I tell my legs to move but they won’t. I beg my eyes to close but they refuse. I plead for this all to be a mistake. For Elias to be somehow confused—that it’s really me he thinks he’s holding—but then his lips form the name: “Gabry.”

At first I don’t understand the sound’s coming from me—an impossibly loud wheezing sort of keening—but Catcher hears it, across the courtyard, Elias and my sister between us. He looks up at me through the window.

I realize that, like me, he’s been watching the lovers—a desperate look of repressed desire marring his features. He starts toward me and that’s when Abigail’s head snaps up and her gaze collides with mine.

Of all the times I dreamed that my sister could still be alive, all the nights I stayed awake wishing on stars and praying to any god that would listen that I would someday see her again—that she was safe and warm and loved—I never imagined it would be like this.

Chapter XVI

I spin around and run. My feet slide over the concrete floor as I careen down hallways, randomly turning left and right, not caring about the footsteps chasing me.

Finally, I find my way outside, the bitter cold hitting me like a wall. Images and memories hurtle through my head: flashes of Elias and my sister overlaying memories of Elias touching me the night before he joined the Recruiters, his hand on my cheek, his fingers finding every part of me.

His lips touching hers. My sister’s mouth so close to his.

And my sister. Myself. Alive and here and soft-looking and pretty. My sister, whose eyes glistened with so much joy at being by Elias’s side.

I don’t even know what I want anymore. I used to want Elias home. I used to want the promise of safety and security but the Sanctuary feels more like a prison. I used to want to know my sister was alive, but I never expected that she would be that part of me that no longer exists.

Snow’s begun to fall from the heavy clouds and it stings my eyes, swallowing the sound of my steps. The entrance to a low squat building rears up before me and I slam against it, almost falling inside into pure darkness. Blissfully, I let it consume me.

I fumble forward, not caring that I can’t see, not caring that my feet stumble over uneven ground. I just need to move. I can’t stop my teeth chattering. The cold air seeps around me but even so, sweat breaks out along the back of my neck.