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achingly soft I melt against him. I want to stay here forever, kissing Luka. I don’t want to move forward, into the unknown. I definitely don’t want to move back, into the hell that was yesterday. But fragmented bits of information intrude on my euphoria, sneaking into the crevices of my mind like pesky rodents.
    Clive, apologizing.
    Clive, dropping the cloak.
    We risked everything to rescue him from Shady Wood. He was inside Leela’s car. We invited him into the hub. He acted like he was on our side. I trusted him. I thanked him. And then he handed us over to the enemy on a silver platter.
    Heat licks up my chest. Because of him, Non almost became a widow. The hub almost lost its leader. Jillian and Link and Rosie and all the rest would have been left to deal with the fallout. All of it would have happened, too, if not for Gabe and the mysterious shield he threw at me. What was that? And why are Luka and I still alone? Doesn’t anyone care that we succeeded? That Luka’s back and well with no ramifications that I can see?
    “I don’t understand what happened,” I say.
    “Neither do I.”
    Footsteps approach.
    Luka and I step apart.
    Jillian walks toward us, her mousy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail, her clothes as worn and faded as everyone else’s. She gives Luka a wobbly smile. “It’s good to see you up.”
    He pushes his fingers through his hair. “It’s good to be up.”
    She bites her lip.
    A cold feeling slinks between my shoulder blades. “What’s wrong?”
    “It’s Gabe.” Tears pool in her eyes. “He’s dead.”

Chapter Nine
    The Devouring
    I ’m no stranger to death.
    I saw it claim a doctor and a nurse outside a fetal modification clinic in a fiery explosion. I watched it persuade a desperate man to stick the barrel of a gun inside his mouth and pull the trigger. I couldn’t stop it from claiming a catatonic woman behind a steering wheel as fumes of exhaust gathered in her garage. I witnessed its merciless appetite as it threw up a carnage of bodies on a stretch of California highway.
    But in the light of day, with my skin burning beneath scratching fingers, death is an entirely different beast. In the light of day, I’ve only stared it in the face twice. First with Dr. Roth, hanging from a noose at the end of his hallway. Now Gabe, lying in a chair inside the training room. His eyes are closed. His frozen lips slightly upturned, as if he welcomed death like an old friend. Link told me once that when Gabe’s anima died, Gabe died in a way, too. Now he’s dead in every way. I don’t understand how.
    Jillian sniffs. “I was watching the monitors when his vitals flatlined. There was no warning or anything. One second he was fine, and the next …”
    With glazed-over eyes, Luka stares down at Gabe’s still form.
    “What’s going to happen to him?” My question escapes without inflection. Today has encompassed too many emotions. The effect has left me wrung dry. I know I should feel sad about this loss, responsible for this loss, but all I feel apart from numbness is relief that the one lying dead in the hub is not Luka.
    “I don’t know.” Jillian’s lip trembles. “Maybe if Link had been in charge instead of me, he would have noticed something. Maybe Gabe wouldn’t be dead.”
    I squeeze Jillian’s hand. “This is not your fault.”
    She wipes her eyes. “After you left, Cap yelled at Sticks and Jose to grab Clive and then he ordered all of us out.”
    A slow-rising anger works its way through the numbness. After everything we did for him, after everything we risked for him— how could he? “Do you know where they took him?”
    “The conference room.”
    I march into the hallway, leaving Jillian and Luka behind. I pass the greenhouse, where Anna hums softly to herself. I don’t stop until I reach the end of the adult dormitory corridor. A thin strip of light shines beneath the closed door of the makeshift conference room. Before I can knock, the door flies open