Elias sat down next to me. Pulled me to his side, tucking my head to his chest, where I could hear his heart pounding and the way his breathing hitched, so I knew he was crying too.

It was afternoon and dark clouds pushed around the horizon. He sighed. “If it rains hard enough, maybe we can make it without them sensing us and waking up,” he finally said. “We’ll just have to wait here for a few days and see.”

So we’d spent two days on the top of that mountain, trying not to stare down into the sleeping horde. Then on the third evening a storm gathered and started out small but by morning was so furious that we could hear the crack of trees falling and the groan of the metal fences shifting.

The mountain edge was crumbling beneath us as we climbed down to the road. When we got to the bottom, we ran along a brick wall and then sprinted over the bridge that bucked and swayed from the wind howling down the valley. Thunder and lightning raged around us, the rain so heavy we could barely breathe. It felt like the entire world was tearing apart.

The last I’d seen of the horde had been when a crack of lightning struck the bridge, buckling it just as we reached the other side. Cars exploded in sparks and fell into the valley, illuminating the slumbering bodies below before crashing to the ground.

I drop my hands and square my shoulders—shoving the memory from my mind. I’d escaped them once before and now I would have to do it again. “We’re trapped in the tunnels.” Already I can hear the moans filtering down the stairs. “It won’t be long until they’re everywhere.”

“You said you knew where Gabry is and we can’t leave her. We have to make sure she’s okay,” Catcher says, as if he thinks I’m on the verge of giving up.

It takes a heartbeat for me to remember, again, that Gabry is my sister. That she’s no longer Abigail. Thinking about her being out there somewhere with the dead flooding the streets causes my throat to close up. I’ve left her defenseless once before and I won’t do it again.

My mind whirs over what to do next. I pace along the edge of the platform, the fire behind shifting and sending sparks into the air. “Even if we surfaced here we’d still be in the Neverlands, and the bridges don’t connect the entire island anymore,” I think out loud. “We’d have to cross the Palisade wall on foot, and I don’t trust the Recruiters to let us through or for it not to be overrun already.”

“Can we take the tunnels?” Catcher asks, and of course it’s the obvious question.

I stop and stare at him for a moment. The tunnels connect the entire island like underground rivers. The Protectorate used to keep them patrolled and used wheel walkers to keep the pumps running so they didn’t flood. The tunnels have always been off-limits and dangerous but have only gotten worse since the Rebellion: aside from the caved-in sections I’ve heard that some areas are underwater. It’s a labyrinth that might just swallow us whole.