die.

After all of that, I crawled back up to the Keeper Level. The empty, hollow Keeper Level. And I broke into Eldest’s room, and I found his stash of alcohol, and I stayed drunk for two days straight. Then I threw up for two more days, and then I relocked his door, one of the few doors that even has a lock.

And I put a table in front of it.

Now I shove the table out of the way so forcefully that it tips over on one side and crashes to the ground.

Before, the Keeper Level seemed too big, big enough for everyone on the ship to stand in it at one time so they could be lied to while they looked up at the ceiling and gasped at the light bulbs called stars.

When it was Eldest and me, this place felt huge, the space between us filled with emptiness and silence. Now that it’s just me, the Keeper Level feels claustrophobically small.

My wi-com beeps. I jab it with my finger to silence it.