“Who is it?” I ask as I make my way more quickly to the door.

The guard huffs and consults his clipboard. “Brother,” he says, and my heart sinks.

I don’t blame Gideon for what he did. Or I do, but I also understand. It was stupid and immature and selfish. And impulsive. He wasn’t thinking. But none of what happened is at all what he intended. Still, I don’t want to actually see him. I’m not sure I have the energy to lie and let him off the hook to his face.

I consider telling the guard I am not up for visitors, but that could backfire. If I make Gideon feel worse, he’ll demand that I carve out even more of my heart and hand it to him.

“NAME?” THE VISITING room guard asks when I finally make my way reluctantly down there.

“Wylie Lang,” I say, still waiting for something to head me off at the pass. Instead, the guard just opens the door and waves me inside. The visiting room is a single open space with eight rectangular tables—all numbered—arranged in two rows. There are two chairs on each side. Two guards on either side of the room. It’s more ordinary than I would have imagined before I was locked up in here—no plastic booths, no conversations by phone.

“Table seven, far side.” He motions across the room. “You got fifteen minutes. No touching. No objects exchanged.”

The room is so crowded, I don’t spot Gideon until I’m on that side of the room. In a baseball hat, head low. I can’t see his face, but his posture seems worse than before. So hunched. I come around from behind him and take a deep breath. Try to convince myself I can do this again. Cheer Gideon up for betraying me.

When he finally looks up at me, the world rocks hard to the side.

“Have a seat,” Quentin says.

Scream. That is my first instinct. I look around, eyes wide. I want to spit at him, too. I want to slap him in the face.

“I wouldn’t do that.” He looks me up and down in my sad blue jumpsuit. “Any of what you’re thinking.”

As I lower myself onto the edge of the chair, I’m not sure I could make a sound if I tried.

“You’re alive,” I whisper. Twelve not eleven bodies. Somewhere in me I knew this, didn’t I? My dad. That’s what I think next. “What did you do to him?”

“Who?”

“My dad.”

“Your dad?” Quentin says. “What happened to your dad?”

“He’s missing,” I say. “Something happened to him.”

Quentin shakes his head grimly. “Well, I did warn him, didn’t I? I told him there might be trouble.”

“If I tell the people here who you are, they’ll arrest you.”