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  When she hit it, her head knocked the wood and she slumped like a rag doll against the wall.

  I'd just reoriented myself, and already the silver had rounded toward her. It moved fast—almost too fast for me to perceive. It lunged toward Zara, and I opened my mouth to scream.

  Then it was hurtled sideways, pile-driven into the wooden railing opposite my sister. A man stood in front of us, the swells of his back visible even under his black shirt.

  He took hold of the silver by scruff and maw, and then he drove a knife so far down its throat the wood splintered on the other side.

  I caught sight of him in profile as he yanked the knife out. This man was stronger than the one I’d known at the facility. He was faster, almost inhumanly powerful. There was only death in that eye.

  "Captain West!" one of the guardians yelled, and my gaze shifted just in time to see the second silver with a body between its jaws.

  It mounted the netting, and her blonde hair swept out of its bun as it carried my sister down, down the walls and landed hard in the dead zone outside the outpost.

  I ran to the railing in time to see the silver, my sister still in its jaws, racing toward the darkness.

  A hand landed on my shoulder, and I spun. Tears blurred my eyes, but I didn't need to see who it was. His voice resonated beside my ear: "I'll bring her back."

  “Blaze,” I whispered as he flung himself onto the netting, climbing right to the top and over.

  I stood at the railing, but I could barely follow his movements. Already he was halfway down, dropping and then catching the netting below him. Just above the wall he swung, his free arm carrying around to drive his tanto into the eye of a third sliver that had managed to get past the metal. It let a howl, dropped to the ground below. The others lurched out of the way, snarled up at him.

  He reached the wall with both soles planted. At first he skidded, and then he levered himself up to a run, tearing down the incline. Near the base, he leapt, rolled head over feet into a pair of them. The blade came up and around as though he was inscribing a symbol in the air, and the two slivers dropped, lifeless.

  The others didn’t have time to mass. As soon as one fell, he struck to the next, the blade flashing in the artificial light, blood spraying like water.

  Beside me, one of the adolescent guardians was shivering. I reached my hand out to hers, and she grasped it while the two of us watched. “What is he?” she whispered as he leapt into the air, his leg leveraging him high enough to drive the tanto straight into another eye socket.

  I was silent. I didn’t know how to answer her. “He’s Blaze,” I said. It was all there was to say.

  “More from the east,” one of the guardians called.

  I shifted my gaze, squinting. Miles off there was a rippling motion through the tall grass. Next to me, the female guardian gasped. “There have to be at least six.”

  Now I could see them, their dark bodies ploughing rows in the field. I leaned over the railing, gripping the side. “Blaze!” I screamed.

  But he either couldn’t hear me or didn’t want to. He was awash in blood from crown to waist, and it was only when the slivers had crossed half the distance to Beacon that he acknowledged the onrush.

  He speared another silver on his knife, slotted it into his belt, and tore off through the dead zone.

  Away from us. He was moving northeast—the direction the silver had disappeared with my sister.

  No, I thought, no, no, no. He couldn’t sacrifice himself like this. We needed him. I needed him.

  But nothing—and no one—could stop him. He was running so fast he’d become a blur to my weak eyes, his arms and legs like pistons before he disappeared into the tall grass.

  He had entered their territory. He might be a clone, an infiltrator, a hybrid like I’d never seen. But no one survived their world.

  The remaining silvers were massing at the walls, but I started down the scaffolding, shaking with adrenaline. The guardians allowed me to pass, their attention still beyond the walls.

  Except for one man's.

  After a childhood spent together, I’d have recognized Aiden’s steps on any surface. Solid, dependable, often a little too insistent. He was following me.

  “Where are you going?” he called over my shoulder.

  I descended one of the short staircases, hit the switchback of the next scaffolding without answering. I had to get supplies. A horse. Weapons. I had to do all these things by morning.

  “Darcy,” Aiden said, “don’t just ignore me.”

