The following morning, I wake up to dew on the side of my face and grey light peeking over the tops of the trees. Drilling joint pain greets me, but no nausea comes with it. With the infection taken care of and the worst of the withdrawal over, I'm left with the shakes and the kind of pain that makes me feel more like a used pin cushion than a person. At least I'm not hallucinating anymore. I lay flat for a moment, trying to gauge where everyone is while I breathe through a shoulder cramp. How do I have muscle cramps? I haven't done anything yet.

Maverick snores, slumped against the same tree he was on last night. Over by the fire everybody else is sprawled out asleep, except King, who crouches next to the flames with a charred stick. When I slowly sit up, he glances over. The scars on his forehead are nearly invisible in the dim light. They don't look like typical surgery scars from the Compound.

"Thanks," is the first word out of my mouth. "Mav said you carried me on a rock."

King grunts and turns back to the fire.

"You are heavy for someone so small," he comments, dropping the stick into the fire. His accent is familiar, but I couldn't name it with certainty. Most newer Experiments at the Compound were African or East Asian, accents like King's were common.

"Sorry."

Piper rolls in his sleep, his arm falls dangerously close to the fire. I stare at his hand for a moment, trying to gauge the distance between the embers and his palm. I'm kind of curious if he'd even notice if he caught fire. Is he flammable?

While I'm considering this, Anushka stands up out of the blue and walks away. Her fatigues are muddied, and her hair is loose and tangled. I open my mouth to call to her, but King beats me to it.

"Don't bother, she is only wandering," he says, "she doesn't go far, and her radio is broken. We checked."

It's not exactly comforting but if they trust her that far I guess I have to, too. I watch her disappear under the crags of a nearby cliff before turning back to King.

"What are those from?" I ask, motioning to my own forehead. "If you don't mind me asking."

Not everyone likes to talk about their marks, but King smiles for the first time since I met him. He runs a thumb over his forehead, brushing the raised scars. "These are the scars I was given to mark my passage from boyhood to adulthood."

"They look like they hurt," Piper mutters sleepily. I hadn't realized he was awake.

King nods. "Yes, the ones who cry when they receive their marks bring disgrace on their family. I was a weak warrior, but I did not make a sound when I was given my marks, and now they keep my home close to me."

"That's real nice, King." Piper yawns and rolls closer to the fire. "Didn't you get sold to the Whitecoats though?"

"Didn't you?" King snaps back.

"Yeah," Piper mumbles. He scoops a flame from the fire and swirls it between his nimble fingers. He seems reluctant to get up, like if he stays half-asleep beside the fire he can pretend that he's not stranded in the middle of nowhere. "Delilah got sold, right? Not Sky though, he still likes his parents."

"And you?" King turns the conversation to me, obviously trying to get Piper to shut up. Piper lifts his head to see who King's talking to. His eyebrows rise when he sees me, awake for the first time in days.

"Hey," he says. I wave in response. "Your parents like you and the kid?"

"Nah." A pang hits me at the mention of Elle. She's close, just over that ledge. I could scream, being this close and not knowing if she's okay. But I also can't take on whatever is behind that ledge on my own. I can't even hold my hands steady. It's pathetic.

"Figures. Mav's parents like him?"

"Ask him yourself," I deflect.

Piper rolls his eyes and lets his head flop on his arm. Maverick might as well be a brick wall when it comes to his past life, and obviously Piper has experience with this. Anyone who didn't know him when he first came to the Compound doesn't know anything about his life before, not even where his home was.

The sun rises higher, and the others begin to wake. Everyone seems mildly surprised to see me moving about. I get up to pace, to stretch out the muscles in my legs that insist on bunching up even while motionless.

"Good morning."

I jump, heart leaping to my throat. I turn too fast for my joints and my breath jams in my throat at the shooting pain. Sky throws his hands up in mock surrender, eyebrows shooting towards his hairline.

"You good?" He puts his arm out as if to steady me. I brush him off, pretending that I didn't almost take a knee because I flinched too hard. "We're getting your sister today. I was just scouting the camp." He shoves his goggles up his face, leaving sweaty red rings around his eyes. Hearing those words charges adrenaline into my veins. Elle will be safe soon.

"How is—" I'm interrupted by my own stomach growling.

"Can't eat while you're unconscious, huh?" Sky grins. He pats his pockets for something. A cramp I mistook for early morning fibro pains twists my gut, demanding food. Ironically, the cramp makes me too nauseous to stomach eating. And even if the thought of food didn't make me want to puke, there's nothing to eat.

"What have you guys been eating?" I ask. There must be some food since nobody looks starved. At the flick of Sky's wrist, a food bar appears in his hand. He throws it at me, forcing me to catch it.

"Food bars, small animals, and Piper has decided to become a flambé chef when we get back to civilization."

"A what?" Piper shouts, he still sounds half asleep. Sky laughs in response. He pulls his goggles off and aims them like a rubber band at Piper but stops when he spots Maverick across the campsite.

"Gotta go," he says, and darts off to talk to Mav. That leaves me, alone, with a food bar and a queasy stomach. I grimace at the silver packaging. I should save it for Elle. There's no telling whether she's had enough food these past few days. Or if she's been given water or kept warm. Three days is too long. They should have left me like we left Dieter.

