I actually feel my back lift off the floor when the fire hits my lungs. I’m suddenly gasping in huge, raging hyperventilated breaths, taking in lungfuls of air like I might cry if I don’t. I’m drinking oxygen, devouring it, choking on it, taking it in as quickly as possible, my entire body heaving as it strains to return to normal.

My chest feels like it’s being stitched back together, like the flesh is regenerating itself, healing itself at an inhuman rate and I’m blinking and breathing and I’m moving my head and trying to see but it’s still so blurry, still unclear but it’s getting easier. I can feel my fingers and my toes and the life in my limbs and I can actually hear my heart beating again and suddenly the faces above me come into focus.

All at once the heat is gone.

The hands are gone.

I collapse back onto the floor.

And everything goes black.

SEVENTY-THREE

Warner is sleeping.

I know this because he’s sleeping right next to me. It’s dark enough that it takes me several tries to blink my eyes open and understand that I’m not blind this time. I catch a glimpse out the window and find the moon filled to the brim, pouring light into this little room.

I’m still here. In Anderson’s house. In what probably used to be Warner’s bedroom.

And he’s asleep on the pillow right next to me.

His features are so soft, so ethereal in the moonlight. His face is deceptively calm, so unassuming and innocent. And I think of how impossible it is that he’s here, lying next to me. That I’m here, lying next to him.

That we’re lying in his childhood bed together.

That he saved my life.

Impossible is such a stupid word.

I shift hardly at all and Warner reacts immediately, sitting straight up, chest heaving, eyes blinking. He looks at me, sees that I’m awake, that my eyes are open, and he freezes in place.

There are so many things I want to say to him. So many things I have to tell him. So many things I need to do now, that I need to sort through, that I have to decide.

But for now, I only have one question.

“Where’s your father?” I whisper.

It takes Warner a moment to find his voice. He says, “He’s back on base. He left right after”—he hesitates, struggles for a second—“right after he shot you.”

Incredible.

He left me bleeding all over his living room floor. What a nice little present for his son to clean up. What a nice little lesson for his son to learn. Fall in love, and you get to watch your love get shot.

“So he doesn’t know I’m here?” I ask Warner. “He doesn’t know I’m alive?”

Warner shakes his head. “No.”

And I think, Good. That’s very good. It’ll be so much better if he thinks I’m dead.

Warner is still looking at me. Looking and looking and looking at me like he wants to touch me but he’s afraid to get too close. Finally, he whispers, “Are you okay, love? How do you feel?”

And I smile to myself, thinking of all the ways I could answer that question.

I think of how my body is more exhausted, more defeated, more drained than it’s ever been in my life. I think about how I’ve had nothing but a glass of water in 2 days. How I’ve never been more confused about people, about who they seem to be and who they actually are, and I think about how I’m lying here, sharing a bed in a house we were told doesn’t exist anymore, with one of the most hated and feared people of Sector 45. And I think about how that terrifying creature has the capacity for such tenderness, how he saved my life. How his own father shot me in the chest. How only hours earlier I was lying in a pool of my own blood.

I think about how my friends are probably still locked in battle, how Adam must be suffering not knowing where I am or what’s happened to me. How Kenji is still pulling the weight of so many. How Brendan and Winston might still be lost. How the people of Omega Point might all be dead. And it makes me think.

I feel better than I ever have in my entire life.

I’m amazed by how different I feel now. How different I know things will be now. I have so many things to do. So many scores to settle. So many friends who need my help.

Everything has changed.

Because once upon a time I was just a child.

Today I’m still just a child, but this time I’ve got an iron will and 2 fists made of steel and I’ve aged 50 years. Now I finally have a clue. I’ve finally figured out that I’m strong enough, that maybe I’m a touch brave enough, that maybe this time I can do what I was meant to do.

This time I am a force.

A deviation of human nature.

I am living, breathing proof that nature is officially screwed, afraid of what it’s done, what it’s become.

And I’m stronger. I’m angrier.

I’m ready to do something I’ll definitely regret and this time I don’t care. I’m done being nice. I’m done being nervous. I’m not afraid of anything anymore.

Mass chaos is in my future.

And I’m leaving my gloves behind.