The Fall
LAURA LIDDELL NOLEN

HarperVoyager

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First published in Great Britain by HarperVoyager 2018

Copyright © Laura Liddell Nolen 2018

Cover design © HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 2018

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Laura Liddell Nolen asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

A catalogue copy of this book is available from the British Library.

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008181482

Ebook Edition © December 2017 ISBN: 9780008113643

Version: 2017-12-11

for Oscar

Others, so far as I can understand, have been taken by him, as well as we; and yet have escaped out of his hand. Who knows, but the God that made the world may cause that Giant Despair may die? or that, at some time or other, he may forget to lock us in?

—The Pilgrim’s Progress

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Epigraph

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Six

Epilogue

Acknowledgements

Also by Laura Liddell Nolen

About the Author

About the Publisher

One

The first time I tried to kill Adam, I tasted sugar.

We weren’t alone. We never were. A tightly-wound shadow flinched behind my left shoulder every time I moved my arm, threatening to make itself fully known, but I couldn’t give it a name, so I ignored it, even though it made my ribs shake and my fingers cold.

Adam rolled a chair from behind the desk, remaining seated, and I could only stare. Clean brown hair, like he’d combed it twice. Dark eyes on pale skin, like his sister. I blinked. Something was different.

“Chew, Char. Maybe next year, I’ll let you blow the candles out.”

I looked down. A mountain of pink icing covered the plate in my lap. A cake stood between us, tall and bright, and missing two slices. The world was obscured behind a thick pane of hazy glass, with only Adam in focus.

So I stared at him instead, trying to figure out where I was, and why.

We were in a control room, I decided, judging by all the shiny panels, and it was someone’s birthday. My good arm, as I thought of it, held a fork. My wrist on my good arm had light bruises, like I’d been yanking it against a handcuff.

My bad arm had no bruises. But then, it had no wrist, either, since it ended below the elbow. At least they couldn’t cuff it. I frowned. That wasn’t much of a silver lining.

I was pretty sure I’d been here before. I knew, for instance, that this wasn’t the first birthday I’d celebrated with Adam, that the door was behind me, and that I didn’t care about anything on the console to my immediate right.

Or maybe I’d just figured that out a moment ago. I couldn’t tell.

The twitchy shadow-person stepped around to see why I wasn’t chewing despite having a mouth full of cake, and we squinted at each other as she came briefly into view. She looked to be around thirty, with amber skin and short black hair untouched by streaks of gray. There was a sour tension around her mouth. She didn’t like me.

No, no. That wasn’t it. I wrenched myself around to inspect her again. She stepped away from my line of sight without catching my eye.

She didn’t like Adam, I decided. Me, she didn’t think about at all.

“She’s fine. A little tired, maybe,” she said.

“Let’s wake her up some more,” said Adam.

“Too dangerous, unless you want to cuff her. Remember last time?”

“No cuff. I want her to eat the cake.” He looked disappointed, but returned his attention to me. “Give me that napkin.”

I will not. I want to throw him out an airlock. Why would I—

I extended the napkin toward him, and he snatched it with an appraising glance. “Not feeling too feisty today, huh? I can live with that,” he said. “Long as you behave. Have some more.”

I had an overwhelming urge to stab him. It was related to the story he was telling, but I knew I wasn’t supposed to think about that.

What was I supposed to do? I bit a lip, confounded, and tasted blood. It wasn’t enough to wake me up, so I pressed the tines of the fork into my thigh. The urge to stab grew stronger. I needed to wake up a little more. I had to. I wasn’t sure why, though.

Maybe it would help if I went ahead and stabbed him?

No, no. That wasn’t it. I shook my head, but it didn’t clear.

Maybe I was supposed to eat the cake, and then stab him? Or maybe I should give him another napkin. It was kind of a toss-up, honestly.

“Hey, don’t look so down. It’s your birthday, after all. Why d’you think we got pink icing? The Lieutenant prefers chocolate.” He laughed, as if it were a joke.

I’m not eating his stupid cake. I don’t even want cake. I hate strawberry.

To my surprise, I lifted my fork. It was indeed covered in bright pink icing, and I shook my head a little harder. Birthday cakes should be blue. Like West’s.

I worked my mouth around the load of frosting. It was sweet—too sweet—and I forced myself to swallow. Fine: cake first, then stab. Surely that was a solid plan.

Wasn’t it?

“That’s better,” Adam was saying. “Now. Where were we? Yeah, your family. ’Fraid it’s bad news, Char. Let me see if I can remember exactly where we left off last year.” He shifted comfortably, and I got another look at his face. “Oh, right. It was the part where you let my sister die.”

I blinked. He was different. Not how I remembered him. The soft, round parts of his boyish face were now angular. Angry. “I didn’t kill—”

“Hey, hey. Cut it out. Every year, it’s the same thing. But Aah—dam!” he whined, imitating my voice. “I didn’t kill her! Blah, blah, lightning clouds. Blah, blah, mutiny. We haven’t even gotten to the good part yet!” His eyes flashed, and he waved at the woman. “Wake her up a little more. I need her to remember this one.” They exchanged a glance. “Do it, Lieutenant.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, a touch of strain in her voice. A sting spread through my right bicep, and I felt my heart speed up. I started breathing faster.

My mind began to clear.

I was in Central Command, and Adam was the Commander. He was in league with An Zhao, who had recently blown a hole in the Ark, destroying the Remnant, the group of free thinkers who’d built a city and organized a government in the bowels of the ship. And I had disarmed us to prevent her from doing worse. I had made us helpless. My fingers tightened around the fork. I had to get out of here.

Every year, we ate cake.

Every year, he woke me up to hear the story.

Every year, I had ten minutes to work on my plan. Tick, tock.

If only I could remember what it was.

I couldn’t remember much of anything, to be honest. “Are—are we there yet?” I asked.

“Where? Eirenea?” Adam laughed, but there was steel in the sound. “No. Don’t interrupt.”

He had the relaxed posture of a person in control, but he wore it uneasily, as though he were copying something he’d seen another man do. My head rolled around slightly while I tried to think. There was nothing easy in his face. His teeth were clenched so hard that he had to move his jaw around before speaking. “And so my sister died in your arms,” he was saying. “And I’m not sure whether we covered this last year, but she was all I had. And she needed me.” He leaned forward. “And you let her die.”

If I had made us helpless, Adam had returned the favor tenfold. I spent my days in a cloud of confusion, blindly following any instructions I was given. I wasn’t dizzy, exactly, but I had a hard time getting my bearings. Every so often, I came to my senses, and Adam would be there. Sometimes he just wanted to talk. Sometimes he didn’t speak at all.

But sometimes, he taunted me. On these occasions, there was cake. Always pink.

And I had to eat it. And he told me a story I shouldn’t hear while I plotted ways to kill him. Usually with a fork.

Not everyone on the Ark was drugged. Eren, as far as I knew, spent most of his days in InterArk Comm Con, sending and receiving transmissions related to the Ark’s operations. The last time I tried to contact him had not gone well. I stumbled into the amphitheater, stupid from the drugs. I saw Eren, his eyes wide, his head shaking back and forth, subtly at first, and then more urgently.

And then I awoke in the commissary six months later, half a sandwich hanging from my mouth, without even the slightest memory of any medication top-ups that must have taken place since.

I didn’t try that again.

So I was on my own. Adam sat back, warming to his story. “But all was not lost! Not quite yet. Not for you, Char. They say all’s fair in love and war, but that’s never been my experience. The Academy, for example, was not fair. They took me when I was five. Did you hear that? Five, Char. And my parents just let them.”

The Academy was a school for certain children from all over the world selected to survive the meteor. They were trained in science, medicine, or engineering at an early age, so that they would be as useful as possible on board the Arks.

Unbeknownst to the people set to die in their place, they were also trained in military strategy. And combat.

“Sounds rough,” I said. My voice cracked from disuse. I had a hard time feeling sorry for anyone chosen for a place on an Ark when all the rest of us were left to die in the meteor strike.

“They took her, too. Same age. What do you think they did to her at the Academy? They didn’t want students. I’ll tell you that. Because everything there was a weapon. Especially us. Tell me something, Char. What were all those weapons for if no one was supposed to use them?”

His voice trailed off, and he gave me a long look before continuing. “And I escaped. Obviously. And I found her. And I made sure she lived, Char. Because that was my job. To protect her.” He glanced around the room. “Eat.”

I ate.

“You should know something about that, Char. Being abandoned? Protecting your family? And you did a great job; you really did. They escaped!” He smiled darkly. “For a few minutes, anyway.”

This was the part I wasn’t supposed to listen to. Every year, same thing. Adam woke me up and told the same story. And I made the same mistake every time I heard it. First, the blood would rush through my ears, drowning my plan in panic. And then my chest would squeeze. And then I started screaming.

And then he’d smile and knock me out again.

But this year would be different. This year, I had a job to do.

If only I could remember what it was.

