“She’ll learn to be,” the voice answers.

A muscle twitches in Tair’s jaw, but he squares to face her.

“I won’t give up.” The girl lifts her weapon, shaking. “I can’t wash out. Not now.”

A tone sounds. The sparring match begins. Tair counters her wild swings easily, not breaking a sweat, and so obviously trying to keep her out of danger, but her movements are jerky and awkward. She shrieks as she falls back.

“Fight or you’re out, Allison!” The instructor calls.

Panic flashes across her face at the thought of failure. She’ll be cast out. Probably killed.

My heart tightened with what I knew was coming. That fear was her mistake.

She makes another crazy lunge and her toe sticks in the gap between two mats. She stumbles.

Tair’s swords are already swinging.

The sharpened point that should’ve been a harmless miss slices the girls’ throat.

The rest of the past filled my head. Tair cradling her, calling for help. The crushing guilt afterward. He’d wanted to be punished, but his parents had swept it under the rug. That was when he’d changed from cocky boy to brooding adult. He wanted to make up for the life he’d taken and that was what he’d been doing.

Trying to make things right.

And he could’ve, if not for me. If he would’ve worked for Nagi like he planned—without me to distract him—Tair could’ve done amazing things. He’d actually help the Red Helix girls instead of setting them back like I was doing.

A bitter, probably crazed laugh slipped out of me. Setting them back?

Darren had used me to make more of them. Red Helix mini-Quantas, born just to suffer.

Now Tair was dead and I couldn’t blame anyone but myself.

And I didn’t know what to do about it.

A piece of his hair stuck to his forehead. I reached to brush it back. At least I could do that much.

Tair’s skin felt cool against my fingertips, but touching him still quieted the chaos in my head. I could focus. Be in the present…

But wait.

Should that be possible?

My heart exploded back to life. Fingers shaking, I twisted the closest medical monitor to face me.

He had no pulse. No breath.

Dead for sure.

But brain cells didn’t die right away. They still had activity.

Not life, exactly, but close enough.

Please be enough.

The image of Darren’s lab flew to the front of my mind. Tair and I were drawn in dark, crisp lines and I could see every bit of it like I was still there, from the gaping researchers to the gut-twisting things floating in the tanks beyond us.

Hope burned inside me.

It wasn’t too late.