“Fuck,” the Fallen boy said. “This is fucking with my head.”

“Um, I think my head is most fucked right now,” Colt said, her voice wavering. She offered up a nervous titter of a laugh. “First time.”

Hearing Colt be so familiar and so unaware was a special kind of hell of its own.

Then a worse kind of hell. To be utterly alone. Cradle ventured. “More of a head-fuck to think maybe you were telling the truth all along.”

The words were stilted, awkward.

If they were a lie intended as bait, then the Fallen boy didn’t seem to believe them.

If they were truth, then Love Lost would never forgive Cradle.

“What was he saying before?” Colt asked.

“I can barely hear you,” Cradle said.

“Yeah,” the Fallen boy echoed.

“Meaning we have a problem,” Cradle said.

A problem. Love Lost wheeled around, looking at the other cells, at her own room, and at the dais. The lights that had no source that filled the area were dimmer in her shared fifth of the room. As she watched, they grew dimmer still.

This was what had happened to Jonathan. Her heart pounded as she reached out, fist striking the surface.

“I know why,” Cradle said.

“What’s happening?” the Fallen boy asked.

“Two people in one area. It’s draining the power twice as fast. They get half the time.”

“Has it even been half?”

Cradle shrugged. He pushed scratched-up glasses up his nose.

There were some, Love Lost knew, that she’d never quite been able to get. The very best criminals she’d gone up against. The ones she was closest to, like Lee, who wasn’t a criminal, except that he’d left their family and left Ever, and he’d never come back. But he counted. She’d never been able to get him.

As her room began to dim, it dawned on her that Cradle fit both categories. Too good, too close to her, because he was a part of this room. This engine.

Her hand slammed against the invisible barrier, and she screamed. They didn’t seem to see her.

A face on the wrong end of one-way glass.

Her scream became raw. So close to that scream, Colt shied back, scared.

“What’s happening?” Colt asked.

“March released something bad,” the Fallen boy said. “They’re calling it Class S. She’s going to release more.”

“The plan was for her to release one,” Cradle lied.

That hadn’t been the plan. Zero, not one. If she found the one she needed then she would mercy kill before it became a real problem.

She screamed again.

“Why?” the Fallen boy asked.