I needed one more shot of whatever the Lieutenant had given me. Then maybe I would remember.

I lowered my head and spoke in a soft monotone. “You knew about my father’s Arkhopper, and you blew it up. They’re all dead. My family is dead.”

Adam took a long pause, then slowly reached for the holster where he kept the drug. I braced myself for oblivion. Another year lost.

But instead, he straightened his jacket and shook his head, annoyed. “No. That’s not her. That’s not what I want. Wake her up some more. I want the real Char.”

The woman straightened. “But sir—”

“Now, Lieutenant. Do it now, or we can continue this conversation next year. When I wake you up.”

There was a rustling of equipment behind me as the Lieutenant rushed to comply. Another sting in my arm. Another breath, and it all came crashing back.

I was definitely supposed to stab him.

Two

“So there I was, minding my own business in my new office on the Guardian Level, when I got news that the Commander was dead. Thanks for that, by the way,” Adam nodded at me. “I wasn’t sure I had the nerve until that moment. They need me, you know. This Ark.” He leaned in. “They know it, and I know it. They need someone who can keep a sense of order around here.”

The Commander had had control of the Guardians, and he’d wielded them like his own personal army in a failed attempt to retain control over the Ark and to crush the Remnant, a hidden group of survivors who opposed him.

Oh, and he was also Eren’s father.

Eren. Blue eyes. Security, like a thick blue blanket. A fleeting moment of happiness from a silver ring with a pale blue stone. But there was something dark in my memories of Eren, too. My thoughts pressed themselves forward all at once and without a coherent order. I rubbed my leg nervously, trying to clear my mind, but they kept coming. Green pins of light and a red expanse of blood. His father had died by my hand. Surely I hadn’t meant for that to happen, had I? I wondered where Eren was. Hadn’t I sent him away? I wondered if he missed his father in spite of everything he’d put us through.

Wait, stop. Stabbing. I needed to focus on stabbing now.

“Hope Eren didn’t take it too hard. So I thought to myself, Adam, we’re doing all right. Everything’s coming together. Isaiah may not ever come around, but we’re better off without him anyway. The only way the Remnant was going to achieve equal footing was by blowing everything up and starting over.”

He crossed his legs, studying my face. The fork was light in my hand. I shifted my grip without looking down.

“But you, Char. You were different. I thought, I can explain myself to her, and she’ll listen. Maybe not at first. But she understands what it’s like, being ignored. Being feared. She’ll know what to do. I didn’t even want to kill Isaiah, Char. Honest. The Remnant—the whole thing was his idea in the first place. It wouldn’t have been right.

“You didn’t have to be my enemy. But then Amiel was dead. And you walked right into my trap.” His head tilted. “And I decided to change tack.”

“You’re lying,” I said. “My family isn’t dead. The Remnant isn’t—”

“There she is!” Adam sat up straight. “Welcome back, Char. It’s been a long, hard year without you.”

“If you’re trying to scare me, give it up, Adam. I’m not afraid anymore.”

“A return to form!” Adam clapped. “This really is exciting. Can I tell you their last words?”

Don’t listen. Don’t listen. Don’t—I breathed in measured beats. Steady. I had a job to do.

“Do you ever wonder whether they were talking about you? Worried for you? I don’t think we got this far last year.”

Don’t listen dontlisten‌dontlisten. I breathed a little faster. The handle of the fork bit into my palm.

Adam leaned in, exposing the softest part of his neck, and lowered his voice to deliver another blow. “They didn’t die right away, you know. There was screaming.”

I rushed him, arm high, and made a sound like a burning pterodactyl. He jumped, predictably, and I drove the fork into his neck.

Or at least, I tried to.

At the last instant, a blunt weight tackled me from the left. I hit the floor harder than I expected. For some reason, I was unable to break my fall.

That’s when I remembered that my right arm ended just below the elbow, and I howled again, angry. Helpless.

The sound of Adam’s laughter filled my mind, and the Lieutenant shuffled me onto my back. She was armed in an instant.

I saw the needle coming for me, but Adam stayed his hand, savoring a final moment with me, his favorite prisoner.

“We can make this stop, you know. Tell me what happened to Ark Five, and I might let you stay awake this year.”

“Why does everyone keep asking me that? Seriously, I have no idea.”

The control room was like a slippery plastic slide, and I had the intense feeling of falling into a void beneath it. “Happy birthday, Char. And many happy returns.”

The corners of my brain went dark and began to expand. With my last cogent thought, I focused on the weight of the Lieutenant on my chest as she scrambled to secure my bad arm, which was pressing into her throat. Her breathing leveled off as I came under her control, but so did mine. She’d landed right where I wanted her. I focused my last seconds of consciousness into my remaining hand, which was already halfway to the black pack she carried across her flank, just under the flap of her uniform jacket, until my fingers touched steel. I hoped that she was a moment too late, that her nerves had made her overly concerned about the fork. I hoped desperately that I hadn’t dreamed the last few moments. That I wasn’t dreaming already.

And then, my moment was spent.

The slide grew steeper, and the Lieutenant relaxed her grip on my upper body. There was nothing left but the fall. My latest prison had no cells, no bars, and no hope of escape. So I couldn’t say I’d ever enjoyed the trip into mental stasis.

But this time, I smiled the whole way down.

Three

In my dream, my mother held my hands—both of them—but she looked like Meghan Notting, the gritty old woman who’d died helping me escape Earth. I shook my head, trying to fix her face back, and in response, she offered me a screen stem.

It was almost black, like graphite, but harder, and bluntly tapered on one end. I recognized it immediately because it was covered in blood: Jorin’s. I pictured his ugly, sneering face and backed away. I didn’t regret killing him. I didn’t. But that didn’t stop me from thinking on the moment in horror whenever I fell asleep.

My mother-Meghan moved toward my face, and I resisted the urge to run. I could not account for her appearance as Meghan, but I knew that she was my mother all the same. Did this version of her have an open wound where Cassa had shot her? I looked away. I didn’t want to know.

Perhaps it didn’t matter. Perhaps the dead felt no pain.

“Your leg, sweetheart,” she said softly, pressing the stem into my palm. I picked it up with my other hand, the one from my bad arm.

“Mom, no.”

“Use this hand.” She put it back in my other hand, the one on my good arm, and closed my fingers around the sticky weapon.

“That’s gonna hurt. I stabbed someone with a stem before, Mom. It hurts.”

“Only the dead feel no pain, Charlotte. Your life was never meant to be so precious.”

A flare of anger. “You’re just saying what I’ve been thinking. You’re not even real.”

She started at a noise, then looked behind her. Her hair in my face was suddenly like my mother’s, long and dark, and I needed her to hold me. “Now, Charlotte,” she said. “Do it now.”

“Mom. I’m afraid.”

And then she did embrace me, and I was warm, and her hair smelled like I remembered.

But she was only a dream.

In real life, I had no mother. I had no right hand, either.

I lifted the screen stem in my left hand. She nodded approvingly.

I drove it deep into my leg, and when the pain came, I sucked it in through every pore. When I screamed, I breathed out the scent of her hair forever. It was my mother’s voice that shrieked, but I held fast to the red sensation taking root in my thigh, and my dream-mother grew distant.

This pain was mine alone.

“Charlotte. Hey. Wake up.” Eren’s face hovered over mine, awash in concern. “You’re having a nightmare.”

I rubbed my face and tried to get my bearings. I was sitting precariously on the edge of a bed, half-wrapped in a warm comforter. Navy blue. “Not exactly.”

“You okay?”

“How did you get in here? How did you find me?”

He was unsurprised by the question and spoke slowly, as if I were a child. “I live here. We live together, remember? Officially, anyway. You’re in our bed.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Our—what now?”

He reevaluated my coherency and adopted a less irritating tone. “I’ve been sleeping next door. The rooms are connected through the kitchen.” He waved an arm.

I stood up, intending to investigate, but he stopped me immediately.

“Woah.” His eyes here huge, and I followed his gaze to my thigh.

An empty syringe dangled from my bare leg.

I took a breath and pulled it out.

His eyes bulged nearly out of his head, but he put a finger to his lips, shushing me. I nodded wearily and began to limp around the room. It was cold, so I dragged the comforter with me. I lacked the energy to wrap it around me, so I just hugged it to my chest. It felt good.

The kitchen was just as I remembered it, but I did not recall the door, or the little room behind it.

It was pale yellow, with a generic-looking painting of a lamb grazing in a green pasture. There was a fluffy white rug in the center, just next to a tiny bed surrounded by bars. I frowned. The bars on the bed were decorated with ribbons.

Wait, that wasn’t a bed. Not exactly.

I turned back to Eren, who’d followed me. “You sleep in a crib?”

“I kinda put the mattress on the floor, and my legs hang over the—you know what? That’s not important right now.”

“Why?”

“Because you get a little stabby when you’re sleeping.”

