I knew I should say something to him, but I was really out of it. I ended up parroting Mia’s words: “He is the red one, the fair one, the handsome one. He came from the Earth and now he returns. The faces keep changing.”

That definitely freaked him out. He snapped his fingers in front of my face until I could look up at him. It was hard to focus.

“Why?” he asked me. I blinked like I was waking up from a nightmare.

I told him. Not everything, but a little. That Vuk was a hitman for the Ratel and he’d asked me to kill him to free him. Sal, bless him, believed me right away. Barely even blinked before he was thinking of a way to fix it. Mostly to help himself, but still, he wasn’t a totally selfish bastard, either.

“They’ll be sending the Ratel here. The only way you won’t die tonight is if you get out of here right now. Go home, get your things, and then go. I’m trusting you. Go straight there.”

So I followed his advice. Before I ran away, I felt like I needed to … I don’t know. Leave my mark. I scratched the sign of the Hearth, sad because I knew I’d never figure out exactly how everything was connected. Then I wrote Mia’s name in our alphabet. She was the only person who knew I was undercover. If the Ratel got me before I made it home, then I knew you could ask her, Taema, and at least have a few answers.

I started going home, but then I changed course and went to you. Sal ended up phoning the police after all, though, and they tracked my VeriChip and came and found me.

I wish I’d done it differently. Ripped the VeriChip out of my wrist, made you do the same, and we could have disappeared before they could find us. I don’t know where we would have gone, or what we could have done, but it would have been better than all this mess.

You know everything that happened after that. I think you even know more than me now.

They were supposed to put you into protective custody. That’s what they told me they were gonna do, just after they took me, when I said you were in trouble, too. That Mia might have sold me out to the Ratel so my cover was blown. But instead, they made you become me, and you got put in just as much danger.

Bunch of fucking bastards.

I’m sorry, T. I made a huge mess out of everything. And, as usual, you found a way to fix it. But that’s not fair. It’s not fair on you at all.