Because I don’t have a better target it for it, I punch the console where the dull buzz of Mogadorian progress drones on. Sparks erupt from the dashboard and Adam leaps out of the pilot’s chair, startled. Marina gets onto her feet and tries to wrap her arms around me, but I shrug her off.

“Six!” she yells after me as I jump out of the cockpit. “It isn’t over!”

I stand atop our Skimmer feeling rage burning inside me, but having nowhere to channel it. I look at the Sanctuary, bathed in light. This place was supposed to be our salvation. Our trip down here hasn’t changed anything, though. It almost got us killed and now we’re out of the war. How many people are dying because we’re not there to help John save New York?

I feel an itch on the back of my neck. Someone’s watching me. I turn around, my gaze drifting to the runway and the other ships. Phiri Dun-Ra is awake, tied up right where we left her.

She grins at me.

CHAPTER

SEVEN

WHEN ELLA SPEAKS, A JOLT PASSES THROUGH me. Suddenly, I can move again. I leap up from my operating table and try to shove the Mogadorian doctors surrounding Ella.

My hands pass right through them, like they’re ghosts. They’re frozen in space now, unmoving, the moment a snapshot before me. I need to remind myself that this is all happening inside my head, or Ella’s head, or somewhere in between. In our dreams.

“Don’t worry about them,” Ella says. She sits up, passing through the ooze machine that’s attached to her chest, and then the Mogs as she hops down from her table. “I can’t even feel what they’re doing to me.”

“Ella . . .” I don’t even know where to begin. Sorry for letting you be kidnapped back in Chicago, sorry for not saving you in New York . . .

She hugs me, her small face pressed into my chest. That much feels real, at least.

“It’s okay, John,” she says. Her voice is almost serene, like someone who has accepted her fate. “It isn’t your fault.”

There’s the Ella I’m hugging and then there’s the Ella frozen in time, still pinned down to the operating table beneath the Mogadorian machines, surrounded by enemies. I can’t help looking past the Ella in my arms and staring at the horrific results of her Mogadorian imprisonment. She looks pale and drained, streaks of gray running through her auburn hair. There are already black veins visible beneath her skin. A chill runs through me and I force myself to look away, squeezing Ella a little tighter.