“This is bad,” Liam said, unlocking his door. “I knew I should have had him practice with me first.”

The door shut in Chubs’s face, only to open again all the way. I saw a flash of silver, saw Chubs raise his hands and take a step back.

The gunshot tore through the sunset, and by the time I screamed, Chubs was already on the ground.

We ran toward the room, screaming for him. All the complex’s residents were standing outside now, mostly men, some women. Their faces were monstrous blurs.

Jack’s father raised his shaking gun toward us, but Liam threw him back into his room and pulled the door shut with a sweep of his hand. My knees slid across the loose asphalt as I dropped down beside Chubs.

His eyes were open, staring at me, blinking. Alive.

He tried to tell me something, but I couldn’t hear over the screaming from inside 103. “Fucking freaks! Get out of here you goddamn freaks!”

Bright red blood bubbled up from just below Chubs’s right shoulder, spreading out over his shirt with hundreds of gliding fingers. I couldn’t do anything at first. It didn’t look real. Liam diving for the man’s gun, pointing it at 104 and 105, not real.

“It’s okay,” someone said behind us. Liam whirled around, his finger on the trigger, his face set in stone. The man raised his hands; he was holding a small phone. “I’m just calling nine-one-one, it’s okay; we’ll get him help.”

“Don’t let them call,” Chubs gasped. “Don’t let them take me.” He choked on the words. “I need to go home.”

Liam looked back over his shoulder. “Grab his legs, Ruby.”

“Don’t move him,” the man from 104 said. “You’re not supposed to move him!”

Jack’s father appeared behind us again, but the man with the cell phone tackled him back into the room and kicked the door shut behind him.

“Grab him,” Liam said, tucking the gun into the waistband of his jeans.

I slipped my arms under Chubs’s, carrying him the same way he had carried me. One of the other men stepped forward—maybe to stop us, maybe to help.

“Don’t touch him!” I screamed. They backed off, but only just.

Chubs pressed his own hands against the wound, his eyes wide and unblinking. Liam took his legs, and together we carried him. The men called after us, telling us the ambulance would be there any minute. The ambulance, along with every PSF. The soldiers wouldn’t save him; they wouldn’t. They’d rather see a freak kid die.

“Don’t let them take me,” Chubs squeezed out. “Keep my legs below my chest, Lee, don’t lift them so high, not for chest wounds, breathing difficult—”

It wasn’t the babbling that sent the spikes of fear straight into my heart, but the unending pulse of blood leaking out from behind his hands. He was shaking, but not crying. “Don’t let them take me.…”

I climbed into the backseat first, pulling Chubs in behind me. His blood soaked through the front of my shirt, burning against my skin.