  But I would, and I did. That was, until he stepped up in front of me and blocked me with his entire body.

  My first thought: that wasn’t something Blaze would do. And I resented that Aiden would.

  I stopped because I had to, stared up at him with eyes that might have cut holes in his blond head if they’d been laser-equipped. “Step aside.”

  He searched my face for a little compassion, some softness. I wouldn’t give him any. Finally, he said, “We can’t do anything until—”

  “Morning?” I finished. “Fuck morning. That’s my sister they’ve taken.” And with the words sent into the air, a rush came over me, and I tried to press past him. My sister. She was dying. She was out there. I was her protector, her star.

  When Aiden leaned into the scaffolding rail to block me, I let a yell that startled the guards still on the wall above us. "Get out of my way, Aiden Waters!"

  The two of us stared up, found three faces looking down.

  “It’s nothing,” Aiden said. “Back to defense.”

  “It’s something!” I yelled. “It’s sure as hell something. You don’t have any control over me, Waters. Step aside so I can—”

  “What, get a horse?” he said. Now his hands came to my shoulders, and I felt small and ineffectual. I tried to shrug him off, but he forced us to meet eyes. Before he’d always been needy, but now he just seemed dominant. And not in a way I appreciated.

  “No one’s going to give you a horse, Darcy.”

  “I’ll steal one,” I hissed. “Get off me.”

  He sighed. “If there’s one thing I’m bound to do for the people I love—or once loved, like I did you—it’s not allowing them to commit suicide.”

  “I wouldn’t…”

  “You would.”

  A moment elapsed. With the silvers departed, the alarm had stopped, and the depths of night resumed: the guardians moving above us, the humming of Beacon’s bright lights. Down in the center of the outpost, a man lay dead under the hanging tree.

  A chill came over me, and I didn’t know if I would ever stop shaking.

  Aiden pulled me to him, and I cried like I hadn’t done since I was a girl.

  2:43 a.m.

  Blaze

  The silver carried Zara like a doll, a plaything. Her limbs dangled, the heels of her boots scuffing the ground as he bounded away from the outpost.

  I followed, the lights of Beacon falling away as we struck over the dead zone and into the night. Last night I had been wholly focused on Darcy’s safety, on getting her into the generator's dock.

  This time, I took it all in. A treeless world, the ground churned as though it had been tilled and farmed for so many generations only dust had been left behind. No grass, no green, no creatures except the silvers and me.

  We’d run miles from the outpost, and soon only moonlight spread across my face. I felt for the first time wholly in my element.

  Outside, the earth molding itself to my bare feet, the wind carrying scents from miles away, my legs moving like pistons as I chased the silver that had taken Darcy’s sister.

  That was the word: chase. I was a chaser, a pursuer.

  Ahead, the silver ran as a quadruped, all four powerful limbs carrying it over the ground. By its scent, I knew this one was male. And no matter how hard I pushed myself, he was getting away from me.

  I ran fast, but he ran faster. Even with over one hundred pounds of human female in his maw, my two legs couldn�
�t begin to move as fast as his four. He was a shrinking dot in the night, and I knew if I lost sight of him, I might lose him forever.

  And Darcy would lose Zara. The outpost would lose their deputy captain. I wouldn’t allow either of those things to happen.

  “You can turn into one of them,” Darcy had said.

  A voice in my head returned: “How?”

  I hadn’t been trained. Just wanting it wasn’t enough—I’d only managed to extend the claws in my hands. And those claws were still extended, I realized as I ran. Three times I’d managed to extend them, and this time they’d stayed out. What was the common thread?

  Emotion. Strong emotion.

  It was time to take a risk.

  I slowed, the memory of the gunshot returning to me: Darcy’s blood spraying behind her, across the floor and the cryo-sleeve containing a frozen clone. That sight of her shot had filled my chest, sent me into a rage. And just thinking about it now, my stomach shifted.

  Something was changing inside me.

