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asked Ben. “Why not just Will? He got us into this mess.”
    â€œDid not,” I said. Getting dumped on was growing old fast. “We all got cured, we all got symptoms. How is any of that my fault?”
    â€œI think we should all go,” Connor said, “Come on, it’ll be cool.” And that, more than anything, is probably what got us to do it. In the end it was like a dare no one wanted to miss out on. And there was the promise of a cure, even if the promise was made by an insane woman living all alone in the woods. It was something to hold on to.
    â€œAt least make him go first,” Alex said. “That way if I fall I’ll land on his head.”
    Marisa didn’t come to my defense. She wouldn’t even look at me. It got worse when Connor started whispering to her, glancing over his shoulder as I fumed.
    She’s back on the market. Nice. That’s what his muscle-headed look told me, and Marisa didn’t do anything to make him think otherwise.
    â€œFine, I’ll go first,” I said, blowing past everyone and arriving inside, where a metal door with a latch sat against the ground. Mrs. Goring knelt down beside me and grabbed the lever with her hand, shoving it sideways with a grinding noise that reverberated into places I couldn’t see.
    â€œHe’s older,” Mrs. Goring whispered close to my ear, and I turned to her. “Let’s make sure he doesn’t see one more bloody year.”
    She shoved something in my hand and looked at me as if it was to remain our secret, whatever it was. Did I really think it was a good idea to conspire with Mrs. Goring again? She’d gotten me in a heap of trouble with Marisa and the rest, and yet I had a weird feeling I should let it pass. It crossed my mind to tell her about what I’d found in the woods, but there was no time.
    â€œAgreed,” I said, staring down a long, wide tube with a metal ladder on one side. There was faint, crackling light coming from somewhere far below. I slid what she’d handed me into my back pocket and listened carefully for any sound coming from the depths of whatever lay belowground at Fort Eden.
    â€œGood thing you’re not afraid of heights, Connor,” I said, imagining the old Connor Bloom, the one who had been terrified of falling. 5
    I started down the ladder, feeling the rungs grow colder as I went, and immediately decided it was a bad idea. I stopped and started to complain, to reason with the others that we should go back, but Connor was the second one into the tube and he wouldn’t stop coming toward me. His body was a hulking shadow against the light of the world outside.
    â€œGo, man! I don’t want to be down here all day.”
    I didn’t move. I could feel the stupidity of what we were doing. It suddenly felt all wrong, just in time to have no power over what was happening to me.
    â€œI’m going to step on your hand,” said Connor. He was staring down at me from above with a resolve that bordered on psychotic. “I’m getting those vials, and you’re going to help me do it. Move.”
    He placed one shoe on my left hand and began pressing down with his weight. Looking down, I saw that it was at least thirty feet more to the bottom.
    â€œOkay, okay!” I shouted. “Back off!”
    Connor removed his foot and I reluctantly went down another four rungs as someone else came in behind Connor, I couldn’t tell who.
    If I could just keep Marisa out of here. At least that would be something , I thought. But I kept on, Connor’s relentless feet at my head, until I stood on a slick concrete floor and stared up. I could see all of them marching down the ladder in a line like little soldiers.
    And at the very top, Mrs. Goring’s head, which suddenly disappeared.
    And that’s when the metal door at the top of the ladder slammed shut, before half of us were even off the ladder.
    I heard the handle turn