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TREY

The waterfall concealing Shadow Ridge’s cavern pours into a small lake. Crickets chirp throughout the darkness as Arella and I crouch behind a bush overlooking the shimmery water. I can’t believe I allowed her to come. Earlier, when we stopped at a drive-thru, she went inside to use the bathroom, and I almost put that Lincoln into drive and left her there. It’s not like she could have found her way to the Ridge without me. The only reason I didn’t take off is because she’s right. Without her immunity protecting me, I’d be waltzing straight into a death trap.

“You need me to go over the plan again?” I ask in a low voice.

“Nope. I’ve got it all up here.” She taps her temple three times.

“Do you remember what the most important part is?”

“Yes. If you die, I need to get out of there as fast as possible.”

“Right. Don’t try to save me. Don’t try to stop the bleeding. Just go.”

She gives me a curt nod, but that defiant look in her eyes tells me she only agreed to my terms to shut me up. She’s already proven that she won’t leave me behind if there’s even a chance I’ll make it, and that’s the part that worries me the most. If I’m about to die, I need her to forget about me and save herself.

“All right. Stay close and—” Suddenly, a bunch of people’s emotions cloud my head, all coming from inside the cavern.

Arella stills, but she doesn’t say anything. She just watches me with wide eyes, wondering why I’ve frozen up.

More emotions invade my head as ten—no, fifteen—no, twenty-some people come marching out the Ridge’s entrance.

“I sense people coming out,” I whisper. “They’re walking through the cave now, toward the waterfall.”

“How many?” she whispers back.

“Maybe close to thirty.”

“Do you think they saw us on the camera feeds and are coming out to kill us?”

“I’m not sure, but they’re not in a rush, nor do their emotions feel urgent.” Which is why I’m so confused.

We remain where we are as I continue sensing the large group approaching the waterfall.

“Get your fucking hands off me!” a man shouts.

I’d know that voice anywhere. It’s Victor, and he sounds lethal.

“Keep it moving, asshole,” a woman yells back. She steps out from behind the waterfall first, making my heart drop. She’s not just any woman. She’s an Enforcer, a fully uniformed zovernment official, with her blonde hair tied into a tight bun at the top of her head.

From her holster, the Enforcer whips out a gun. “I said to keep it moving! Otherwise, I’ll shoot you with another dose of perrizo to knock you out. Then I’ll drag your ass across the ground instead. Is that what you want?”

I grip Arella’s arm and hold her tight as if the Enforcer is threatening her, not Victor.

In silence, Victor steps out from behind the waterfall. He’s handcuffed and attached to a long chain. On that chain are the rest of the people I sense, marching out of the cave behind him, cuffed at the wrists and fixed to the long chain. I recognize a few of the people as the leftover ZIRDA agents from before. The others, I don’t recognize at all. I can only assume that means they’re on Victor’s side.

Three men step out from behind the waterfall, wearing the same light-blue uniform as the Enforcer woman. How many Enforcers are here? And how did they find this ZIRDA base? ZIRDA hides from the zovernment just as much as they hide from everyone else. Did someone call the Enforcers here as an attempt to get Victor arrested? If that’s the case, why are the Enforcers arresting everybody ?

“Stop at that tree and don’t move,” the female Enforcer yells at Victor, then marches past all the chained people and shouts down the cavern. “Did you get everyone?”

A deep male voice from behind the waterfall answers her. “We’re gonna go back to do one more sweep.”

“Great.” The female Enforcer points at the three men in uniforms. “You guys keep an eye on these delinquents. I’m gonna go help with the sweep.” As she heads back into the cave, the last people on the long chain step out.

I recognize Ruby and Katie right away. Neither woman looks too banged up. Thank fuck. But where is Pixie?

Just as a whoosh of air blows Arella’s hair into my face, someone’s emotions pop up behind me. Then something sharp pricks my neck, making everybody’s emotions disappear from my head.

Arella yelps as she slaps a hand over her neck. “Ow.”

Suddenly, my wrists are heavy. A pair of thick cuffs has appeared around them. Arella’s wrists are cuffed too. They’re so heavy, they make her fall over into the grass.

Another whoosh , then a slender Hispanic man in a light-blue uniform stops running in front of me. He presses a finger against the wired device in his ears. “I found two more hiding in the woods. They were on their way back in when they saw us coming out.” The man pauses for a moment, then says, “Yes, ma’am. I’ll add them to the chain.”

“Wait, no,” I say. “We’re not with them.”

“Yeah, sure. I’ve never heard that one before.” In a mocking, high-pitched voice, he says, “No! I’m not a Royal. I haven’t committed any crimes or killed any Ordinaries.”

“We haven’t.”

“Yeah, yeah. Good try. Now, get up, and don’t try to run. You won’t get far.”

Even if this man wasn’t a Speeder, I wouldn’t try to run. I’ve been trying to make a fireball appear in my hands while he talked, and I haven’t seen a single spark.

Katie gapes at me and Arella as we step out of the tree line with the Enforcer behind us. “Trey?”