“That.” I pointed. “That is a nursery.” My hand went to my belly, and I searched my memory for evidence of a pregnancy. Not that I knew what that might involve, but nothing came to mind.

“You never—we never—Char, nothing happened. They made it a nursery for appearances. This was a long time ago.”

“You’re not that naïve. It’s just a matter of time, Eren. Adam gets bored. He’ll want a new toy.”

“He insisted,” Eren said. “He controls everything.”

“Yeah. Kinda worked that one out already.” I leaned in and lowered my voice. “Eren, this room is bugged. It’s gotta be.”

He shrugged and spoke normally. “It is. I found four.”

“That means there are at least eight, and two of them probably aren’t even electronic.”

“That’s what you said last time,” he said mildly.

“Last time? Catch me up a little faster, here.”

He shrugged, and I had the impression that he was trying to force his voice to sound bored. “You wake up like this every so often. We talk, and you go back into stasis. I don’t think it bothers him.”

I slid the door to the nursery firmly shut and leaned against the formica counter in the kitchen. A cold prickle waved through the back of my skull. “Eren, how long have I been… asleep?”

He rubbed the side of his head, looking pained. “Well, technically, it’s not sleep; it’s more like stasis. The body ages, but the mind—”

“How long, Eren.”

“You always ask this. It’s not going to—”

“How. Long.”

He met my eye. “Five years.”

Reeling, I put out a hand. He grabbed it, steadying me, but released me as soon as I had my balance.

Five years.

Five years of droning on through meaningless, mindless tasks in Central Command, unable to form memories or connections, while the Arks barreled on toward Eirenea. Five years of listening to Adam talk, of hearing his taunts. Of watching him build a great and merciless empire on board the Ark.

Five years of a lifeless “marriage” to Eren, who clearly no longer returned my affections.

Five years of planning my escape.

It seemed to me that it had passed overnight, but I read the exhaustion in Eren’s face, and I knew that what we’d once had together was long adrift, gone to sea. No one loves a puppet.

That had been my choice, too. Before all of this, I’d told Eren that we couldn’t be together anymore, that we had bigger things to focus on. That I had to become more than a daughter, or even a wife. So I set him free.

And judging by the speed with which his hand had pulled away from mine, he was free indeed.

“That makes me… twenty-two years old.”

I heard a note of panic rising up in my voice, but Eren just stared at me like he’d seen this scene play out before.

“Eren, I have to get out of here.”

“You say that, too,” he said quietly.

“I have to find my family. Do I say that?”

He gave me a sympathetic nod. “Then you won’t let me stay with you. You get back in bed. But you keep the light on all night, like you’re trying to stay awake.”

I hobbled over to his wardrobe, leaving the blanket on the cold floor. Maybe he had a pair of pants I could wear if I rolled the legs up.

The row of uniforms perfectly tailored to my size was like a slap in the face. I yanked one down and stepped into it angrily, pulling it up over my hips and around my nightshirt. Of course they fit me. They were my clothes. I lived here. Eren moved to help with the zipper, but I shrugged him off angrily. It took longer, but I’d far rather put on my own clothes than accept one more second of his sympathy.

I yanked my ID card off the mattress and pulled Eren’s shoulder down towards mine, so that I could whisper directly into his ear. Maybe Adam had planted a bug right inside Eren’s head, and I’d never be free of him. Maybe his Lieutenant noticed the syringe I’d swiped, and he was waiting for me just outside the door. At that moment, I didn’t even care. I was furious. “I’m leaving,” I muttered. “Right now. And you can come or not; I don’t care.” I pulled away, meeting his gaze with fire. “Have I ever said that before?”

I let my eyes glass over as we marched through the hall. The next phase of my plan was significantly less clear. “So,” I muttered, “my plan is to sneak into InterArk Comm Con and ping Europe.”

“Not gonna work,” he whispered back. “They know what’s going on. They don’t care.”

More like, they’d rather leave it alone so we can all get to Eirenea in one piece. Not that I blamed them. From their perspective, Adam had presided over five years of relative peace. Left alone, he was no threat to any ship but his own. “So we’ll make them care.”

“Charlotte.”

The warning in his tone was clear, and I could guess what he was thinking. If I failed, he had another year of waiting to look forward to. Another year under Adam’s thumb. His age had increased tenfold in the dark circles beneath his eyes. Eren had felt every minute of the years I’d lost in the space of a single dream.

“Have a little faith,” I said lightly, speeding up to brush past an oncoming group. “I don’t intend to get caught,” I muttered. “But I can’t just let a twelve-year-old despot control my brain forever.”

“He’s seventeen, now,” Eren said softly.

“They grow up so fast.”

We marched the rest of the way in silence, greeted by the occasional nod to Eren. I was ignored. “How many people has he drugged like this?”

“Unclear,” he murmured. “But you’re the only one who’s consistently under. He’s used it on others. Any one he sees as a threat, of course, and anyone he wants to punish.”

“You?”

His focus slid back to the hallway. “No.”

I barely had time to wonder why Adam never saw Eren as a threat when the door sucked open. Comm Con was much as I remembered it, floating stars and all. This was the place where I’d married Eren. It was where we’d shared our first kiss, and our last.

I half-lowered my eyelids in an attempt to look like I was still in stasis, but no one paid any attention to me. The enormous black amphitheater had maybe four other people, and no one was near the control desk.

“New plan. We ping my dad.”

I couldn’t miss the look of alarm that hit his face, or the care he took to hide it.

“He’s not dead, if that’s what you’re worried about,” I whispered.

“Don’t let them see you talking. Nothing coherent, anyway.”

I angled my face away from the others. “He’s not dead. Adam wouldn’t have made such a big deal out of it all the time if that were the case.”

Eren avoided my gaze with the precision of a fighter pilot. “Adam had no reason not to kill him, Charlotte. And there was opportunity, motive.”

“I’m not sure about that. It was chaos the day of the attack.” I should know. As far as I was concerned, it happened yesterday. “He had a strike team after him, and his Remnant headquarters were obliterated, obviously. There was a big lag between when he lost Isaiah and when you and I got here, which was when he had control of the speaker system.” I paused, reliving the moment, and sucked in a deep breath. “And the oxygen.”

Eren settled himself at his desk, and I sat, robot-like, in a nearby chair.

“Anyway,” I continued, monotone, “I’m not totally convinced he’d take the shot even if he had it. He didn’t know Amiel was dead at that point.”

“Depends on when your dad tried to leave, doesn’t it?” said Eren. “And let’s just agree to disagree on whether he’d take the shot either way. But here’s the real problem: you can’t ping him. You don’t know where he is.”

He had me there. I had no way of knowing where they’d gone.

But I had a pretty good guess.

“Is there a shipment or anything headed toward the European Ark today? I assume we have a good relationship with them, right?”

“To the extent that you could call it a relationship, yes. Adam sends them things from time to time. Usually tech-related. They reciprocate. A bunch of our doctors disappeared right after he started drugging people. There was talk of a strike among the medics, but instead, they just vanished. When our sick bay filled up, Europe stepped in.”

“Europe sent us doctors? Willingly?”

“No, they refuse to give him any personnel. But they accept patients.”

I glanced around the room. By some miracle, no one was paying any attention to us. I guess after five years of puppethood, I had become completely invisible. Predictable, even.

I could work with that.

“So,” I said softly. “When’s the next shipment of patients going out?”

“Not for another week.”

A week. That was a long time to dodge Adam. “I don’t think I can wait that long. He’ll know something’s up any minute now. Certainly by morning.”

“I don’t see that you have any choice. You can’t stay here,” he said, his voice more urgent than before. “He’s going to drug you again.”

“Look who’s suddenly on Team Char.”

“The way I see it, you need to get off this Ark. You can’t hide here. No one can. We have to depose Adam before we land. If he drugs you again, that’s another year gone. We’ll miss our window. Get out. Get some support. Come back and stage a coup.”

Five years ago, Eren would never have dreamed of supporting a coup. I had the sudden, slippery feeling that I was talking to a stranger, that I’d lost something I cared for, and I shivered. I couldn’t think about that right now. “I can’t possibly—”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

“Is there even any support still left around here? Maybe people want Adam in charge. I mean, he destroyed the Remnant and overthrew the Commander. He’s probably not anyone’s first choice, but you never know.”

“I have no idea,” said Eren. “No one talks to me. I’m too close to Adam. And I’m married to you, remember? You’re not exactly popular with either group, either, you know.”

He was probably referring to the fact that I’d killed the Commander and betrayed Isaiah, putting me squarely at odds with both Central Command and the Remnant. That would also account for the depressing fact that in five years, no one had bothered rescuing me, rebellion or not.

“Can you arrange another patient transport? Say, tonight?”

“Charlotte. We have no allies. No resources.”

“Aren’t you the Lieutenant Commander? I seem to remember something about that from my hospital stay.”

He gave me a long look, then turned back to fiddle with the control panel. “I was, for a little while. The position changed hands a few years ago.”

