When I was done, I collapsed on my stomach, the ground cold against my face. I didn’t know where I was, or how I’d gotten outside, but if I was no longer in the lab, then Elizabeth was in danger and I had to return to save her.

I rolled over again, onto my back. With a voice on the edge of fading out, raw, my throat too dry, I croaked, “They shot me. So many times I lost count.”

When I opened my eyes, treetops shook above me as the wind picked up speed. Anna, Cas, Sam, and Trev were all staring at me. Sam nodded at my chest. I looked down. There were multiple bullet holes in my shirt, and my shirt was caked with old blood and dirt.

I patted my chest. I should have been in pain. I should have been dead.

But when I ripped my shirt open, my chest was untouched. Not a single bullet hole in sight.

“What the hell?”

“Should we kill him?” Cas said. “Before he starts lurching around and eating our brains?”

“Cas!” Anna said.

“What? Too soon?”

“What happened?” I asked, and lurched to my feet. When I stumbled back on unsteady legs, Sam jerked forward and caught me. I used a tree to keep me upright and waved Sam back.

Now that I had a better view of where I was, and what surrounded us, I noticed two Branch agents either dead or knocked out ten feet away. And beside them was a half-dug hole. The perfect size for a body. Probably mine.

“Chloe,” Trev said. “She called us about an hour after she took you. Said she had done what she had to do, but that if everything went according to plan, you’d be safe. She gave us the location of an air vent about a hundred yards away from the barn, an unmarked entrance to the lab, but on our way, we stumbled on these guys”—Trev gestured at the agents—“and then we saw you.”

Anna covered her mouth with a hand and looked away.

“I’m not dead, Anna,” I said. “See.” I patted myself down. “Don’t start crying again.”

“I’m not,” she snapped as a tear streamed down her cheek. She gave us her back as she swiped at her face.

Sam frowned at me, but I ignored it.

“That still doesn’t explain why I’m alive.”

“She must have used the serum on you,” Trev said. “It’s the only explanation.”

Chloe was the one who’d broken out of the lab six years ago, and she must have known where the serum was kept. It wasn’t too crazy to think she’d swiped some of it for herself.

She’d also had enough time on the way to the barn to stop the car and retrieve my gun. She’d had enough time to shoot me up with the serum, too.

By giving me the drug, she’d saved my ass, but still came through on her end of the bargain she’d made with Riley.

“We have to get back into the lab.” I shoved away from the tree and was relieved I didn’t fall flat on my face.

“Slow down,” Sam said. “We don’t know what sort of effect this serum will have on you. And furthermore, we don’t know what we’re running into. With you inside, it was different. Now that you’re out, and you’re safe—”

“What, you’re just going to leave Elizabeth in there?”

Sam crossed his arms over his chest. “That’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is we have some time to think about this. There’s a reason they wanted Elizabeth. They won’t kill her.”

“Yeah, I know that.” I started pacing, leaves from last fall crunching beneath my boots. “That doesn’t mean she’s safe.”

When I first heard Elizabeth’s mother speak, I’d thought her voice sounded familiar. And now that I knew she was working with Riley, it all made sense.

“The audio files,” I said to Trev. “The doctor? Dr. Turrow?”

“Yeah? What about her?”

“She’s Elizabeth’s mother.”

“Son of a bitch,” Trev muttered.

Anna sighed and scrubbed at her face. She of all people understood the complications of mixing family with the Branch. Her uncle was the guy who’d created the organization after all.

“They might not kill Elizabeth if she has family on the inside,” I said, “but if we know anything about the Branch, it’s this: if they can’t kill you—”

“Then they’ll alter your memories,” Anna said.

I nodded. “We all know what it’s like to have our memories gone, and then to suffer the pain of them when they return. I can’t let them do that to her.”

I grabbed a gun from one of the fallen agents and stuffed it beneath my shirt. “I’m going—with or without you guys.”

I started off through the woods and was relieved when they all followed.

37

ELIZABETH

DARKENED GLASSES WERE PUT OVER MY eyes. The female tech flipped a switch on the frame, and several green lines flickered on the lenses.

“This won’t hurt,” she said. “In fact, you won’t feel a thing. It’ll be over before you know it.”

They’d inserted a rubber guard into my mouth so I could no longer talk. There was no point in trying anyway. My mother was gone. And there was no one here who would save me.

Nick had told me he suffered from partial amnesia. I could still recall the pain of the emptiness in his eyes. How not knowing, while freeing in some ways, was also damaging. And I would be just like him when I awoke.

My eyes clouded with tears.