“Conall would have found a way to get himself killed one way or another,” I tell Ox. “He went too far.” It’s clear he sees the truth of my words but doesn’t care.

He raises a few fingers to his nose, wiping away blood. “What’s done is done,” he tells Catcher before looking at me, almost apologetically. “I’ve convinced them they can’t have both women. They don’t care which of them you hand over, they just want one. I’ll do my best to keep them from hurting her too badly.”

I stand there dazed, trying to let his words sink in. Catcher’s face pales and his hand clutching the machete trembles. “You allow that and I’ll never supply your men again.”

Ox takes a deep breath and I can hear the weariness in his voice. The same weariness we all feel. “You don’t have an option, Catcher. They patrol the walls and cable car—they know there’s no way to get your friends off the island. And they know that so long as your friends are still here, hurt or not, you have to supply the Recruiters as well.

“I’m sorry about this, I really am. I’d hoped …” He pauses and for a moment he looks lost in thought. Then he shakes his head and turns away. “Look, I can keep them in check for a day, maybe two. Give you a little time to sort it out, decide. But I can’t make any promises, Catcher,” he calls out over his shoulder as he disappears down the hallway.

I just stand there, one hand on Catcher’s chest and the other touching emptiness.

Catcher slams the door and then he punches it again and again until I pull him back, his knuckles raw and bleeding. He doesn’t stop me as I tug him out of our flat toward the stairwell. He lets me lead him to the roof, where my sister and Elias can’t hear us and where I can press snow to his bloody fingers.

He stares at where the ice melts to pink water trailing down his arm. “I don’t know what to do anymore,” he says. “I don’t know how to protect you.”

“It’s not your job to protect me,” I tell him, ignoring the frozen air that envelops us.

He reaches out with his uninjured hand and runs a finger along my lips. “I can’t let anything happen to you,” he says. “It will kill me.”

I try to hold his gaze but I can’t and end up looking over his shoulder at the dark clouds on the horizon pulling close to the City. I can hear the sound of ice freezing along the ground, the small quiet groans of the water forcing itself into cracks and expanding. Tearing our world apart degree by degree.