She grinned again and winked.

The short ride to the barn lab was a bumpy one, and my leg throbbed with each hit. The pain had lessened, though, so it was only a dull ache in the bone. Two gunshot wounds in less than twenty-four hours. That must have been a record.

Riley didn’t say anything to me as we made our way back. Which was fine, because I wasn’t sure what I’d say in return. Probably something smart and civil, like, Fuck off.

The SUV was pulled inside the barn, and the door closed behind us. A lock slammed into place.

“Carry them down,” Riley ordered, and I was lugged from the SUV and dragged down the winding stairs and through the lab.

The agents at either side of me seemed to know exactly where they were going through the maze. I was deposited in the room from my flashback.

I still didn’t know the details from the past, though it was easy to figure it out. I’d come to kill Chloe. I’d had to chase her through the woods where I finally shot her. That’s when I’d stumbled on Elizabeth, who’d been trying to escape on her own.

That still didn’t explain Elizabeth’s role in all of this. Was she just another test subject? Or was she somehow more involved?

There were two agents stationed outside my locked cell. I could see them through the window that looked out over the maze. I sat, slumped, on the bed, cursing my injuries, though slightly dumbstruck by how much the wound didn’t hurt. The pain grew less and less with each passing minute.

If my pain had lessened, then my agitation had grown, and I cracked every joint I had as I waited.

I needed a plan. I needed to find Elizabeth. I could fight off a lot of guys, but even my abilities had limits. I couldn’t fight everyone inside, while injured, and while trying to save Elizabeth, too.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, the lock clicked, and the door opened. Riley came in first.

“I’m glad it ended this way,” he said, his face blank, emotionless. Riley had always been even-keeled.

It hasn’t ended, I thought. Sam and the others are coming. We’re going to break out of here. We’re going to survive like we always do.

“Kill him,” Riley said.

Three agents stepped into the room, their semiautos trained on me.

My heart pounded against my skull.

I had to get out of here. This was not how this would end. No way in hell.

I charged toward them. I could fight my way out of this room. I had to.

They opened fire, and the force of the gunshots sent me staggering back.

I looked down at the bullet holes peppering my chest. Blood poured from the wounds like water from a spigot.

I dropped to my knees. My line of sight skittered sideways, then narrowed.

The room grew dark and sticky and cold.

My body went numb, and I keeled over on an exhale. My heart slowed to a thump-thump in my ears. I had a flash of an old memory, of a time before the Branch, when I lay on dingy carpet that smelled of stubbed-out cigarettes and spilled beer as my dad glowered over me, blood smeared across his knuckles.

Back then, I’d thought I was dying. This time I really was.

“Get in a few more for good measure,” Riley said. “Then bury him out back.”

The agents blasted me again.

35

ELIZABETH

I SQUINTED AGAINST THE GLARE OF overhead fluorescent lights. I sat up. My body protested, as if it’d been in the same position for too long, my muscles cramped from disuse.

“Chloe?” I mumbled, finding my tongue too dry, too thick.

Beneath me was a thinly padded mattress covered in stark white sheets. The bed creaked when I shifted. I tried to recall what had happened before I’d fallen asleep. I was with Chloe, that much I knew, but everything else was a haze.

Using my hand to block out the blinding light from above, I examined the room. The walls were as white as the sheets, the floor gray tile. There were two doors, both closed. No windows.

I took in a breath and caught the old scent of lemon floor cleaner.

I jerked to my feet and opened the door on my right—bathroom.

I tried the door on my left—locked.

My heart rammed against the back of my throat. Panic burned through the air in my lungs, and I staggered against the wall, gasping.

It was a mistake. I wasn’t back here. I wasn’t here.

Maybe I was hallucinating. It wasn’t so far-fetched, was it? I was mentally unsound, officially diagnosed, even. It wasn’t such a leap to think I’d transitioned from panic attacks to full-blown delusions.

I closed my eyes and counted to four, over and over again until my breathing was regulated. I wasn’t going to fix whatever this was if I was having a panic attack on top of it.

When my heart slowed, when I could no longer hear it hammering in my ears, I opened my eyes, but the room hadn’t changed and the artificial-lemon smell was as present as it had been five minutes ago.

I tried the door again, tugging on the handle with everything I had. When it didn’t budge, I beat against it and screamed until my ears hurt.

I couldn’t go through this again. I wouldn’t survive this time.

Defeated, I sat on the bed and propped my head in my hands, tears pricking my eyes. I recalled Dr. Sedwick assuring me months ago that I was safe, that I was home now and that I was never going back to the place where I’d been held.

But here I was. Here again.

And somehow, in some twisted way, I wasn’t surprised. I might have been free for the past six years, but the memory of captivity had haunted me every single day. I had never truly been free of the lab, and maybe now I never would be.