Four years.

Four fucking years stuck in this hell.

But I finally found the way out.

Every time after a griever attack, I followed them back. I watched, memorized. They never disappeared- not really. They jumped over the cliff, straight into nothing. Their way in could be our way out.

I'd been planning for months. Months without sleep. Every detail drawn and redrawn, every possible failure accounted for. Kai and I had it set. Today, it ended.

Night had fallen when we set everything out - the bags, the weapons, the packs bursting with food, water, and anything else we could scrape together. By the time we finished, the sun was rising, bleeding light over the walls.

"Everyone up!" Kai yelled, his voice cracking through the Vale like a whip.

One by one, they gathered. Each person stood in front of their bag, a weapon in hand. Forty-six of them. Forty-eight counting Kai and I.

I stepped forward, forcing the weight off my shoulders long enough to make them believe.

"Alright, listen!" I called out, my voice steady even when my chest wasn't.
"We've been trapped in the hellhole too long. But today- today, we fight. Today, we escape. And we do it for everyone we've lost. For every single one of us left behind" I said, looking each and everyone in the eye.

They erupted, shouting, stomping, cheering. A fire I hadn't seen in years lit their faces.

Kai moved up beside me, his hand brushing my arm. He didn't need to say anything. His presence was enough.

I raised my weapon.
"We've fight until our very last breath. No one gets left behind. We're getting the fuck out of here today" I yell

Their voices shook the walls. For the first time in years, I let myself believe too.

Kai and I turned, leading the way into the maze.

We were almost there - just a couple more turns. The map in my head hummed like a wound; the cliff was close enough to taste it.

"We're almost there!" I called, clutching my weapon so tight my knuckles ached. 

Watch out.

The voice threaded through my skull- always right - andI looked up. Movement where there shouldn't be movement: wrong, jerky, too many legs. A scream tore through the air.

"Griever!" Someone shouted. Chaos shredded the line.

"Shit. Weapons!" I dropped my bag and everything that wasn't a knife became useless weight. The first metal clang of spears echoed and then the world was only motion and pain.

They came from nowhere. We wounded one- two more filled the space where it fell. Metal met metal, flesh screamed, and for a few furious heartbeats the training and the drills and the maps were acting like armor.

Then the numbers ate us. Forty-eight became thirty-five. Thirty-five became twenty. Twenty became eight.

"Kai, Ivy - listen to me!" I barked, voice raw with something that was close to panic.
"Lead everyone else to the cliff. Two lefts and a right, do you hear me? I'll hold them off - just get out!" I yelled

"Reyna, I'm not leaving without you-" kai started. His face was close enough I could see the fleck of blood on his cheek, the set it his jaw.

Then someone hit the ground like a door slamming. Seven left.

Tears tracked down my face- the first I'd let fall since Jax and nova. I didn't bother to wipe them. I threw knives until my arms screamed and one found an eye and the griever collapsed.

Ivy had already started pulling kids away, shoving half-packs into trembling hands and running. Kai shouted them to go. And they ran.

I didn't.

I planted my feet in the center of corridor and became the wall.

They swarmed. I moved the way you move when you've burned the same steps into your bones.

A grievers leg slashed into mine and I tasted metal, but I kept moving, kept throwing, kept buying seconds.

"This is for everything you took from me- For Jax! For nova! For me!" I screamed, knives flying until my pockets were empty. Then I ran.

I cut a corner and a griever sliced at my leg again. Pain lanced through me, but I kept running. The cliff showed itself and my heart fell into the pit - bodies strewn like broken dolls.
"Kai! Ivy!" I shouted

I dropped to ivy's side. No pulse. Her face was pale and slack. 
"Ivy- get up, please" I cried, but the world answered with nothing.

I scrambled to Kai. He was breathing, but barely. I hauled him to his feet, supporting half his weight.

"Come on- we can make it" I mumbled as a griever reared to strike from the side. We could make it. But before I could react-

"I'm sorry" Kai whispered

Then he shoved me.

The world tipped. Metal, stone, and a grievers scream filled my ears. I saw Kai's hand reach out, and a grievers leg swipe it away.
"No!" I screamed

Then everything went black.

When I woke it was dark and my head throbbed like it was trapped. I pushed myself up on hands that didn't feel like mine. A light burned over a door. I let out a raw sound- a cry that wanted every name I'd lost to come back.

Why am I still going?

The handle was cold under my fingers. I pulled it open and walked into more blood. Sharp, clinical light, the stink of disinfectant trying and failing to erase the iron.

It was a lab. Bodies lay like discarded things. Computers hummed. The place felt wrong in a way that made my skin itch with recognition.

I moved through the room like a ghost looking for a hinge and found one- a screen with a picture of me: younger, unscarred. The caption below it read: Project Titan: Test Subject Reyna.

My name. My face. My stomach dropped as if someone had punched the air out of me. They had watched us. They'd set us here. They'd been testing who could make it out. And now, the watchers were as dead as the ones they watched.

Files told the rest: the flare, the immunity, experiments that called us solutions. A new word kept coming up underlined in clinical, detached sentences - cure. As if we were problems to be solved.

I walked to another door and hesitated. For a second I wanted to walk out and never look back. Everyone I'd fought for - they deserved to get out. Not me. Not the thing I'd become.

My hand rested on the door handle.

Scan the room.

The voice - that drilled command inside me - echoed again and I obeyed without thinking.

My hand slid off the door handle, and I glanced around.

My hand brushed over paper taped to a window. It was fresh. Someone had tried to hide something.

I peeled the paper away and froze.

Through the small pane was another lab- not abandoned. People in coats moved, computers lit with scrolling code, needles ready. And at the far table a boy looked up and stared straight through the glass at me.

My heart slammed against my ribs. A guard on the floor stirred and into a radio:
"Ma'am, she's aware" he said

Instinct took over. I moved before the thought finished: kick, punch, hands on a gun. The guard hit the floor with a sick thunk and I had his gun leveled toward the door as it opened.

They came forward slow - a woman, doctors, armed guards - and I held the weapon with hands shaking like a leaf in a storm.

"Who the hell are you? What the is this?" I spat. The woman smiled like someone soothing a skittish animal.

"Reyna, you must calm down" she said, voice even.

"How do you know my name?" I demand, teeth bared.

"Reyna, just put the gun down" she said

"No!" I press the barrel harder.
"You sent us down there. You watched us die. You sent us to be slaughtered. You're a sick bastard!"  I yell

She didn't break. She only said:
"Bring him in"

A boy about my age came in and froze when he saw me. I lifted the gun at him.

"Hey- it's okay, Reyna." He told me, his voice was warm, painful familiarity.

He took a step closer, hands raised.
"No! No one move! I swear if you take one more step, I'll shoot" I snap, hands shaking.

"I know you don't remember me, but I promise I'll help you. You need medical attention. Please- let me help" he continued

My finger tightened on the trigger.
"I don't need your help. You- you sent us down there. You killed everyone. Everyone I loved damn it! I swear I'm going to kill every last one of you-" I start to yell

- and then something hot screamed into the base of my neck. My muscles unspooled, my vision tunneled, and the boys voice, steady and soft, came from somewhere far away as the world folded into dark.

"Reyna. You have to trust me" he said

I mouthed no, and then black closed over everything.