“What the hell are you two doing back here?” Ruby says.

“Where’s Pixie?” I ask because that’s the more important question.

Ruby shakes her head and furrows her eyebrows together. In a choked voice, she says, “At least she went down doing what she loved most—kicking a Royal’s ass.”

A little piece of my heart breaks for that strong woman I barely knew. She spent more time torturing the hell outta my ears than anything, but in the end, she helped save me and Arella. She’s a fucking hero in my book.

The Speeder attaches Arella to the chain first, then he does the same to me.

“You okay, babe?” I ask.

She offers me a slight nod. “You?”

I nod back. Physically, yes, I’m okay. Emotionally, I’m fucking terrified. How the hell are we gonna get outta this one?

The Speeder presses a finger to the device in his ears. “Y’all almost done in there?” A pause. “Cool. I’ll do another sweep of the perimeter.”

With a whoosh , the man is gone.

I eye the other three Enforcers guarding the people in cuffs. Each Enforcer looks like he could easily toss a tank over a building.

I turn to Katie and ask in a whisper, “What happened after I left?”

“We kept those Royals away from you for as long as we could. But after they killed Pixie and knocked Ruby unconscious, I surrendered. By that point, it was six against one, and all I could do was hope that you’d gotten far enough away. After that, Victor ordered his people to lock up all the agents in the cells. In case you can’t tell, there aren’t many of us left.”

I cock my head to the side. “The cells?”

“You know, like, jail cells?” She flashes me a duh look. “That’s where Victor has contained us for the last day or so.”

“I didn’t know there were jail cells here.” Which is stupid, because I lived here for almost eleven years. Victor probably keeps the cells hidden in one of the many areas he forbade me from wandering around.

Katie continues, “We think he was keeping us alive for a possible ransom from ZIRDA or to torture us for information. We were in the middle of plotting an escape when the Ridge got raided by the Enforcers. They think this is a Royals hideout. We tried telling them that we’re ZIRDA agents, until the Royals started doing the same. Since the Enforcers can’t tell who is on what side, they’re taking us all to z-prison. They said once we prove our innocence, we’ll be released.”

“That’s right,” the biggest Enforcer says from where he stands. “We’ll be interrogating you all thoroughly, so you bestah get yo stories straight.”

“Settle down, Cameron,” the Enforcer closest to Victor says.

“Don’t you tell me to settle down,” Cameron says. “A Royal killed my son. I live for moments like this.”

From inside the cavern, a woman babbles words so fast, I can’t make them out.

“Please, you have to believe me,” the woman says. “You?—”

“I told you, lady,” a man says, cutting her off, “you can prove your innocence to the Keepers.”

“But you have to listen to me,” the lady says. “I’m not a criminal.”

When she steps out from behind the waterfall, I can’t believe my eyes. “Aunt Jodi?”

Her skin looks unhealthily pale, and she’s skinnier and more frail-looking than I remember, but it’s definitely her. I’d recognize her anywhere, because that’s the face of the woman who used to glare at me just for walking past her.

Jodi continues rambling as an Enforcer secures her handcuffs to the end of the chain behind me. “No, please! You have to listen to me. That man over there is not who he says he is.”

I can’t believe it’s really her. I haven’t seen her since I was six.

“I’ve been imprisoned here for twenty years!” she shouts as the Enforcer ignores her and huffs his way back into the cave. “I’m not a criminal!”

Is that true? Has Victor really kept his wife locked up here this whole time? Victor told my parents that Jodi packed up all her stuff and left, leaving behind only a note about finding her soul mate. I guess since that story came from Victor’s lips, none of it is to be trusted.

“Aunt Jodi?” I say, cutting into whatever she’s yelling to the Enforcers.

She flicks her attention to me, then her entire face drops. At first, she doesn’t say anything; she just stares. The way she’s looking at me isn’t the way she used to look at me when I was a kid. There’s no disgust, no loathing, not even an ounce of hatred in her eyes. Instead, she’s looking at me like she’s trying to figure out if I’m real.

“Trey?” My name leaves her mouth in a soft whisper.

“Yep,” I say with a nod.

“Oh, god.” She chokes up as tears stream down her pale cheeks. “Trey. You—you’re so grown up.”

“Well,” I say dryly, “it’s been, like, twenty fucking years.”

She places her hands on my forearm, and it takes everything in me not to throw her off. “Trey, listen to me. You have to believe me, because these damn Enforcers won’t.”

“Shut up, Jodi!” Victor shouts from the front of the chain. “Shut your goddamn mouth.”

Jodi ignores him. “Listen, I’m not Jodi. She’s a fucking liar, and so are her goddamn parents. They lied about her mind power because it’s on the Extinction List. Jodi doesn’t have a photographic memory, like they made everyone believe. She’s a Mind Swapper. Twenty years ago, she stole my body. I haven’t seen a single ray of sunshine until just now. Please, you have to believe me.”

I suck in a long breath as I muster up the courage to ask the question I think I already know the answer to. “If you’re not Jodi, then who are you?”

“I’m Victor.”