  Through my feet, I sensed a vibration in the earth. A rhythmic thudding. I turned, and a half-second later a massive form crashed into me. We hit the ground together, and my first thoughts were:

  How didn't I hear? How didn’t I scent it?

  But none of that mattered now, because this creature—a silver—and I were locked together above the ground.

  The air went out of me as we hit the dirt. I managed to land at a slight angle, rolled the silver over me before its claws could rake my throat. I kicked, knocking it a few feet away.

  This one was stronger than the others I’d fought. Quieter. Lethal in every sense of the word.

  I struggled for breath even as I scrambled to a crouch, my claws reemerging slick and smooth and ready for violence.

  The silver righted, and we two took a long look at one another in the dark. It appeared in every way like an enormous wolf, except the wolves I’d been shown in the facility were lanky, slender.

  Not so with a silver. As it came to all fours, its hackles raised, and its entire form bristled with muscle. Another male. I’d only encountered males.

  And this one was at least twice my size.

  Two red eyes studied me, and for a moment, I thought I saw intelligence. Contemplation.

  I was still winded, my lungs stoppered shut. In a great gasp, I finally forced them open. And as though it had taken my cue, the silver lunged.

  It let a growl, pressed itself from its hind legs into the air and over me. I rolled left, pressed my hand to the ground and redirected my force back toward the silver, barreling into the creature with all my weight, my claws angled toward its tender side.

  It let a snarl as we made contact, swinging around to swipe me. I shouted as the claws raked my chest, and in the moonlit night, in the barren dead zone, we were both fighting to put the other down. And we each got our licks in.

  Except his licks were better.

  I had better instincts, and I could dodge, but I didn’t have fur to protect me. I didn’t have anything but soft, rippable human skin.

  Darcy’s words flowed through my mind again: “You can shift into one of them.”

  I came down atop the silver, slipped over him and dashing around for the next volley. My claws came away dipped in red, and the creature's gray coat showed a few specks of his blood.

  My own chest dripped with my blood, hot and quickly chilling in the night. If we kept this up, I would die out here. I couldn’t afford to die—not now, and not here.

  I glanced back in the direction I’d come. Back toward Beacon, the outpost where Darcy was waiting for me to return. To bring her sister back to her.

  I might have imagined it, but a little light sprung there on the horizon. Humans—humanity. They carried goodness, and Darcy was the best of them. And now that I’d known her, been with her, the spark of her would always remain with me.

  It lit me from the inside.

  Of course, I thought. It’s her.

  The enemy silver pooled up from the ground and lunged toward me in a single motion. But it was too late; I had already dropped to all fours, my skin splitting at my spine like a zipper coming undone.

  The muscles grew, expanded, my face reshaping itself into that of a creature designed for ripping, for tearing. For grabbing hold and not letting go.

  By the time my opponent had crossed half the distance between us, my vision had sharpened so well I could see every hair of his coat with acuteness I didn’t know was possible.

  He smelled like anger and violence, with a dab of fear spreading in.

  Well, he should fear me.

  I pressed off the ground to meet him with a snarl, howling with a battle lust I hadn’t known I possessed.

  We met midair, each of us snapping for the other’s tender throat. I leaned left—away from him—my jaw swinging around, but he leaned straight in. And it was then I understood: this silver might be quieter, but he wasn't as strong as me.

  My canines clamped down on his throat, and we fell to the ground together. He let a yelp, snarling and snapping, claws scrabbling against my fur, but I wouldn’t let go.

  I squeezed tighter, swinging my head left and right, jerking him with me. He fought me, wriggling and snarling and howling, until he’d exhausted himself. I still didn’t let go.

  It was when he slumped to the ground that I knew I’d asserted dominance. I released him, and he fell onto his side, red blooms of his blood like a collar around his neck.

  And then he shifted into a man. A man just like me.

  Eleven

  Saturday, May 10, 2053

  2:54 a.m.

  Darcy

  The hospital had been my once-upon-a-time home. My sanctuary.

