Elizabeth is silent, one lip pulled between her teeth.

“He warned me. How can he do that? He’s not real. I mean, every time I’ve seen him, he’s been an illusion, right? He’s not … . real.” My mind hasn’t stopped whirring since I saw him tonight—I don’t know how to justify it, what he did. “His soul isn’t here; it’s with Logan. It is Logan.”

Elizabeth spins around another corner with her eyes glued to the rearview. I’m completely lost. “The mind is an incredibly powerful thing, Tave. But it’s also very fragile. Your memory unlocking must have started when you saved yourself in the plane crash, but your brain was too damaged to survive such a drastic change. So when the memories couldn’t be held back any longer, your mind seems to have done something to protect itself. Created something to personify it; a comfortable person you could accept. Someone safe. A defense mechanism, if you will, to ease you into your full awakening without burning out your synapses.” She sweeps me the barest of glances. “You wouldn’t be the first.”

“So he didn’t save me?” I ask quietly, not wishing he had exactly, but wanting someone to have been on my side.

Elizabeth turns and for just a second our eyes meet. “No,” she says, and she sounds very certain. “You saved yourself.”

“Elizabeth?” I hesitate. “Sammi was right, wasn’t she? The Reduciata actually want me so badly they sent their leader after me. For a secret I’m too damaged to even remember?”

She doesn’t look at me, but I see her swallow. “They want you bad, Tave. Something’s going wrong. I think they released the virus too soon. It’s affecting everything too strongly. The death time that’s too short to go unnoticed, the crazy weather that people are starting to realize can’t be natural,” she says, gesturing at the downpour that looks like it’s trying to turn into either hail or snow. “It’s all wrapped up in their screwup. They miscalculated, and now everything is spiraling out of their control and it’s only going to get worse.” She looks over at me. “They wanted you to die in the plane crash, but something about what you did … now they think you can fix their mistake before it destroys all of us—including them. That’s all we know.”

An oily fear coats my stomach. “They’ve got to be wrong. Elizabeth, I can’t help. I can’t do anything. I don’t remember whatever it is they think I do.”

Her eyes narrow. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in my years as a Curatoriate, it’s that the Reduciata are almost never wrong. Tavia, do not die. Somehow, you are humankind’s last hope. You need to figure out why, and then you need to stop them.”

I sink back against the seat and say nothing. I’ve never felt so small, so inadequate. If I’m humankind’s last hope, then humankind is doomed.

Elizabeth glances at the rearview again as we drive through a nearly dark section of town with half the streetlights burned out. Seedy-looking and more than a little scary. “I don’t know if I’ve lost them, but they’re at least far enough back that I can’t see them anymore. When I pull over, you jump out and hide. Wait for about thirty seconds so I can get away from you. Then run in that direction,” she says, pointing toward a shadowy alley sided by two lines of decrepit wood-slat fencing. “You’ll reach the bus station in less than two blocks. You can’t miss it—it’ll be all lit up.”

“Elizabeth?” I say desperately.

“What?”

I want to tell her that I’m not ready, that I don’t really understand how I saved myself on the plane or in the fire, and especially not from Marie. And I’m not convinced I can do it again.

Not alone.

Not without Benson.

No, don’t think about him.

“Thank you,” I finally whisper instead.

“Thank me if we live through this,” she says, so quietly that I don’t know if she intended for me to hear her. “Ready?”

I pull my backpack over my shoulder and unfasten my seat belt. My fingers are poised over the door handle as I choke out, “Ready.”

It’s the biggest lie I’ve ever told.

The car screeches to a halt, and the second we stop moving, Elizabeth’s hands are pushing at my back and I’m wrenching the door open and almost tumbling out, staggering down to one knee as my shoe slides on the oily cement beneath my feet. The car’s already moving again. I’m bathed in dark shadows, but I force my knee straight and dive behind a Dumpster anyway, not daring to peer out to watch the taillights disappear. The icy rain soaks my face as I begin counting.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

At eighteen the earth beneath me trembles, the light of flames reaching my eyes before the slower sound waves echo in my ears.

An explosion.

It’s to the east.

The direction Elizabeth drove.

And it’s exactly the distance a speeding car would cover in eighteen seconds.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

No one could have survived an explosion like that.

Agony presses against my chest, pushing the air from my lungs, and for a few seconds I lose count. Lose my will to fight, to run, to live. But I force myself to finish counting to thirty, my teeth chattering in terror the whole time. Then I dart out from behind the Dumpster and tear through the alley without looking back, trying to keep to the shadows even as my leg threatens to buckle beneath me.