Kina, Pander, and I climb to the top floor. I lay Wren down and try to catch my breath.

“We’re stuck here,” I point out, “there’s nowhere to go! Great plan, Pand—”

There’s no time to finish my sentence—the great glass roof above us shatters, sending enormous shards glittering onto the nets and down to the ground floor.

The building is now an enormous open-roofed atrium. A flying car lowers itself down inside it until it’s parallel with us. I stare openmouthed at the Volta Category 8, the same car (with a few new scratches and dents) that had saved me from certain death on top of the Black Road Vertical, and had crash-landed not long after.

As the last of the glass fragments fall, I see Igby smiling at us from the Volta. He’s even thinner than he was before, making me wonder about how my friends have been surviving out there.

“How’s things?” he asks, nodding at Kina.

“Not too bad. You?” she replies.

“Eh, fuck it, you know, could be worse,” he says, and then turns his attention to me. “Luka, long time no see.”

Igby’s pantomime is cut short by USW rounds zipping up from below, slamming into the metal of the staircase and the underside of the car.

“Do not kill them,” an emotionless host instructs from below. “We may need spares.”

“Go, go, go!” Pander calls, shoving Kina toward the vehicle.

Kina climbs up onto the railing and leaps into the back of the Volta 8; still weak from the harvest, she barely makes it inside. Pander takes Wren from me and goes next, passing the still-screaming girl to Kina, who drags her inside.

I follow Pander, climbing up onto the railing just as Kina did. I gauge the distance between myself and the car and propel myself forward, forcing the haggard muscles in my legs to work, but something is wrong. I feel an impact in the calf of my right leg at the same time as I hear the USW round screeching through the air. The ultrasonic wave enters my skin, distorting and tearing through muscle and meat, into my shin bone. I cry out in pain and my forward momentum falls to almost nothing. I feel as though I’m hanging in midair.

My hands windmill in front of me, reaching for the car, then grasping for anything and finding nothing. I’m going to fall. I’ll land in one of the nets and I’ll be taken back to my cell once again.

All of this happens in the space of a second. And just when I know all is lost, a hand wraps around my wrist, gripping me with immense strength.

I look up and see Pod, an expression of grim determination on his face.

“Go!” I hear Pander call, and the car lurches upward into the air, back through the shattered roof.