“Yeah, yeah. I met her. Early thirties, kinda stabby, likes to play with needles? Arms like a bear trap.”

“No. I mean, yes, she’s the real LC. But that’s a secret. Officially, on paper, it’s someone else.”

“Anyone I know?” I scanned my brain for candidates, but Eren had stopped dinking around and sat still instead, staring at the constellation hologram. It was disconcerting. “Earth to Eren.”

“Yeah, Char. It’s you.”

I snorted. “Me.”

“Lieutenant Everest,” he said, using our married name. His voice was blank, but there was a sad softness in his eyes that made me reach for his hand. He pulled away, and I whisked air. It was like falling through an unseen crack in the middle of a familiar street.

“Eren, please. We can’t just—”

“Lieutenant!” a voice pierced our conversation, and I forced myself not to jump.

“Mnmm.” I glanced up sleepily. A uniformed man strode toward us, insignia blazing, and my hand wandered toward the emblems on my own uniform. His mouth concealed a sneer. It hit me that he’d probably been in the military all his life, and I, to all the world an idiot, outranked him. Adam played a dangerous game.

He saluted, an action I did not return, and a look of disdain, or pity, crept over his face. “Inform the High Commander that the day’s operations are completed.”

Now, how in the heck was I supposed to talk to Adam?

I sat there, dumb as a stump, until Eren laid a hand on mine. It was warm, and for a moment, I felt secure again. “Here,” he said, his voice gentle and slow. He slid my fingers across the control panel in front of us and pressed my finger over an iridescent plate an inch wide. Fingerprint scanner, I supposed. “InterArk Comm Con to headquarters.”

There was a pause, then a rustle, and Adam spoke.

“Command.”

The two men looked at me, and I used my best sleepy voice. “The day’s operations are complete. Comp-leted,” I corrected myself with a slur.

“Dismiss the crew. Send her over, Everest,” came the reply. “Command out.”

The man in uniform scoffed and trooped away.

The crew filed out of the room without a second glance at me, and when the door closed behind them, Eren cleared his throat. “So.”

“So,” I replied expectantly. “Ideas. Thinking. We need a plan.” He continued to look at me, and I felt a little trill of panic. “Quickly, please.”

“You’re wanted at headquarters,” he said.

I stared at him. “Yeah. That’s why the hurry, slick.” A look I couldn’t place crossed over his face, and I felt myself get angry. He still wouldn’t meet my eye. Another moment passed, and my hands went cold. I was finally free from stasis. Why was he just sitting there? “Look, Eren. I know I can’t imagine what you’ve been through in the last five years, but please. Get it together. If Adam figures out that I’m awake right now, he’ll put me under for another year. That can’t be what you really want.” I heard my voice crack, and it sounded like it belonged to someone else. “Surely.”

“Charlotte,” he said gently. “He’s—”

“Don’t Charlotte me. I am not going back to him. I have to… I have to get out of here.”

Another moment went by. Was he afraid the room was bugged? I leaned in to whisper, for whatever that was worth. “Eren. I’m leaving. With or without you. And the next time I go back to Adam, it’ll be to stop him. For good.”

He looked at me, slack-jawed, but said nothing. What was wrong with him?

My breath came shorter. I’d have to do this without him. Well, maybe it didn’t matter. I had survived on the run before. Granted, Adam was smarter and more prepared than anyone else I’d ever run from, but I couldn’t let that scare me. I would rather die than spend another minute under his spell.

I stood angrily, knocking my chair backwards, and stalked out of the room.

My face burned beneath my skin. So much for Eren Everest. Adam was a threat to everything I’d ever cared about. If Eren thought I would go back to him, or if he thought for one second that I would somehow play nice until we got to Eirenea, then he never knew me at all.

Four

My first order of business was to get good and hidden. I jogged about halfway down the hall before the sound of footsteps jarred me back to reality, and I forced my pace to slow. If I were going to make it through this, I needed to look like a puppet.

A pair of officers walked past, giving me ample space on the carpet lining the center of the floor. I let my gaze drift idly to the chandeliers overhead. They’d sustained a fair amount of damage during the loss of gravity following An’s torpedo, but someone had taken the time to rehang them, untangling their delicate strings of crystals. They were repaired as well as could be expected. I shifted my focus away. It wasn’t like you could replace something like that up here. There were no craftworkers in Central Command, anyway. The officers passed, and I paused, listening for more footsteps, then took off running again.

It wasn’t until I got all the way to the door that I realized that I had nowhere to go. Subconsciously, I’d been heading for the stairwell and the cargo space beneath the main part of the ship. But it no longer existed, and whatever was left of it wasn’t pressurized. The next thought that hit me was worse: the Remnant was gone, too.

I owe you for that one, An. I haven’t forgotten.

I endured a crippling moment of panic before I finally understood that I had no real options. My only hope was to delay my return to Adam as long as could be believable, and hope I came up with some kind of a plan before he caught on. Which wouldn’t be long.

A weapon would be a good start. Something I could hide in my sleeve.

Eren seemed pretty tight with Adam. Did Adam trust him enough to let him carry a gun? I hadn’t seen one on him, so I decided to search his room. If I got caught, I could always act like I’d wandered in out of habit. After all, it was my room, too, apparently.

The room smelled good in spite of the sterility of space and the crumpled pile of clothes near the door. Peppermint and toasted bread. I shrugged it off and got to work.

A cursory search revealed no gun in his desk, or under the bed, or anywhere in the wardrobe. I grunted and sat back on my heels to think. I was a thief, after all. This shouldn’t be too difficult. I turned up a standard-issue sewing kit, which yielded four needles and a tiny, blunt pair of scissors, and a toolbox, which was functionally worthless. Screwdrivers were nice and all, but Eren’s was long and weighted. Too hard to hide. I rolled the scissors up in my sleeve, securing it with two of the needles.

When the couch turned up fistfuls of crumbs and fuzz, I had to revise my image of Eren yet again. Maybe he wasn’t the soldier I’d thought he was. Maybe time and despair had changed him into someone else. As hard as it sounded, maybe he really was a stranger.

I glanced around the room. There wouldn’t be anything on the screen facing the couch. Too conspicuous, especially if it were repaired. Or monitored. I searched the kitchen, shoving a loaf of bread aside in the process, and found nothing.

I was face-first in the freezer and wrist-deep in the icemaker when the door sucked open, causing me to jump squarely out of my skin.

“Eren.”

“This isn’t much of a hiding place,” he said, his voice gruff. Something in his face made me set my jaw a little tighter. Not regret, exactly. Disappointment, more like. “I don’t know what I expected.”

No way he didn’t have a gun in here somewhere. No way. “Yeah? Give me a minute. I might surprise you.”

I slid the door of the icer open and stuck my hand in, never letting my gaze shift from his face. There was something cagey in the way he moved toward me, as though he were anticipating my next move, and I frowned, confused. It was like he was planning something. Preparing for something.

A fight, maybe.

But his face was tired, so tired. His blue eyes met mine at last, and I saw only resignation. I must have imagined his disappointment.

“Are you hungry? I’ll make you a sandwich. Grilled cheese.” His voice was weary, too.

I backed up. “You stay away from me.”

“S’just food, Char.”

He came close, and I stepped aside. His face swung near as he reached past my shoulder and lifted a hunk of cheese, then the butter, in the same hand.

The icer door popped shut, and Eren deliberately turned his back to me, setting me off-guard. He wouldn’t show me his back if we weren’t on the same side. Obviously we weren’t going to fight. This was Eren, after all. My Eren. I was being ridiculous. Paranoid. Occupational hazard, I supposed.

The nape of his neck had grown pale in the years since we’d left Earth and sunlight, but his haircut hadn’t changed—short and blond, no nonsense—and I caught myself staring. Maybe there was a part of me that had missed him for the last five years, even though my mind hadn’t.

He whistled tunelessly, setting up a pan and flipping on the burner, but the notes sharpened when he reached for the loaf of bread, causing the hair on my arms to lift up.

The bread.

The bread, the bread.

It was wrapped in a chunky, reusable foil case far too big for a single loaf that crinkled beneath his grip as he pulled it from the shelf.

And it made a dense, muted thunk when he laid it on the counter.

When his hand dipped into the package, I swallowed. “Why don’t you let me do th—”

Too late. Too late for anything. The gun was suddenly between us, heavy and cold, and my breath froze in my chest.

“Eren.”

“You’re wanted at headquarters,” he said, flicking the stove off.

I’m not sure I understood until that moment what Eren had been to me. How I’d come to think of him, how my mind had relaxed instinctively in his presence. How I’d trusted him. No one had ever made me feel truly secure, like I could believe, cynical as I was, that I would one day be safe for good. Except Eren.

I really was a terrible judge of character.

I wanted to lift my hands in surrender out of habit, but I couldn’t make myself do it. It was like admitting that everything was broken, that nothing good would ever last. Which should have been obvious, especially to me, who’d lived through the death of Earth. And my mother.

