“Where’s Emmy and Sylas?” But as soon as I ask, I spot them lying on the floor, their faces pressed in concrete and a swirl of smoke fills the air.

“It’s laced with silver,” Aiden says, heading for the door. When I don’t follow, he comes back and grabs my hand. “We gotta go. It won’t last long.”

I don’t budge. “I have to finish the memory—I have to know what I’m supposed to do.”

He shakes his head. “No, not like this. You can do it the right way—you can do it as a human.”

“And how do you know which way is right?”

“The right way is without them,” he says and motions at my face. “Look what they did to you. And they would have let it go on, Kayla, until you woke up and told them what they want. Or until you died trying. I told you, they’re killers.”

I glance at Sylas, lying on the floor, Emmy beside him. “They told me Monarch wanted us this way.”

Aiden takes my face in my hands. “Out here, we get to make our own choices about what we want to be. No one can control us. And I promise you we’ll figure out what’s in your head, but the right way.” His eyes burn with the truth.

The door bursts open and Ryder storms in, her eyes widening when she takes in the sight of me. There’s a cut across her nose and one of her knuckles is bleeding.

“You look like shit,” she tells me.

“Gee thanks,” I say sarcastically.

She shrugs. “Sorry, but you do.”

I wipe the blood from my face the best that I can, but it’s so thick on my skin and in my hair, it doesn’t do any good.

“We need to get as far away from here as we can, before they wake up,” Ryder says, scared out of her mind that we won’t make it.

We run, but I feel like I’m leaving something behind. An unfinished memory perhaps? Or maybe a piece of myself?  We race down the stairwell, the air growing light with each step. At the bottom, I spot Greyson first, red hair like fire, the purple bruise marking where I hit him. Cedrix stands next to him, watching the doorway, his one hand clutching around a small silver ball.

“Did you get the other three?” Aiden asks breathless and red faced.

Cedrix shakes his head. “There are still two wandering around. The one asshole saw me coming and bailed before the grenade exploded.” He steps out the door, the silver ball gripped tightly in his hand, which trembles slightly with the fear that we won’t make it out of here alive.

The building stays silent, our five heartbeats the only noise.

“Maybe we should just go,” Ryder whispers, moving for the door.