She scowls. “And yet, you don’t even have the key to unlock the door. You’re not the Registration, Eric. You’re its bastard.”

She sees his hand coming and the next thing she knows, the world goes black again.

Elizabeth’s arms were wrapped tight around Lynell as she sobbed into her mother’s chest. Alan was getting worse, and Elizabeth was sick. Lynell didn’t know that night would be the last time her mom could hold her. That the next morning she’d be left alone with Alan forever.

“He’s never going to come save me, is he?”

Elizabeth didn’t ask who because she knew.

Her father, the king who loved Elizabeth and Lynell but had to leave them behind. Her father, who loved Scrabble and told Lynell to cherish life and the privilege of choice. Her father, who left her with nothing but a broken family and a short letter.

In the early hours of the morning, lost in fear and longing for a life she wasn’t given, Lynell barely heard her mom’s answer.

“He will. But it won’t be the way you expect. He’ll come through your eyes, through your mind, through your heart. He’ll come through you and you’ll save yourself and it’ll be that much sweeter.”

When she comes to, there are different guards in her room. At first, she’s disappointed, but then she takes it in stride and does her spiel all over again.

The more people she can convince to question Eric, the better.

These two take longer to persuade, and she’s more exhausted than before. Her jaw aches from fresh pain, and she wishes she had a mirror so she could see the damage of the punch. Blood still fills her mouth and she swallows it, so she doesn’t show weakness by spitting it out.

An hour later, she thinks she’s got these two on her side, too. She told them what the code does, that she has it, and that Eric told her he was threatening to kill all his recruits as soon as he got the code.

She made up the last part, but she’s getting impatient and antsy.

Eric returns and apologizes for hitting her. “You did say something incredibly offensive.”

“The truth can be offensive sometimes,” Lynell replies. She watches his jaw twitch as he bites back an angry response.

“Did you give me the real letter? What’s the code?”

“Yes. And I don’t know,” she fires back.

“There has to be more. Some clue my renegade brother left you to figure it out.”

Lynell pauses and pushes her tongue against a cut on the inside of her cheek to clear her mind with the pain. “Maybe it’s impossible to decode it alone,” she says, pulling on her own musings that she hasn’t voiced. “Maybe someone else has a clue we need. Like Alexander or one of Eli’s other children.” Lynell shoots Eric an accusatory look, hoping to buy more time alone.