“I’ll never forgive you for this,” I said quietly. “In a hundred years, I will not forgive you.” I stared at his face, looking for some sign of regret, some indication that my only possible blow had landed true, but the only thing I found was exhaustion. His brow creased for an instant, then everything was smooth. Easy. Done.

“There’s nothing for it, Char,” he said, almost gently, and any remaining protest died on my lips. “Let’s go.”

I went. What else could I do?

The hallway stretched before me, gaudy and bright. Maybe Adam would let me wake up in Eirenea, but I doubted it. Maybe, years from now, his horrible drug would become illegal, or he’d die, and I’d be rescued. I’d wake up old, in an old woman’s body, with all the experience of a seventeen-year-old failure.

Maybe my family would come for me.

Maybe the years would pass, and my captor would grow lonely, and I’d wake up with children. For ten minutes a year, I’d drink in their faces and worry over the lives they led.

Or maybe he would let me die.

I found my voice halfway to headquarters. “How could you.”

“It’s for the best,” he said evenly. “You don’t understand. He’s too strong.”

“He must be, Eren. With you on his side.”

“It’s not just me. There isn’t anyone, on any ship, that wants us all to go to war. That’s what he’s saving us from.”

We were a fragile race. We must have always been. Only now, we knew it.

Adam was smug. He had every right to be. I stood before him in the cold room, and he gestured for me to sit. I squared my shoulders and lifted my chin. I wasn’t about to spend my last seconds of freedom doing as I was told.

Eventually, his smile grew serious, and my darling husband pressed down on my shoulders until my back hit the chair. The Lieutenant was slouched in a black leather chair nearby. She made no move to assist. Maybe she was drugged, too.

“Welcome back,” Adam said brightly. “I know I already said it, but man. It’s just so good to see the real you, Char.”

“We should do this more often,” I said.

“Eh, don’t hold your breath.” His lip twisted around again, and his hand went to his jacket. When I saw the needle, my tongue couldn’t swallow, and my throat went numb. “Now, Ambassador,” he said. “If you could restrain your wife for a moment.”

Eren’s hand was warm and heavy on my shoulder, and I chewed the inside of my cheek as hard as I could. The pain was the only good feeling I had left.

Adam rolled his eyes. “You’ll have to do better than that. She’s awake. That’s really her. Take it from me. We can’t afford to get complacent.”

The Lieutenant stirred, and Eren glanced at her for a moment before crouching down and pulling my arms together behind the chair.

“Now hold still,” said Adam. “This’ll only sting a bit.”

He looked at Eren, who nodded that he was ready, and came close. My arms jerked against Eren’s grip involuntarily, and he squeezed them tighter. I went ahead and stopped breathing. I needed to last five more seconds without crying, and I wasn’t sure I’d make it.

The needle flashed through the air, taking longer than necessary so that Adam had plenty of time to watch my reaction. I forced every cell in my brain to remain completely frozen. I would not give him the satisfaction. I couldn’t. But at the last minute, weakness won, and I closed my eyes.

The pressure on my arms vanished. There was a light thud, and my eyes snapped open. The syringe remained secure in Adam’s grip, and a wave of mild surprise played over his face. The needle swung in a glinting, silver arc toward me a second time, and as I watched, Eren delivered a second blow, knocking it away.

“Oh,” Adam said. “Oh, you’re gonna regret that.”

“I doubt it,” said Eren, his jaw clenched.

“Lieutenant,” Adam shouted, “stop him!”

The Lieutenant stood, lumbering, from her chair, but she wasn’t much of a soldier. Not anymore. She stumbled toward us, glassy-eyed, and laid into the fight.

So I kicked her.

The top of my foot hit her squarely in the stomach, and she fell backwards, barely affected save for her lack of balance. Adam and the needle were inches away once again. I gripped the seat of my chair with my hand and caught him fully in the chest with my feet, shoving him for all I was worth. But the angle was too high, and my chair skidded back, teetering. Adam kept coming. Eren launched forward at the same time, dangerously close to the needle, and torpedoed into Adam just as my chair lurched back and hit the ground.

I curled up, trying to keep my head from bearing the brunt of the impact, then flipped around as fast as a cat. Syringes are motivating like that.

But the fight was over. Eren was faster, stronger, and better trained. Adam made a move to stab him with the needle, but Eren used the movement to secure a grip on Adam’s exposed wrist. I lost sight of the needle for a moment, but Eren pulled himself up and landed a knee on Adam’s throat, pinning him. Without releasing his grip, he calmly removed the syringe from Adam’s clenched fist and slid it into his upper arm.

Eren tossed the syringe away and maintained his position while waiting for the drug to take effect. They locked eyes until Adam’s angry, grunting pant dissolved into a helpless growl. Finally, his eyes glassed over, and his struggle ended.

The Lieutenant was sitting, half-reclined, on the ground near a chair. She didn’t look to be much of a threat anymore, either.

Eren stood, straightened his uniform, and looked at me. “You okay?”

I gaped at him.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you,” he said gently, taking a step toward me. “He watches—”

“Back up,” I said. “You stay away from me.”

He stopped in an instant, like someone had slammed a door an inch from his nose. “Charlotte. You have to understand—”

“What? That Adam was watching you? And that’s why you just had to let him keep me in stasis for five years? That’s why you had to bring me back here to him?”

He swallowed, sorting his words before he spoke them out in a slow, careful string. “I was trying to protect you.”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice breaking. He stepped toward me, and I backed away. I lifted my hand, and again, he stopped.

A moment passed, and he took a seat in the chair, defeated. “Charlotte, please. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Right.”

“He was following us the whole time. Every single word. I’m wearing a k-band, for goodness’— He can literally hear everything I do, and he knows when I’m lying. Look. I was so afraid he’d hurt you if he ever suspected me. I had to be completely sure you’d broken out before I could even think about…” Eren trailed off. “I had to fool you both. I practically had to fool myself. It was the only way to keep you safe. If I’d been wrong about you, or if he’d figured it out—”

“I just spent five years trapped in my own head,” I said, my voice hard. “With no control over what he did to me, or what he made me do. But it’s good to hear how safe I was that whole time.”

Some tiny, near-dead part of my mind knew that my anger was misplaced, at least in part, but the gray madness of Adam’s prison had pushed it so far down I couldn’t reach it. I was finally coherent, and my rage built to an apex.

I wanted Adam dead.

I wanted Eren gone.

I wanted to fly so far away that I never saw any of them, including this cursed ship, ever again.

I wanted my mom.

I was so caught up in the injustice of everything, in the newness of my mind’s freedom, that I didn’t see the shadow moving just outside my vision until it had grown too large to stop. “Er—” I began, but my word was cut short by a strangling pressure around my throat. Adam’s fingers were cold, but he was very much awake. His nails were barely longer than what could pass as normal, and they bit into the skin, like he was making a fist instead of just squeezing. He did not look me in the eye.

“Char!” Eren shouted, too late. He sprang from the chair, but the Lieutenant’s lumbering form was faster. I braced myself, preparing to fight her, too, but the world was already going dark. At the last moment, just as she was about to hit me, her body juddered and swung to one side.

I had the strange sensation that time had slowed, and I struggled to watch as she slammed instead into Adam. A strong jerk shook my vision as she delivered him another blow, and his grip on my neck finally loosened.

And then Eren was there, shoving her aside and hitting Adam so hard that he sprawled onto the ground next to me. I choked in some air and tried to stand. I couldn’t.

A few feet away, the Lieutenant’s slow gaze turned from me to Adam, and together, we watched him fade. Eren stood over his body, fists tight, and turned to look down at me.

“She—” I tried to speak, but was wracked by a cough.

“Lieutenant?” Eren said.

She looked at him mildly, like a puppy preparing for a nap. “Where am I?” she said.

“In headquarters,” said Eren. “You’re in stasis, mostly. I think.”

“Unlike Adam,” I said. “He has some kind of immunity?”

But instead of answering, the Lieutenant slumped to the floor. “I wasn’t always…” she said, and closed her eyes.

As I watched her, the knot in my chest doubled down, pulling tighter. Maybe Eren was right, and we were all just Adam’s prisoners.

But I was still out of breath and exceedingly unwilling to think about Eren right then. I knew the feeling that crept through me, and I hated it. It had only ever made me weak.

Eren, meanwhile, wasted no time in shoving a chair into the doorframe. Grunting, he slung Adam into another chair and cuffed his hands through the armrest. By the time he finished that, I moved to search Adam’s jacket. When I came near, Eren stepped away.

“No antidote,” he said. “He doesn’t keep it on him.” I didn’t answer, and he shifted awkwardly back to help the Lieutenant, his mouth tight. About the ti–me he got her into a comfortable-looking position, I found Adam’s holster.

He was armed, of course, but I didn’t recognize the weapon. It was some kind of oblong metal box that came to a point at one end. One side had a flip-button labeled with letters etched into the metal by hand. “D F¯ DEW…” I looked up. “What the heck does that mean?”

