“Mary, you have to help me here!” He is yanking on the rope and I feel it bite into my wrist. I can see how his hands are shaking. He steps to my side, grabs my shoulders and pulls me to the table. He picks up the ceremonial blade left by Sister Tabitha and slides it under the Binding rope.

And then the pressure on my wrist releases. Free, Harry starts to ransack our cottage, gathering clothes and food and stuffing them into a bag.

I pick up the other end of the rope, let it slip through my fingers. The fibers are still warm where the knots around Harry's wrist used to be.

Time feels as if it has slowed, stretching taut like a thread of wool. The siren blocks out every other noise so that I can see people running past the window by the door, throwing glances over their shoulders, fog swirling around their feet so that it appears as if they are gliding, but it's all almost silent, their moves lost in the one long solid note of the alarm.

The panic I have been bred to feel doesn't come. Instead, I walk to the window, not bothering to cover my body as I watch my friends and neighbors scramble for the platforms. Even now a part of my brain, the part that is buried in my subconscious, urges me to action. Urges me to get dressed and to run. Run with the rest of them before it's too late. Before the platforms are full and all the ladders have been pulled away.

Behind me Harry is shouting orders but his words mingle with the siren, all a jumble in my head. A small part of me wonders if this siren will delay the ceremony, if there will still be time for Travis to come for me. I wonder if there really is a breach or if it's something like my mother, someone getting too close to the fence. Someone taking a risk, losing their mind, getting Infected.

Argos scratches at the floor frantically trying to dig his way out. His nails scrabble and slide uselessly on the wood and I can sense his rising panic. He lifts his head as if to howl, his teeth bared, his eyes pleading for me to do something.

Finally, I am just reaching for my skirt when I see it. A flash of bright red out of the corner of my eye as it streaks past the window. I know that color. I know how unnatural it is. I know that speed.

The Unconsecrated are here, among us. This is no drill.

Gabrielle is here.

I fumble with the buttons on my skirt and I go to the door as I pull a shirt over my head. I pause with my fingers just touching the latch. What if it's too late? My heart pounds as indecision streams through my blood. What if the platforms are already full?