Similars are still battling Duplicates, who seem to fall and rise again to fight with renewed purpose. At the doorway that leads outside, my friends are charging at the soulless clones with knives and guns. More guards stream in from the hall, some of them wearing ripped and bloodstained clothing. But my friends are too busy to notice; they’re carrying an eight-foot table toward the exit, and I watch as it hovers midair. Then they charge forward, ramming the table straight into the doors, shattering the glass into a thousand pieces and climbing right over the felled Duplicates to get outside. Whatever was keeping those doors sealed couldn’t seal the glass.

Similars begin carrying the weak DNA parents on their backs. But the Duplicates who haven’t fallen are charging forward with an unwaning fervor. I see two Pru Duplicates rip Frederica Leroy off Ansel’s back, flinging her to the marble floor, her head hitting with a resounding thunk. I am sickened by the savagery all around me. So pointless. So unnecessary.

“Stop,” I say, at first only to myself. I’m sure no one else can hear me. So I raise my voice. “Stop! Everyone. Stop fighting! Stop killing each other! It isn’t necessary! It doesn’t have to be!”

A few Duplicates turn their heads to look at me. I feel myself gaining confidence, and intensity. If my father is going to die on the floor on Pollux Island, it can’t be for nothing. It can’t.

“Please. Listen,” I hear myself saying. “We aren’t the enemy. Neither are you,” I tell the nearest Duplicate, a copy of Pru who looks at me, perplexed, like I’m one species and she’s another. But she isn’t. We’re all humans, aren’t we? We’re all teens, some of us brought into this world for the wrong reasons. But we’re here now, and we’re the same. “Stop it,” I cry out again, until the movement in the room slows. Some lower their weapons to stare at me. Levi holds a guard by the wrist but tears his eyes from the fighting to focus on me. So does Ollie. Pru watches me with tears streaming down her face, as a guard grips her by her hair. “When I first found out I was a Similar. A clone,” I add, emphasizing the word for the sake of the Duplicates, wanting them to understand. They’re watching me now. Listening intently. “I thought that word meant something. I thought being a clone was something I had to hide.” I’m choosing every word carefully. I have to get through to them. I must.