“And you, pretty face, are going to knock it out of the park,” he said, sliding Ava’s backpack over her shoulder. He leaned in and whispered, “I stuck your phone in the side pocket. You need me, I’ll be a hologram for you in a second.”

“Do you promise, Quincy?” she asked.

He knew she wasn’t talking about the phone.

Ava had made the same request almost every day since the night she explained how it ended. How she watched the monster move in so close to William that she feared it would tear him apart in those horrible jaws. Even at nine years old, she’d understood why William held the gun to his head. If he were dead, there would be no way to ever reignite them all.

But then William had turned the gun from where he held it against his temple and began to fire at the monster, right into its eye.

She’d been with it for so long, she’d become part of it too. The hundreds of veins that had so long ago lodged themselves into her skin meant it was a part of her. She knew it was completely armored, nothing could penetrate it. But the eyes, those large slashes of darkness, were as vulnerable and jellylike as her own.

William had fired over and over into them, and she felt the pain in the monster’s head. It screamed again, this time in confusion and disbelief. By the time William had run out of bullets, it could no longer see, but was still very much alive.

And that’s when she felt him, reach down to her and ignite the weapon within her. But this time, instead of being directed out into the world around her, it was focused entirely on the monster itself.

She felt the others too, from the dreams, including her sister. The tendrils of the creature burst into flames. Winds suddenly rushed around them, fanning the fire that now burned its horrid face and neck. She felt the diseases from Lily join the ones she sent as well, turning the skin from oily black to a fading gray.

The lights around her had gone out. The tentacle holding William’s pod dropped as the monster fell, its horrible face smashing against the floor, thrashing for a moment before it lay in silence.

Then, she felt no connection to the others. The disease, so much a part of her that she could taste it, was gone. She felt lighter.

She forced her way through the filmy prison, stepping out to see the other pod had crashed. A single hand reached out from it, and a red-haired man stumbled free.

“You know the deal,” Quincy said, his hands on her shoulders. “You go to school. You get good grades and you talk and you show everybody what you’re made of, and I promise. We’ll go see William again.”