Eren looked at the weapon, avoiding my eyes. “Deuterium Fluoride Directed Energy Weapon. I’ve actually seen that one in action. It concentrates a stream of infrared chemicals—heavy hydrogen, for example—and neutralizes the target via plasma breakdown.”

“Plasma…” I muttered. “Hang on. Are you telling me he made a real-life laser gun?”

“Yeah,” said Eren. “Pet project of his.”

“Aren’t they all.” I turned it in my hand, thinking, and aimed it at Adam’s head. “So let’s see how he did.” My thumb hadn’t quite caught the flip when Eren knocked into me, throwing the blaster into a wall.

Speechless, I watched it fall before turning back to Eren to stare a death-ray of my own straight into his face, which was inches from mine. “You have got to be kidding me right now.”

“Charlotte. You can’t kill him.” He had the tone of a man trying to talk a cat down from a tree, but there was a sense of urgency he was trying to subdue. So maybe the cat was dangerous, like a lion. Or maybe the tree was on fire.

Either way, I found it annoying.

“Eren, get off me. And let’s test that theory, shall we? Move.” I shoved him as hard as I could manage, and he moved back a fraction of an inch, mostly out of courtesy.

I leaned over, reaching for the blaster, and he caught me by the wrist again. His voice remained soft, in sharp contrast to mine. “Listen, you can’t. Life support is wired to his vitals. If he dies, we all do.”

He paused, watching me. When he was sure his words had sunk in, his grip relaxed.

A moment later, I let some of the tension fall from my own stance. “Okay. Let me go,” I said, more calmly. “All the way.”

He backed up, looking pained, and took a seat in the chair again. His shoulders slumped a little, and he leaned forward, looking up at me from a much lower vantage point. It was about as non-threatening a stance as any I’d seen. He still made me nervous.

“Sorry,” I said quietly.

He nodded. “Me too.”

“Can we switch it to someone else’s vitals? Maybe someone can hack in.”

He shook his head. “The system is keyed to his heartbeat. No one can replicate that.”

Adam was always a step ahead. “We’ll never be safe while he’s alive, Eren,” I said.

Eren didn’t hear me. “So how did he attack you? Not that it matters, but shouldn’t he have been more like a puppet?”

I shook my head. “He wasn’t in stasis. That’s for sure. You can’t make decisions in stasis. You can remember feelings, like fear or sorrow, but nothing concrete, like needing to attack someone.”

“The Lieutenant would beg to differ,” Eren said dryly.

“I don’t know how she did that, either. Adam must have some kind of automatic antidote. Or he saved the heavy doses just for me. Or he’s engineered a formula that only he’s immune to,” I mused. “There’s no telling. Anyway, he’s definitely out now.”

Eren nodded, staring at the floor, the wall, Adam’s sleeping form, and finally, me. “Good. Because there’s something I need to tell you.”

Five

Eren yanked a stick-like gadget from Adam’s jacket and turned to the comm panel. I’d seen it once before, when Adam had used it to steal an Arkhopper. The panel hummed to life, and Eren pulled the comm device toward his mouth, keying a code into the board. A moment later, it lit up. “Everest to Tribune. Come in, Turner.”

I stood straight, electrified.

Eren looked back at me and grinned. I continued to gape until my voice bubbled up, and suddenly, I was shouting. “Dad? Dad, are you there?!”

Eren held up a hand to quiet me.

“You,” I hissed at him. “I have questions for you.”

“He’s been in touch a few times a year. Keeps this line open. But he couldn’t get to you. Adam’s always watching.”

“And you decided to keep it a secret? Of course you did. Dad! Where are you!”

“We were trying to protect you, Charlotte. Just until we could get you out. And believe me, we have tried everything. It’s more complicated than you realize. We tried getting to her,” he nodded toward the Lieutenant, “but Adam must have kept her on a tight leash.” He shook his head a little. “We figured she was loyal to him. We tried constructing our own antidote, but he just changed the formula. Nothing ever worked.”

The comm popped, and my father’s voice filled the room. It was intensely familiar, unchanged in the five years since I’d heard it. “Turner to Tribune Liaison. What’s the news, Eren?”

“Dad!” I shouted. “Where are you?”

There was a pause, then my father made a sound I couldn’t identify. “Charlotte,” he said slowly. “Eren, is that—is she—?”

“She’s out of stasis,” said Eren. “And Adam’s down. For now.”

“Dad! Where are you?” I repeated. “Did you make it to Europe?”

“I’m here, Charlotte. I never left.”

“But, how?”

“I called in every favor I had,” he said. “Every last one. That’s the short version, anyway.”

He sounded like there was more to say, but Eren interrupted. “Sir, we need to move. We have to assume that Adam set traps. There’s no time.”

“I’m ready,” my father answered. “Meet me at the dock in ten minutes sharp. Don’t be late.” There was a pause, and another sound, this one like a half-laugh. “Charlotte. Welcome back. It’s good to hear your voice again. It really is.”

“You too, Dad,” I said. “We’ll be right there.”

“Turner out,” he said, and the mic turned black again.

I stared at the empty panel. My father was alive. We were going to be together. I took a deep breath.

My father hadn’t left me.

I angled toward the door, catching Eren’s eye. “Let’s go.”

“Yeah,” he said slowly. “We should go.”

I followed his frowning gaze to the Lieutenant. She was peacefully asleep, mere feet away from the most dangerous person I’d ever known. “I mean, it’s not the worst idea, you know? Leaving. Escaping. Staying alive.” I bit a lip. After all, she had chosen to work for Adam, hadn’t she?

“We have no antidote,” Eren said. “She’s gonna stay in stasis until he comes around. Although, he is tied up.”

“I guarantee that’s not gonna hold him once he’s awake. We could try to give her someplace to hide.”

“There is no hiding on this ship, Char.” Eren sounded irritated. “Certainly not on the Guardian Level. Besides, she’s barely conscious.”

“She’ll slow us down,” I said, but Eren just stood there, waiting.

Finally, I sighed. “You’re not going to leave her, are you.” It wasn’t a question.

He shook his head.

I smiled in spite of myself. Maybe he hadn’t changed as much as I’d thought.

“You get this side,” he said, putting her left arm around my shoulders. He ducked to lift her the rest of the way to her feet. “Perhaps it won’t be so bad.”

I stood, supporting her. “Or perhaps she was acting on some kind of stasis-induced hallucination, and as soon as she snaps out of it, she’ll kill us all.”

“Ever the optimist.” He returned the smile. “Let’s go. Watch the doorframe.”

But something held me back. I stood there for a moment, trying to think, then slowly let go of her arm. “Hang on. We need a better plan.”

“How did you put it? Escaping? Staying alive? This is a very good plan.” Eren made a face from the hallway. “Brilliant, even.”

“No, it leaves us open. We need protection, Eren.”

“Char—” he said softly.

“Here’s the thing. If we take her—” I waved at the Lieutenant—“we save one person. It’s the wrong play.”

Eren looked from corridor, to me, to Adam’s chair. “Oh, no you don’t. Now that is a bad plan.”

“Hear me out,” I said hastily. “We can’t kill him. Not yet. And he controls everything on this Ark. So we can’t lock him up. Not here. It’s the right move, Eren. It’s checkmate.”

“No, it’s stalemate at best. It’s nuts, is what it is. Do you have any idea how strong he is?”

I swallowed. “None of us does. That’s the problem.”

I waited while he considered that. A moment passed, and he laid the Lieutenant down with a pointed sigh.

“Good. You get that side,” I said, popping the cuffs off Adam’s wrists and shoving them into my pocket. As soon as they clicked open, Eren was at my side, ready to fight again. But Adam didn’t move. I pulled his arm over my shoulder.

“This is insane.” He made an angry grunt and hefted Adam’s remaining weight off the chair.

“Your objection is noted,” I said cheerfully. It was about time we got the upper hand around here. “Come on. Let’s do this.”

We stumbled into the dock with about a minute to spare. “Dad?” I called around the room in a half-whisper. I had never taken the Guardian entrance to the hangar before. It was imposing even when sealed shut. I turned to Eren. “You got the control stick-thingy?”

“Yes.” Eren looked around. “Did you feel that?”

“Feel what? Do you think he’s on the other side already?”

“Your dad? No. He couldn’t be. He’s got the skins—the suits. I think the Ark just moved.”

“It’s your imagination,” I said. Eren looked pale. Well, paler than usual. “The skins?”

“They never repaired the seal in the hangar. Without skins, we die.”

I swallowed against the dizzying feeling that the only thing separating me from the vast vacuum of space was a sheet of glass. “Dad!”

“Hey, keep it down. He has ears everywhere.” Eren laid a hand on the window, as though steadying himself, and laid his half of Adam gently on the floor. He looked sick.

I nodded. “Yeah, but be careful with the glass, okay? I’m not looking to take the quick way out.”

