Outside, the rain is now gone, the sky as clear as if it were never here. Strange, but I don’t have time to ponder the weather right now. My siblings follow me to the mouth of the alley, where we crouch and wait for the officers to arrive. I’m tempted to ask the twins how much smoke I would’ve had to inhale to feel its effects, or what exactly those effects are, or how long I have until they set in—but maybe it’s better not to know. It’s not going to make a difference anyway. This diversion will give us one chance to slip past the Gaian patrols, and we have to take it. So I stay silent as we wait, and try not to wonder if the tingle spreading down my limbs is more than pins and needles from holding this crouch.

Soon a group of uniformed officers come running toward the warehouse. I press myself against the alley wall and hold up a hand to signal my siblings. Right as they pass by, I straighten, and the world sways around me.

“Okay,” I whisper, putting a hand against the building to steady myself. I stare as it ripples beneath my hand, shake my head, and turn to my family again. “Move fast and quiet. We have one chance at this.”

Shit. The effects of the Sanita are definitely hitting me now, strong enough to make my head spin. There’s no way Titan soldiers fight like this; I must have inhaled too much. I would probably be panicking if not for the drugs dulling my nerves. But regardless, this is our one shot at making it out of here. We have to move, now.

I suck in a deep breath, take two steps forward, and fall flat on my face.

“Violation of off-world visa regulations, violation of Code Blue quarantine, possession of class-one contraband, possession of unauthorized weapons…”

An unfamiliar voice drags me out of the black void of unconsciousness. My whole body hurts, but mostly my nose. I groan, trying to touch it to assess the damage, but I can’t move my hands. Instead, I peel my eyes open and squint in the sunlight. The voice prattles on as I try to make sense of the blurry world around me.

“Arson, ingestion of a prohibited substance, public intoxication, resisting arrest…”

“We only resisted a little,” Pol says, somewhere behind me, and Drom chuckles.

“For the third time, please be quiet while I finish the list of infractions.”