We zigzag down the tunnel, passing by a few people who glower at me, still frightened about my mention of the Highers. But they don’t dare make a move because I’m with Aiden. He takes me to a ladder and we climb up and step out onto the side of a rocky hill. The giant fiery rocks still surround the scenery and so do the caves that etch them

“Are we safe out here?” I ask, glancing at the shadowy sky. “Isn’t it a little too close to night?”

“As safe as anywhere else.” He sits down on the side of the hill, in the midst of the rocks and sand and pulls me down with him.  Then he lets go of my hand. “What do you remember about The Colony?”

I shrug. “That it was a…” I trail off, uncomfortable.

“This is a safe place, Kayla. There’s no Highers lurking around, listening to our every word.” He picks up a rock and throws it onto the ground below our feet. “Were you happy when you lived there? Were you sad when you woke up from the Gathering and realized you weren’t there anymore?”

I press my lips together, knowing my answers, but not wanting to share them.

“You can tell truth,” he says, like he knows I’m a liar—knows me. “You can tell the truth now. There’s no one stopping you.”

I want to—I desperately want to. But I can’t. “I don’t really know what I felt.”

He sighs, disappointed. “Well, I’ll tell you what I felt. At first I was in a panic, wondering how I was ever going to survive in the outside world—feared I’d die within a few hours. But after a while, and after a lot of questions were answered, I moved on.” He looks at me, his eyes burning with the passion in his words. “Because I finally realized something.  Being controlled by the Highers isn’t a life and in a way, I was already dead when I lived there—at least my mind was.”

Silence grasps the air as I take in his words, agreeing with him completely, but still my lips refuse to utter it aloud. He chucks another rock, this time harder, and it smacks against the ground, shooting fragments of red across the land.

“They take everything away from you that matters,” he says. “The Highers do.”

“I know.” My voice startles me.

“Who’d they take away from you?” He stares at me expectantly.

“They didn’t take anyone away from me,” I lie, not wanting to speak Monarch’s name. “I never had anyone to begin with.”

“No one at all.” He sighs, rubbing his forehead. “If that’s true, Kayla, then it’s really sad. You had to have someone.”