Eren stared down at Adam’s limp form, then looked back at me. “It’s fused silica,” he said.

What did that have to do with anything? “Silica. Great. Congrats on reading the pre-flight materials.”

Eren made a face like he wanted to laugh, but couldn’t, and slid down to sit next to Adam. “Fused. With titanium, too. Like the k-bands.” He waved a wrist at me, and his kuang band glinted in the bright light coming from the hangar. He had a strange look on his face.

“Hey. You okay?”

He looked down. “Char. I’m sorry.” His hand closed around the metal band on his wrist, and it hit me that he’d been wearing it for the last five years. I guess life hadn’t been so great for either of us.

“For what? Hey, get up. You’re kinda scaring me. Eren. We gotta find my dad.”

“Sorry it took five years. Sorry I couldn’t get you out of this any sooner.” He slumped forward. “No matter what, you leave. Don’t stay here.” His forehead touched the concrete, and his shoulders relaxed.

“Eren. Eren. Get up. Please get up. Wake up.” I shook him as hard as I could, but he only flopped onto his back, eyes closed.

“Charlotte?”

The sound jolted through me, and I whirled around. “Dad? Help! He’s—”

My father came running out of a shadow, and I had the absurd thought that exactly ten minutes had passed since our conversation. To the second.

He pressed a hand into Eren’s neck. “He’s breathing. Pulse is—fine, probably. Put this on,” he said, shoving a skin into my arms.

I wasted no time in getting the rubbery material over Eren’s feet. “I’m gonna need help lifting up his hips.”

Dad was glancing around the ceiling, a gesture that seemed out of place for him. I’d never really seen my dad get nervous. “No, Charlotte. Not on him. On you. Hurry up.”

My lips froze, mouth open, and I took a second to steel my spine. “I’m not leaving him,” I said quietly.

“It was always the plan. He has to stay here, Charlotte. There’s a chip in his k-band.”

“Then it doesn’t matter whether he stays here or not. He’s…” I trailed off, unable to finish the thought aloud. He’s dead either way.

Dad chose that moment to wrap an arm around my shoulder, a second gesture I couldn’t quite place with him, and squeeze.

I returned the embrace, surprised. We hadn’t hugged much during our last few years on Earth. He added his other arm, and for the moment, I had the irrepressible feeling that things would be okay. That no matter what, my problems were no match for my dad.

His eyes traveled down my right arm, to the place where my wrist should have been, and he hesitated before speaking. “I know. I know. But Eren knew the risks. He was very clear.”

“Are you worried about being spied on? We’ll just wrap the band up with aluminum, like you did mine.”

“It’s worse than spying, Charlotte. He’s been drugged. He could easily be dead before we get him on the Arkhopper.”

I shook my head, frustrated. No way was Adam going to win this one. “How many skins did you bring?”

“Two.”

“Two.” I said, hopping up. “So we need two more.” I trotted around the area, tapping on wall panels. A few held emergency supplies, including a military-grade first-aid kit, which I ignored, and a pressurized flare gun, which I grabbed out of habit.

“Charlotte—” he said gently.

“We can’t leave Eren. And we sure can’t leave Adam. So two more skins.”

His eyes widened. “That’s Adam? Charlotte.”

I whirled around, halfway to the other side of the hangar door, and filled my voice with lead. “Dad. I am not leaving them.”

“Well, we’re not staying here. I can’t let you—” Dad stopped, recognizing my tone, and gritted his teeth. Then he took a breath, regarding me with a measure of thoughtfulness. “I suppose it does give us some leverage.”

“Right?” I breathed a sigh of relief. At least one person didn’t think my plan was insane. I returned to my search, whacking the next panel I came to. The compartment opened to reveal one skin. One.

It was better than nothing. I lifted my chin and knocked open the rest of the panels, but it seemed that Adam had stored only enough for himself.

I turned back to Dad. “Okay. Three skins. Not ideal.”

Dad shook his head. I slid down next to Eren and began to work the skin over his boots again. “How far from here to the bay?”

“Ten feet, maybe? It’s the first ship in the hangar. Only ship, actually.”

“And Adam hasn’t disabled it?”

“We think it’s his getaway vehicle. I’m sure he’s got some trick or another up his sleeve in case someone else takes off with it. But he’s in stasis, right?”

My hand had wandered to the back of Eren’s head, and I pulled it away as casually as I could before my dad noticed. “Nope. Good old-fashioned knockout.”

Dad nodded. “That works, too,” he said slowly.

Too slowly.

He laid a hand over mine, and I stopped trying to secure the skin on Eren’s hips.

“What?” I said impatiently.

He gave me a slow look. “Charlotte.”

“What?”

“We have three skins.”

“I know.”

“We can’t leave Adam. You and I are agreed on that point.”

I pulled Eren’s head onto my legs without really thinking about it. It filled my entire lap. His face was completely relaxed. He was so helpless, in spite of his size. In that moment, there was no one but me to protect him. “I’m not leaving Eren. He never left me.”

“Eren’s unconscious, sweetheart. He can’t fly the hopper.” He lowered his voice. “You need to understand. There’s so much we don’t know about stasis. He may not wake up.”

“I’m not leaving him,” I repeated stubbornly. “I’m taking him to the doctors over there. Who knows what Adam’s done to him?”

It occurred to me that my father was as strong-willed as I’d ever been. At least I got it honestly. “Charlotte,” he said gently. “One skin for you. One for me, to fly the ship. And one…”

I pursed my lips, understanding his point at last. “For Adam. Because if he dies in the vacuum, we all do.”

Dad nodded.

“So take them. I’m the only one you don’t need. And I’ll be fine. No k-band or anything.”

“I won’t do that, Charlotte. Whatever you think you’re capable of, you’re not safe here. I’m not leaving you again.” His voice took on its own kind of strength—not anger, as I’d heard in the past, but something closer to resolution. “That’s the deal. Either you come with me, or no one does. Besides,” he smiled strangely, “if Adam didn’t kill me, Eren would.”

“So maybe we’re not going anywhere, after all,” I said. Stalemate again.

Dad looked at me, then back to the wall. “What do you want, Charlotte?”

“What do you mean?”

“What is it that you want? You’ve been fighting against things all your life. What are you fighting for these days?”

“I want—” I stopped, thinking. “I want my family back. I want the ships to be safe. All of them.” I took another long pause and leveled my gaze with his. “And I want Adam dead.”

“Then we have to get on that hopper. We have no allies here. This entire Ark is rigged to kill dissenters. Anyone who stands up to him. That’s why he’s lasted so long.” There was a change in his tone. “And your brother is on the European Ark.”

“Then Eren is no safer here than anyone else. Even if we leave him.”

He looked out the window. “Once the door is open, that’s it. The air will be sucked out of the area. Our intelligence is that the seal to this door will blow. A secondary seal will engage around the loading dock. He did that in some other areas so that he couldn’t be followed. This entire room will likely become a vacuum. There may be other tricks as well.”

“I don’t doubt it,” I said. “But I’m not leaving Eren.”

We sat there another moment, at a total impasse, and bit by bit, the absurdity of the situation crept over me. I had to laugh.

Dad smiled, too, friendly but humorless. “We really are stuck, aren’t we? We make quite a pair.”

I shook my head. “There’s nothing I could say to get you to take him to the doctor for me.”

“Nope,” he said flatly. “And I don’t suppose I could persuade you to—”

“Nope.”

At this, he laughed, too. “Well, there is one other option. But you’re not going to like it.”

Six

“All right,” I said. “Let’s hear it.”

“It’s ten feet to the hopper. It’ll take at least fifteen seconds to pop the hatch, then another thirty to seal it back.”

I gave him a blank look. “Dad. You can’t be seriously thinking of—”

“You hold his face, keep pressure on his eyes. Make sure his mouth and nose are shut.”

“Dad. No. No.”

“I’ll run ahead and get it ready. There’s still full gravity, and we should keep him in the fetal position as long as possible. As soon as it starts to open, I’ll be right back to help you move him.”

“You have actually lost your—”

He looked at me earnestly. “Even a dog can survive ninety seconds. A chimp can make it for two and a half minutes.”

“I do not want to think about how they figured that one out.”

“It’s certainly not safe, but like you said. The scientists on the EuroArk have been working around the clock on reproducing these drugs ever since Adam took over. They can probably help Eren. And I doubt he’s going to make it if we leave him here.”

“So put the skin on him. I’m not even slightly sick. My odds are way better.”

“That won’t work, Charlotte, even if I agreed to it. I can’t move three bodies by myself. And you will concede that Adam’s life is more important than any of ours. We can’t risk him.”

“For now, anyway.” I sat there, fully confronted with the truth: my father was right. It had to be Eren. “I can’t believe I’m agreeing to this.”

“It’s his best shot.” He paused for a moment, then added, “You’re a good friend to him, Charlotte. I’m proud of you.”

