He smiles bitterly. “Not the horde,” he corrects me. “A horde.” He turns back to the wall, shoving in more pins. “This one’s from the beginning, right after the Return. They thought they could try to stop the infection if they led the huge hordes of dead into the Forest and closed them off. Contain them all. We’ve been fighting other ones for decades, slowly whittling them down. This one we just ignored. It was in the Forest, they were downed and there weren’t people around to waken it.…”

I press my cheek against the chilled wall, not even listening to him trace the route of the horde from the valley in the Forest toward the Dark City. Not telling him that I saw it as a child. My skin feels flushed, like a fever. This is all happening too fast—my mind can’t keep up anymore.

Finally, I realize Ox is silent. He shifts on his feet, coming to stand beside me. When I look up at him his expression is sympathetic, as if he understands my confusion and heartbreak. It’s hard to remember that he’s my captor now.

“It can’t all be gone,” I whisper, needing to believe this is some sort of complicated ruse designed to throw me off and make me docile.

He shakes his head, and I can tell that the maps are the truth. I can see in his own face the pain of this reality.

“That’s why I needed you to see this, Annah. You’re a fighter, like I am. But you need to know that there’s nowhere else for you to go even if you’re able to escape. If you want to survive, then you have to fight for this Sanctuary alongside us.”

He lets the final pins drop to the floor, silver flashing, as I try to catch my breath and stop the tears from clawing up my throat.

“We need Catcher,” he continues. “Our survival depends on his ability to go out into that world and bring back supplies and food. You and Gabry and Elias are here to make sure he comes back, because if he doesn’t, then we have no use for you anymore. You’ll just become a drain on our resources.”

He leans toward me. “I don’t like trouble—I don’t like dealing with it because it’s nothing more than a distraction.” The tendons along his neck strain. “And so there’s something you need to remember: we only have to keep around one person Catcher cares about to control him. And right now we have three.”

Slowly, deliberately, he reaches out a finger and trails a scar that runs along my jaw. I try to jerk my head back but I’m pressed against the wall. I bat his hand away and he smirks, knowing he’s gotten to me.