PROLOGUE

T

T he lack of communication devices on the subjects was making things more difficult, but I managed to connect to the electrical grid to communicate that way instead. My job was easy enough: flash the lights in the direction they needed to run and unlock the doors that stood in their way. All from a distance, of course. I couldn’t have them discovering my identity when I needed to keep my true allegiances under wraps.

‘They need to go left,’ a familiar male voice spoke softly yet urgently from beside me. ‘There are more guards coming up ahead, and they’re turning right.’

I relayed that information with a flash of a light down the left corridor. They followed.

‘They need to hurry,’ the only female in the room commented, her voice soothing just like it always was even when tinged with anxiety. ‘The guards are changing trajectory and heading for the exit. If they want to make it, they’ll need to pick up the pace.’

We watched through the security cameras as their speed remained steadily the same. Corridor after corridor. Up and down multiple flights of stairs. I guided them the best I could around the dangers. But it wasn’t enough.

‘They’re not going to make it,’ someone else said over my shoulder.

Unfortunately, they were right. Just as the two women began to run down the hallway that led to the outside world, the guards converged around them from every direction.

They fought. Oh, they fought valiantly . Their abilities were beyond comprehension. Their fists caved in skulls like they were made of wet clay. Their speed was phenomenal, so much so that I struggled to keep track of their movements as they took out each and every obstacle that tried to prevent their escape. And their synchronicity as they moved together, back-to-back, predicting the movements as if they were a single entity.

But then the scientists came. In a flurry of white coats, they stuck to the edges of the fight, well out of the way, but they hadn’t arrived without weapons.

They didn’t want them dead, which was the only solace I could find. But when they aimed a stun-gun at the two women my stomach dropped.

No …

They shot, and the brunette dodged, but the blonde dropped to her knees as she fought the convulsions. The brunette attempted to pick up the slack, but there were just too many to fight off while dodging the scientist’s long-range attacks.

Eventually, they shot the blonde with a tranquiliser dart, and she fell to the ground. I could hear the shouting through the speakers.

‘A, you have to go!’

The brunette kept fighting. ‘No, L! I’m not leaving you!’

‘You have to! I’ll be fine. They won’t kill me. But I’m not making it out of here today,’ she continued to shout at her friend while her body was being restrained by a couple of guards that had managed to break through the brunette’s defences.

‘No…’

‘Run, A! Go now! Please!’

When the guards’ focus was directed more towards the blonde than her, the brunette hesitated and I swore, even with the distance between us, I could feel her devastation.

‘Please,’ the blonde croaked through a small gap in the mass of bodies converging on top of her. ‘I’m not going to make it, but you can! Be free. For the both of us.’

‘I’ll come back for you,’ said the brunette as they began to cart her blonde friend back inside. She dodged a few more long-range attacks as she ducked out the door and disappeared into the night, leaving nothing but the echo of her heartbreak behind.

Nobody moved. Nobody spoke. The room was completely and utterly still as we watched our efforts simultaneously get thwarted and find success. Only one of them had managed to escape, but it was one more we had managed to save.

I grabbed a piece of paper and a pen and started scribbling, knowing what I needed to do.

‘You’re staying, then?’ the woman asked, running her fingers over the spikes on my head with a maternal tenderness.

‘She’ll be okay. She knows what to do. I’m needed here more,’ was all I said.

I knew she would struggle out in the real world. She had grown up in a state of survival. She’d been confined and hidden away from anything but The Program. She would have to adjust, but we’d done our best to prepare her. I could only hope it had been enough.

The plan had been for me to follow them, to help them find their way in a world they had never before been awarded the opportunity to experience, but I couldn’t do that. I knew how much L meant to A. Leaving her behind would have been the most difficult, guilt-inducing personal crime she had ever committed. L was her entire world, and we all knew she would be back eventually. We didn’t have much time if we wanted to ensure she remained free.

In the meantime she would be fine. She was strong enough to figure it out, and I had spent the better part of the past few solars training her for this very moment.

If there was anything A knew how to do, it was survive.

The group let me go under the guise of joining the other guards to search for the escaped subject. It went a long way to show that the Tornu guards were still involved, still doing our jobs, still on their side to see me hunting alongside them despite our notable absence during the escape.

Close to the rendezvous point, I broke off from the others momentarily to place the letter down, keeping the mask over my face. If A was here and she saw me, she would eventually learn more than I ever wanted her to. More than I wanted anyone to. No one could know I existed. Not yet.

I stared glumly at the letter I’d left behind, knowing it wasn’t the only thing I was abandoning out here. But it was the best I could do for her for now. She had never needed me the way I’d wanted her to, and it was time to let her go.