I glance at my sister but she’s just staring at the floor, not saying anything. “And you’re okay with this?”

“No,” Elias growls. My sister winces at his voice. “I’m ashamed. But you have to understand that some of those are good men. I fought with many of them—they’re not all sick like that.”

“They throw people in cages and then cheer when they’re too tired to run! They chant for death!” I scream at him, then catch my breath. Try to calm the spinning anger. “We can’t stay here,” I say, my tone more under control.

“And where do we go?” Elias shouts back, exasperated. He grabs the back of his neck. “You’ve seen the maps. There’s nowhere else.”

“What about the town Abigail grew up in by the ocean?” I ask.

Elias appears confused for a moment before my sister corrects me. “Gabry,” she says. “My name is Gabry.”

My cheeks warm and I stammer, “S-sorry.” She shrugs, looking out the window.

“How would we even get there?” Elias asks. “Do you happen to have some sort of airplane or something? If you haven’t noticed, we’re on an island and it’s surrounded by walls staffed with armed men. Beyond that’s water teeming with the dead. We don’t have a lot of options.”

His voice boils with the same frustration that I feel. I throw up my hands. “Look, I don’t know. I don’t know how we get out of here, I just know that we have to. We’re not as safe as we think we are.”

My sister finally speaks up. “She’s right,” she says quietly. I glance at her, at the stubborn set of her jaw, which I know mirrors my own. I could hug her right now, but instead I flash her a small smile, which she returns.

Elias snorts and paces away from us both. “I’ll talk to Ox about the man who hit you and about the death cage. If he wants Catcher to keep supplying the Sanctuary he has to keep us safe—all of us. In the meantime, I don’t want either of you going near the headquarters alone, and preferably not without me. Now isn’t the time to take stupid risks.”

I bristle under the orders as if I haven’t been taking care of myself for the last three years. I’m about to argue when my sister gives me a look and a tiny shake of her head. “We’ll be careful,” she says to Elias, placing her hand over his. At her touch he instantly relaxes, his expression softening.

“I don’t know what I would do if anything happened to you,” he tells my sister. His words are so infused with need and adoration that I cross my arms over my chest at the naked vulnerability of it.