I shudder. “I don’t think they know what they’re missing,” I say. “They don’t have to worry about the people they love and what’s going to happen to them tomorrow or the next day.”

Elias looks confused. “But that’s what makes us alive. We make mistakes. We love and lose. That’s life.”

I think about what it felt like to have the Recruiter pulling on my hair, almost drag me over the wall. The terror inside that Catcher won’t make it back. Or that if he does we’ll still be stuck on this island forever, however long that lasts. “Don’t you think it would be easier without that?”

Elias doesn’t answer right away. He climbs off the wall and walks to my drawing of Catcher, staring at it. He raises his hand to his neck, and now the gesture reminds me of Catcher. Now it’s somehow Catcher’s and not Elias’s. “Do you ever think about the night before I joined the Recruiters?”

His back is to me so I can’t see his expression, and suddenly I’m a bit unsteady with this conversation. “What do you mean?” I finally ask.

He pauses. “The night you and I …” He waves his hand around as if he can’t say the word kissed.

I swallow, uncomfortable. “Yes.” My answer seems too brash. “Maybe.”

He turns to look at me, his eyes so intensely light. I’d forgotten how blue they are. How they can almost disappear. “Would you give that up?”

My cheeks are burning, my breath a little ragged. “What?” I don’t understand what this has to do with anything. I turn and jump off the wall, start toward the door. But Elias blocks my path.

“Did it hurt?” he asks, stepping closer. “When I left the next day?”

I want space to clear my head and gather my thoughts and stop the spinning. I back away until there’s nowhere to retreat to. “No. Yes. Maybe. Maybe it hurt later.”

He comes closer so that there’s hardly any space between us. And I notice that his nearness brings none of the heat that Catcher’s does and nothing inside me wants to draw nearer. “Would you give it up?” he whispers.

Would I give it up? Isn’t it the moment I first felt beautiful?

“I don’t know.” It’s the only honest answer I can give.

His expression changes, just a little, as if he’s scored some small victory. “If you’re willing to give that up and everything else—leaving your sister on the path, struggling in the Dark City, even your scars—everything that makes you you, that makes your life yours … that’s when you walk out into the horde and give yourself over to them.”

“It’s not that easy,” I whisper.

He pulls away from me, giving me distance. “Why isn’t it?”