He’s wearing a Recruiter’s uniform—not dingy and frayed like all the others, but crisp and clean with a red sash of fabric over his chest. He strides toward the fence, all his focus on Catcher.

His mouth moves as he shouts an order, and I think he’s telling the guard to let us through, but I can’t be sure. The crowd surges and screams, shoving against us. A girl next to me stumbles and falls, but before I can help her up she’s trampled and I’m pushed too far away.

Catcher shoves me to the gate, a throng of Recruiters trying to keep the swarms of panic-stricken people at bay. They begin to climb the fence, not caring about the curls of barbed wire on top. I can’t watch as they tangle through it, as bright stripes of blood stretch over their skin.

My body seizes at the memory of the razor wire’s pain on my own flesh. At the burn and sting. Catcher punches a man trying to pull me back from the gate, trying to take my place. People scream and wail in my ears and claw at me as the gate slips open a crack.

Recruiters reach through, yanking me past the fence, and then Catcher’s after me. It’s too much for those left behind. They sense the opportunity and pounce, tearing at the fence and pounding on the gate.

The Recruiters open fire, not caring who they shoot. I see one Recruiter lighting what looks like bottles of alcohol, tossing the makeshift bombs into the crowd. The flames lick and spread. People try to beat them out but there’s no room and bodies flare and flail.

I’m pushed along the platform, no longer paying attention to who’s grabbing me and why. Rough hands shove me into a car that’s already moving, the steel cable pulling it up and away.

Safely inside, the din of the riot drowning all sound, I press my face against the window and watch the shore recede. The few Recruiters left are unable to beat back the tide of panicked people and are soon engulfed.

Some of them leap for the cable car but we’re already too far away, the metal box swinging side to side as we’re pulled slowly over the river. I feel the steel cable shuddering under our weight, the entire cab stuffed with Recruiters.

I look around desperately and then I sense the heat of Catcher against my back. “We made it,” he says into my ear and his hands find mine. My body trembles, overwhelmed by our narrow escape. By the number of people left behind.

Men around me shift out of the way as the large Recruiter with the red sash pushes his way toward us. He stops in front of our tiny trio and I twist to face him. He looks at Elias and then at me and finally at Catcher, and his face breaks into the grin of a predator.

“Nice to see you again,” he says.