“Will he be okay?” I ask, once again looking at the dead faces around me.

“He’ll be fine,” Molly says as we heave the boy into the tube, leaning him against the back so he’s half standing. “He’ll be dead, but he’ll be fine.”

Molly reaches up and presses a button on the inside of the chamber and the tube spins until it’s sealed shut.

“Dead?” I repeat as tendrils of icy mist snake up against the base of the glass, fogging it a little. Malachai’s head rolls as he begins to wake up. And then the two largest, longest needles I’ve ever seen in my life emerge at opposing angles from the base of the chamber, moving steadily, rapidly, until they pierce Malachai high up on the inside of both his legs.

I don’t breathe as I watch my friend die.

The blood is sucked out of his body, his skin turns a horrible shade of gray, and his cheeks suck in against the bones beneath his skin. The hollows where his eyes once were make his face look like a skull. Once he is completely still and lifeless, the cylinder fills with liquid and a single stream of tiny bubbles rises relentlessly up.

“Molly … he’s—”

“Get in,” she interrupts, pointing to the chamber beside Malachai.

“I’m not getting into that thing,” I say.

“You have to, Luka.”

“But everyone in this room, everyone in these tubes, is dead.”

“I know. It’s the only way. No time to explain out here, Luka, I’ll explain everything in Purgatory.”

“Purgatory? Purgatory, Molly? This is—”

“Just get in the chamber. Please. If you’re not dead when the drones come, they’ll kill us all.”

And before I can point out how ridiculous that statement is, Molly climbs into the tube, presses a button above her head, and the chamber spins shut.

“Luka,” she says, banging on the glass, her eyes suddenly wide with realization, “once you’re in there, get out quickly. As soon as the Mosquitoes retreat, get out! There’s something wrong …”

But then the needles come and Molly dies.

I stand in the former arcade, surrounded by the dead and the darkness and the silence. All I can hear is my own panicked breath rasping in and out in short gasps.

“What the hell?” I whisper, feeling the dread building up in me. “What the hell, what the hell, what the fuck?”

Once you’re in there, get out quickly. There’s something wrong …

What was she trying to say? What was she trying to tell me?

I feel as if my heart is a misfiring engine in one of those ancient cars outside and my lungs are fishing nets, unable to hold the oxygen I need to live.