“Or what pharmas he’s given them,” I add. “They could be so brainwashed and lethargic they don’t even realize they should be trying to escape!” The thought hits me so violently, I slam my hand into the wall in anger. I instantly regret it.

“Dammit,” I say, folding over myself and cupping my smashed right hand with my left. The tears that prick my eyes sting, and there’s no stopping them. Even once the pain subsides, which it does, quickly—thanks to my fast-healing Similar body—the tears come hot and fast, rushing out of me in a torrent, and in seconds I’m sobbing. I’m bowled over, releasing all the anger and frustration and fear that’s been welling inside me these past few months, ever since Ollie went missing. I’m ugly crying, and I know it. I’m beyond caring what I look like, or who’s watching. All I want right now is to curl up in a ball and cease to exist. Because staying alive without the people I love is too unbearable to endure.

I feel his presence beside me, his soft breathing, before I feel his hands gently rest on my back. Then his preternaturally strong arms are folding around me, and I’m sinking into them just like I imagined. Into Levi’s warm and comforting frame, into the chest I’ve longed to sink into all these months. Every night, when I’ve been awake, unable to fall back asleep. Even those nights when I was so angry at him, I wanted to scream at the universe. Even then, I dreamed of his smell. His touch. The taste of him.

“Like I said,” Levi breathes into my ear as he holds me and rocks me, with such a gentle touch, I almost can’t believe this is the same boy who possesses all that raw strength. “Better to never let yourself dream at all. Because last year, that’s what I did. I broke my rule. I let myself dream.”

I look up at him, feeling lost and childlike and also like I’m home. With his thumbs, he wipes away the tears staining my cheeks. I react to him touching my face like that; it’s so intimate somehow, and electrifying, setting every nerve of my body alight.

“What do you mean, you broke your rule?”

“Believing that you, that you and I—” He stops short, clearing his throat. “Believing that we could ever last.”

“But we could have,” I say, suddenly feeling defensive of us, of what we had. “It’s not our fault the universe got in our way. That Gravelle kept you on his stupid island.”

“But it is my fault that I lied to you,” he answers simply. I see regret written in the creases of his forehead, and I long to wipe it away. “If I could go back in time…”