Iso Suzuki was last seen locking herself, her three-month-old son Vetch, and some of the other children in her personal quarters. Tears had been streaking down the woman’s face, and she’d been crying, “Why is my baby green? Where’s my daughter? Where’s Felicity?”

Michaela had no clue what had happened to Varina Tam’s son, Kayle. For all she knew the little boy lay abandoned up in the infirmary room, forgotten in the small bed they’d made for him.

Up in the clinic—to Michaela’s complete dismay—Anna Gabarron’s body still lay sprawled in its own blood. No one had thought to try and do anything with it.

Madness. It’s all gone insane.

She blinked at the hot tears that slipped past her eyelids.

Screams sounded from down the hallway, the terror barely muffled by the walls and door. Sounded like someone was being hacked to death. That kind of frantic screaming. Filled with disbelief and fear.

We were all one. Like some incredible family. This can’t be us. Not the same people who survived Ashanti. Not the people who endured all those years of deprivation. The ones who buoyed each other in the desperate moments. The ones who clung to hope of a better world.

Outside her door, she heard the pounding of feet. Bare, small feet. And from the other side of the duraplast door, she heard Felix’s voice say, “I think she’s in here.”

“Open it.” That was Sheena.

Michaela began to quake as she heard the handle rattle. Stared from under the corner of her pillow as the latch trembled against its lock.

“Can’t get in,” Felix said.

Michaela closed her eyes, sucking deep breaths. Her entire body was fear-electric, her muscles trembling.

Felix? He was only eight years old. How could that eight-year-old boy they’d all fawned over become this . . . this . . . ? The words weren’t there. The child whose birth they had celebrated as their own had murdered Bill Martin. That . . . child. Taken over, become some alien horror that had used Felix’s little body to cut a man down and flay his body open.

Probably drove that ax into Anna’s back. Brought her down, and then cut her throat.

That skinny bit of a boy and his . . .

“Use the ax,” Sheena cried with childish glee.

Michaela trembled as the first impact shivered the door. Each whack of the hatchet’s blade might have sent a spear through her heart and soul. Her body tensed, quivered as the ax smacked again and again into the duraplast.

She cried out, whimpered in desperation as the outside latch broke and clattered away across the floor.

“Dear God! Dear God!” Then she stuffed the corner of the pillow into her mouth. Paralyzed, heart bursting in her chest, she waited.

Scratching. Then something pried at her door.

“Won’t open,” she heard Felix complain. “Locked.”