I close my eyes as my thoughts start to spiral and take a couple deep breaths. I need a clear head this morning. I can't afford to slip out of my skin. That version of me is sharp, it's battle-ready, and maybe that's what I need to get past the soldiers that stand on the other side of that ridge. But I'm afraid of what I might do to Elle if I meet her like that.

"Eating will help." I open my eyes to see Delilah crouched over the smoking remnants of the doused fire. She flips her wrist to kick the wind up and rustle the crumbly remains of last autumn's leaves. Her hair is knotted at the nape of her neck, and she looks more haggard than the others, like she hasn't been getting the same amount of food or sleep. Her light eyes are dull, weighted down with dark, puffy circles. "If your head's fuzzy, eating will help clear it."

She doesn't move with the same energy as the others either, although keeping up with Sky's level of energy seems pretty much impossible. Even so, her entire being is taut with determination.

"You look tired," I say, which, admittedly, is not a sentence I thought through. I push my glasses back up my nose. The food bar wrapper crinkles in my hand.

"Haven't been sleeping well, it's just... ah." She drags the back of her hand across her face.

"I'm sorry," I apologize.

"Are you sorry because he died, or are you sorry because it was your sister he was trying to save?" Her tone takes me by surprise. When I don't answer, she shakes her head.

"It's not you I'm angry at," she says, standing. She flicks her wrist, sending a low gust towards the ridge. "It's them—him."

Not long after, Maverick calls a group meeting. We gather in a circle. Maverick waits until everyone has settled down to speak. He's squinting a little, probably skimming everyone's mind to check up on them.

"Okay, today we're rescuing Elle," he starts. I can practically feel the ripple of tension that goes through the group. "Anushka and I will go with Trick into the camp. Everyone else, you know where to go. If there's trouble, take 'em down. We're stronger than they are."

He ends the gathering with instructions to come back in five minutes so we can move out. I volunteer to fetch Anushka, since she still hasn't emerged from under her overhang.

I pick my way over small boulders towards the looming ridge. Moss makes the stone slippery. I reach the limestone wall and scan the dry area under the overhang. The rock is grey and riddled with imperfections. Lichen clings to the crags, lacing the stone with ribbons of bright color. Anushka isn't there.

Blazing stars. I pivot sharp on my toes to run back to the camp. Anushka could ruin this mission with a single word, and that can't happen. As I turn, I spot a shadowy cave mouth at the intersection of the end of the overhang and where the ridge juts out. The cave is almost invisible. Considering her penchant for tight spaces, I decide to check it. In spite of the way claustrophobia pinches my throat tight.

The cave looks undisturbed. There's no sign of Anushka anywhere. I creep inside. The ceiling is low, so I have to duck and try not to think about the tons of rock above my head. A few paces in, I stumble onto Anushka, curled in a ball, her back to the outside wall. She doesn't move when I squeeze around and crouch in front of her. Her gaze holds that spaced-out look that makes me think she's not even aware I'm here. Tiny silver balls litter the stony cave floor at her feet, among them lies the dog tags, threaded with what remains of the bead chain. It's far too short to be fastened around her neck now.

"Sergeant?" I say. She sucks in a sharp breath, her gaze stays focused eerily on an unseen object.

"My name is Anushka Tatyanin," she says with urgency that is borderline violent.

"Anushka," I correct myself. "We need to go."

"I'm a Sergeant in the thirty-sixth regiment of the Krovavaya Brigáda," she continues in that same urgent tone.

"Yeah, I know." I ease forward to check her pupils. I'm wary of getting closer, but I also have the niggling suspicion that she's whacked out on drugs. Somehow.

"I have a daughter."

"And you love her, I know, you already told me." Her pulse hammers in the hollow of her neck. It's elevated, and her breathing is sharp and shallow. She's afraid.

I go to stand, but her hands shoot out and latch on to my arms. Her nails dig in, her grip white-knuckle-tight.

"Ow!" I pull away, but she yanks me closer, so close that our noses are almost touching.

She stares hard into my eyes. "My. Name. Is. Anushka Tatyanin," she says slowly.

"You're a Sergeant, and you love your daughter," I finish, lifting her up. Her harsh grip squeezes even tighter, breaking the skin of my arm. I don't think she's blinked once in the past minute. Forget afraid, she's lost her marbles.

"My name," she begins again after she's completely satisfied that I won't interrupt her. "Is Anushka Tatyanin."

And then she waits, staring at me like she expects me to do something. Crazy, she's crazy. Totally, utterly, insane. Why am I in here with her?

She keeps right on staring at me, until it dawns on me that maybe I'm supposed to repeat after her. If it gets her to stop clinging to my arm, I'll bite.

"Your name is Anushka."

"Ye–no." She scowls.

I try again. "My name is Hendrix."

The scowl washes away, and her nails stop digging into my skin. "Remember that," she says. And, just like that, Crazy Anushka is gone. She stands, dusts her fatigues off, and strolls out the cave as if nothing is wrong. I wait for a beat, absorbing what happened. Then move to follow her. On second thought, I bend and snatch up the dog tags. She might want them later.

I tuck the tags in my pocket and head out the entrance. I can only hope Anushka can hold it together long enough to get us to Elle. This whole rescue mission rests on the shoulders of a nutjob.