Atrophy. You’re panicking, and it’s shutting down your body.

I scream under the sea, vomiting a flurry of bubbles. The island’s shoreline floats only a few feet away, but the fizzing continues to fill my skull. My head weighs too much…

I break the surface for a quick sip of air. Laughter booms in the distance. I kick my spasming, stiffening legs until, clutching at the sand, I crawl from the bay on atrophy-frozen hands and knees. Already arrived, Molly limps over the shore to help me. I collapse onto my back, but that’s when the real pain begins: a branch—as long as a wizard’s staff—pokes into my windpipe. Molly’s stringy hair and fierce eyes drill down as she pushes the staff into my throat.

“WHO ARE YOU?” she shrieks.

“What…?” I choke.

“What is Nightlight?!”

“I told you—everything—” I haven’t caught my breath yet from the swim, and I’m already fighting for air.

“Tell me who they are!”

“I don’t know!” A sob breaks from my throat. This must be enough to convince Molly I’m genuine because the branch loosens against my neck.

“Don’t follow me.” She chucks her branch into the bay and bolts toward a wall of midnight-dark jungle trees. I remain motionless on my back, my hands pumping open and closed with newfound freedom—at least Molly shook me out of my atrophy.

The Nightlight boat barrels across one final surf break and then collides with the beach. As the vessel shudders to a stop, four men leap into the shallow bay. Three sprint into the forest after Molly, while the remaining one—my good friend Benjamin Briggs—crunches closer over shards of driftwood. “Hope you’re not too tired to walk,” he says, kneeling fatherly by my side. “Bit of a trek from here, I’m afraid.”

“Where are you taking us?” I whimper, thoroughly defeated. Couldn’t I be dragged God-knows-where in the morning? Just let me sleep here, half-dead on the shore.

Struggling screams cut through the thunder. One of the kidnappers—nothing but a shadow—hoists Molly off her feet and carries her back. The rest of Briggs’s team hauls their boat onto a wooden weigh station far from the tide, where it ascends a ramp before being fastened in place with bungee cords.

“Mr. Major, Miss Partridge,” Briggs announces, rising, “as I said before, I’m Ben Briggs, and you’re here to do as you’re told. On your feet.”

Standing sucks worse than I imagined. My legs are as limp and beaten as bread dough. Far ahead, a mile-high jungle looms while palm fronds flap like eagle wings in the storm. Briggs marches us to the jungle’s edge, where the ghostly remnants of the dark-green sky illuminate a signpost. The sign—a crucifix carved from a broad chunk of wood—welcomes us:

“The jungle gets darker from here,” Briggs says. “Your families want you to have these, and they’ll be proper light.”

A bright, electronic blue illuminates the dark and burns my eyes as Briggs presents two phones, both displays lit with full battery charges (but no signal). One is encased in a turquoise shell—mine. The lock screen picture is different than usual: a gorgeous, shirtless boy with olive skin. Dark tufts of hair circle his nipples. He kisses at the screen. At me.