“Absolutely nothing,” Mist said, holding my gaze. “But you’re going to trust me, Cobalt. Because this is your only way out, and you know it. Because if you die here, your underground is as good as gone. Talon will wipe them off the map, and now they have both the numbers and the resources to do it. They’re planning something huge, something that will change both our worlds forever, and you need to know what it is just as much as I do.”

Dammit. She was right, and she knew she was right. “All right,” I growled. If the choice was either die in a Talon cell or die trying to get us all out of Talon, I’d go for the one that gave us a chance, miniscule as it was. “This is getting us nowhere. We can either stand around threatening each other, or we can just get on with it. So, how were you planning to get us out of here?” I asked Mist. “We can’t exactly open the door and stroll down the hall in plain sight.”

Mist gave that faint, mysterious smile. “Actually,” she said, holding up a key, “that is precisely what we’re going to do.”

Chapter 24: EMBER

EMBER

“She’s nearly ready.”

The voice echoed around me, hollow and cold. I spun, peering at my surroundings in confusion. I stood in the center of a vast, rocky plain that stretched on until it met the sky. Behind me, a chain-link fence encircled a cluster of familiar gray and white buildings. Seeing them made my stomach flip-flop with nerves. My old school, in the middle of the Great Basin. But...why was I here now?

“Excellent,” said another voice, seeming to echo out of the sky. “Then prepare the procedure. The drug will bring her most vivid memories to the surface first so they can be removed. Once they are gone, we’ll have to dig deeper, but this is a good place to start.”

I frowned, gazing around for the people the voices belonged to, but other than the silhouette of a buzzard soaring overhead, I was alone. A moment later, I couldn’t remember what had been said. A warm breeze ruffled the scrub around me as I gazed through the fence at the buildings that were as familiar to me as the back of my hand. I had spent so much time here, very nearly my whole life. But that didn’t explain why I had come back.

“Ember,” said another voice, closer than the last and much younger. It sounded alarmed. I looked up and saw two small figures a few yards away. They were about six or seven, with the same bright red hair and green eyes. I gasped as I realized where I was, recognizing this moment in time.