  But as I helped carry in Marks the guardian—a boy, really—who had taken a blow to the chest, Dr. Sorin and I met eyes. He gave a slight shake of the head, and I wondered how I’d ever insulated myself so well from the suffering that occurred in this place.

  I knew I could only help this boy in one way.

  Aiden and I set him down on one of the cots, and he cried like a child with the movement, begged to have his helmet pulled off. “I can’t see. I can’t see,” he kept saying.

  And when I took it off him, before his black hair came loose, I thought for a second it would be someone I'd known. But his face looked unfamiliar to me, and I felt a small, shameful seed of gratitude that it was a stranger whose suffering I would have to witness.

  “What do we do?” Aiden said.

  Dr. Sorin came up on the other side of the cot. “Help me get the rest of his gear off.”

  We undid his jacket, laid it wide to expose his abdomen. The chest had caved, his breathing stuttering and ragged. He didn’t cry any longer as we pulled off his leg-guards, his belt.

  Meanwhile, the boy's dark eyes fell on me the same way so many of my infiltrators had on waking. He raised a hand, and I sat on the cot, took his fingers and squeezed hard. We do this, I thought. Right now, with Zara and Blaze gone, I had to remind myself of the purpose of every act I performed. We do this for comfort.

  He hadn’t been clawed or bitten, at least; the silver had only thrown him, but we were so fragile that a single throw could end us, even at the age of eighteen or nineteen.

  Aiden sat on the other side of the cot, staring down.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  “Nome.” He paused. “It’s his nickname. I don’t know his real name.”

  I glanced from her to him, back down to Nome. Was that what we had come to? Real names lost, heritages forgotten. Just a crossbow and greaves, a lab jacket and beaker, a man with a hammer and an anvil.

  “He's one of the new guard. A promising shot,” Aiden added.

  I leaned down to his ear, pressed aside a curl of black hair. “Nome, you saved us tonight,” I whispered. "You were brave. You were the bravest among us all up on that scaffolding."

  I didn’t know whether he'd heard or not, because by the time I sat back up, Nome had pass
ed.

  3:15 a.m.

  Aiden and I stepped into Moll’s Pub just as Celine was setting the last mug on the shelf.

  She took one look at us, yanked the mug right back off and set it on the counter. She set a twin mug next to it, and filled them both without a word.

  The place sat as small, ramshackle, and spotless as ever. It had been thrown together with spare wood and metal, and at some point it had acquired two windows and a pair of batwings to make it like what people called an “old-time saloon.”

  Except old-time saloons were supposed to be full of dust and sand. Celine had cleared away every mote of dust from the four tables, eight stools and the long swath of polished wooden counter.

  I took a stool, and Aiden followed. When we’d sat, Celine set both hands on the counter and stared between us.

  “So,” she said with that straight-shooting, raspy voice, “you finally found her, Aiden.”

  She was certainly Moll’s daughter.

  “He didn’t find me,” I said.

  “You two back together?” she asked almost as soon as I’d finished speaking.

  Aiden and I met eyes for a frantic half-second. At least, I felt frantic. “Absolutely not,” I said.

  Though I did like that, after five years gone, Celine thought nothing of my reappearance. I was just Darcy, back and spending time at the pub with Aiden. And that was perfectly unsurprising.

  At this moment, itching with the desire to hop a horse and barrel out of the front gates of Beacon, I needed something in my life to be unsurprising.

  Aiden shrugged, took a long sip from the mug. That seemed like the right thing to do, and I lifted my own, drowned Celine’s face in the froth of a soury beer.

  I coughed, set it hard on the counter. “Sorry to be coming in two minutes before closing.”

  Celine shook her head, resumed cleaning. “We’ve got a new rule since I’ve been in charge: silver attacks warrant staying open later. Or, I should say, earlier. Whichever.” Her hand slowed, and she raised her glazed eyes. "And I heard there was a death."