“All right, all right.” I stood up and shimmied into my skin, yanking it nervously over my shoulders. The flat oxygen pack settled around the top of my head, under the dome of my helmet, and the neck sealed itself without a hitch. Beside me, Dad did the same, then started working on Adam.

I popped back to the first-aid kit and retrieved a spool of surgical tape. Then I wound it around Eren’s mouth about a dozen times, making sure he was still breathing through his nose. I plugged his ears with skinwax from the burn section of the kit and taped his eyelids shut, then wrapped them tightly as well. Halfway through, I realized that my hands were shaking.

“Ninety seconds, you say?”

Dad gave me a sympathetic look. “More, for a person.”

“A conscious one.” My tongue felt heavy. “Forty-five seconds for the hatch to open and close.”

“Plus a little time to get Adam on board. And however long it takes for life support to boot.”

“I think I’m going to be sick.”

Dad looked at Eren, and I realized I was cradling his head and shoulders against my chest. “I don’t want him to die any more than you do, Charlotte,” he said, his voice slightly softer.

I pulled Eren closer. He was completely limp. “Yeah.”

“Did you see any rope?”

“Rope?”

“In the compartments.”

“Um. Yeah. Somewhere on that side.”

Moving quickly, Dad located the rope, produced a knife out of nowhere, and cut a long measure off. Then he wound it around Adam’s chest and over my shoulders. “You should take Adam,” he said, his voice strange. “We’ll move faster. I’ll hold Eren in position, with his knees up. He’s bigger. Less secure. It’ll take a lot more strength.”

I nodded, numb, and he secured Adam’s body onto my back, then wound his legs around my waist. “Hang on like this,” he said quietly. “It’ll distribute around your hips. Easier to manage.”

I wet my lips. “Okay.”

“Okay,” he repeated, lifting Eren against his chest. He rested a hand on the door to the hangar. “When this is open, the pressure differential will activate the airlock on the far side of the hangar. We think it’s wired so that the airlock’s activation will trigger an explosion, so move fast. Brace yourself. In five.”

Eren was curled against my father like a baby. His head was tucked against my father’s neck, his shins against my father’s forearm. I nodded.

“Four. Three. Two—”

There was a sick hiss as the distant airlock engaged its seal. I lumbered out onto the hangar catwalk, Adam on my back, following my father’s heavy-laden form. Behind us, the door began to close.

Seconds later, a gut-thumping POP followed by a deep, sudden rumble shook the hangar floor, and the walls around me reflected fire. At the hangar wall, mere feet from the dock, a bright orange flame came into view and quickly flattened into a deep, dark blue as the fire devoured the remaining oxygen trying to escape the hangar.

I stumbled, falling, and let go of Adam’s legs. The rope around us both went dangerously taut, driving my breath out of my chest. I hit the ground, and Adam’s weight thrust me down further, smashing my knees into the floor. The hopper was round and shiny, with a webbed net over half the hatch and long, black blades that looked like the feet of a particularly graceful insect.

It was also about a million miles away. I struggled to stand, but my legs were not nearly strong enough to lift us both after five years of puppethood, and I had to crawl the remaining distance.

When the ladder appeared in front of my face, I lifted my head in time to see my father force Eren through the hatch. I grabbed the highest rung I could reach and yanked myself up. Dad leaned down and pulled Adam up. He was still attached to me.

Surely an hour had passed since the seal had broken.

I willed my legs and arms to climb the ladder, then collapsed onto Eren as soon as I’d struggled over the lid of the hopper.

Above me, the hatch must have closed, but I couldn’t hear it. The floor of the hopper began to hum.

My father sat in the pilot seat, yanking the controls around, until the hatch was fully sealed. Then he ripped off his helmet and shoved it down over Eren’s head, flipping a dial on the ear.

“What?” I said, but he couldn’t hear me. I yanked off my own helmet and breathed in the recycled air of the hopper, nearly shaking with relief. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” said Dad. “He’s fine, probably. But the oxygen in the helmet is more concentrated. That’s what he needs right now, since we can hardly repressurize him slowly. Anything he had in his blood is likely depleted, or will be soon.”

“Oh,” I said, then drew it out a little longer, feeling fear and relief all at once. “Ohhh.”

Dad frowned at me, then shoved an airsick tube into my unsteady hands. “Make sure if you vomit, you get it all in that,” he said crisply, and began to cut the ropes off my back. Adam fell onto the footboard, and his helmeted head knocked into Eren’s.

There were only two seats in the hopper: the pilot’s and the one right next to it. So I went about pressing Eren into a sitting position on the floor. From there, I could try to lift him onto the seat using the safety straps as leverage. If memory served, we were in for a spin once we broke free of the Ark’s rotation, and I wasn’t about to risk him getting hurt any further. If Adam suffered a few broken bones, on the other hand, I wouldn’t exactly lose sleep over it.

“Charlotte. The seat is yours,” my father said. He was gathering the bits of rope from around my shoulders and using them to bind Adam in every way he could think of. Then he pulled Eren down on top of Adam and tied their chests together. “This will keep them from snapping their necks, but only barely. It won’t work as well for you.”

“Eren goes in the seat,” I said, angry. “He has more mass. He should be secured. For everyone’s safety.”

“I’m done with this argument, Charlotte. Buckle in.”

I set my lips, weighing my options.

Dad sighed. “I’m securing them both to the floorboard. No one’s going flying around the cabin. And if you don’t buckle up, no one’s going anywhere.” He crossed his arms and settled back in his seat. “Unless you’ve learned how to fly a spacecraft since we left Earth.”

I scowled. He looked out the window, the picture of patience. The flames had long since extinguished from lack of oxygen, and the hopper was like a cocoon, quiet and safe. And slightly cramped. My father wasn’t kidding.

I hopped into the seat, letting my glare deepen a little further, and grimaced my way through the process of untangling and securing the knot of safety straps. Dad gave a slight nod and shifted the controls into position.

The thrusters engaged when the final valve released, stabilizing us as we swung out into the darkness. Gravity lessened with every sweeping arc, and we slid smoothly into nothingness, surrounded by distant stars. Dad was a better pilot than I’d expected.

I let the vastness envelop me completely. For the first time, I felt that space was comforting. We—all of us—were so helpless. There was no rational explanation for our continued survival in the universe, and yet here we were, blanketed by the cosmos that should have killed us off generations ago.

It struck me that if we succeeded, we would be the forbears of a new race of people. In time, the generations we carried inside ourselves would come to fill Eirenea, and it was we who made their strivings possible. We who had escaped a doomed planet. We who founded a life on a barren rock on the other side of the solar system. They would teach the story of our journey for the rest of our existence. And who knew what things the human race would yet accomplish?

I glanced at my dad and knew that his mind was on the past, and my mother. For me, in that moment, it was all connected. She had given her life so that I could be here, and now, I was prepared to do the same.

“We’re going to make it, Dad. I think she always knew that we would make it.”

He said nothing, but spun the ship about and pressed us into the void.

Seven

The EuroArk was dark when we came in. I’m not sure what I expected, but the only major points of light were the docks. There were tiny pins of light at the tips of the other structures, but I couldn’t make them out. I squinted, slack-jawed, as we drew near. I couldn’t imagine the shape of the massive ship ahead of me. From where I sat, it looked exactly like the stars.

“Gotta be careful here,” said Dad, mostly to himself. “The cities reach farther out than the docks.”

I continued to gawk, wondering what he meant by that, until the rest of the Ark came to light. It was a dark ship in a darker sky, but from what I could tell, it was composed of several cube-like modules connected by a series of wide tubes and interspersed with smaller, more tapered tubes that held the docks.

“It looks like a jack,” I said, recalling a game I’d played as a child. “Knucklebones.”

“Yes, that was intentional, to preserve and insulate as many cultures as possible. So is the darkness. It’s mandatory for eight hours a night. Saves energy. Helps with the Lightness, too. Gets people used to power outages before they happen.”

The hopper eased toward the space between a protruding pair of cities, allowing me to gape at the vacant-looking windows in wonder. “They don’t have a nuclear generator? I hope you got your clearance ahead of time,” I said nervously, looking for weapons ports among the asteroid shields. “What do you mean, intentional?”

“The European Ark was engineered to minimize interdependency among the cities. The areas at the end of each strut operate separately, but the core city, right in the middle, has final say over everything. Kinda like the United States, before it was dissolved. And it adds surface area for the solar sails.”

“Minimize inter—but wait, isn’t the whole point of the Treaty of Phoenix that we’re all supposed to depend on each other? To stop everyone from going to war again? We’re all mixed together, so that no one group of people gets isolated. I gotta wonder what the Tribune thinks about that. It has the final say over everything, right?”

“That’s an untested theory, at this point. The Tribune has never done anything controversial enough to matter, so no one has ever challenged its authority. But it’s really meant to arbitrate disputes under the Treaty. It’s more of a legal recourse for the heads of the governments than an executive one. Its only weight is the strength of the other Arks, who’ve all agreed to abide by its rulings.”

“In theory.”

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