The leaders were right about me, I act well under pressure, because as we run toward the Prowlers, all I can think about is destroying the machines. I feel nothing but the adrenaline coursing through me and the weight of my legs pushing off the ground.

The moonlight reflects off of the Prowlers, who clumsily stomp through camp, straight toward us and the tent full of weapons and gear. We have to defend it.

I am strong. I am fearless. I repeat these words to myself with every step I take.

The unarmed Deathless refugees scream and run past those of us who are charging to fight, but all I hear are the giant machines' war cries. I stay with the crowd of soldiers heading toward the Prowlers, and just keep running. I can't feel my legs anymore. I'm numb to the pain that I'm sure I'll be in once the adrenaline wears off, but I've never been a stronger runner.

The screams fade beneath the sound of the Prowlers, and the ground pounds with each step from their mechanical legs.

A few of the nearby dwellings crumble to the ground, and I'm pretty sure mine is among them. Some of the soldiers break from the group to check for survivors beneath the rubble. Luckily, they aren't heavy structures.

We reach a clearing where the Prowlers have gathered. There seems to be at least ten of them, more than I've ever seen in one place, and as I near them, I notice something: These aren't the regular Prowlers. Their bodies are now coated in a shiny, silver glaze and their limbs move more fluidly. Their old red lights that used to blink twice over their prey are now a continuous stream of uninterrupted laser energy. These are new models.

We all stop in front of them, and the closest Prowler bends toward us, its gears' screech piercing through the chaos. Then it does something I've never seen a Prowler do before: It opens its collector hatch, like a mouth in its chest, and roars a deep mechanical bellow, vibrating the earth and pushing air out of its way. But it's not just any roar... the Prowler is saying something. I listen again as it roars, "Ay-a oom."

Did it just try to say my name?

"Charge!" I hear General Sato scream, and there's no time to think. All of us leap forward, shooting at the machines with our electric pulse guns and compressed magnets. The Prowler machines aren't as quickly affected by the pulses as their predecessors, and they continue forward, scooping up Deathless refugees and soldiers and tossing them or throwing them into their hatches; but little by little, the magnets seem to slow them down.

I pull back one of my bullets, aim at the Prowler's hatch, and release. The bullet whizzes through the air and strikes deep within the Prowler. It's the last attack it can stand. Electric bolts pulse around the great machine, and it begins to collapse.

"Heads up!" I scream. I don't even recognize my voice. It's too panicked and rough to be mine.

Soldiers move out of the way as it falls to the ground around us, and we continue to the next machine.

Some refugees run toward us with curved stilts, the ones Mom made. A refugee throws a pair to me. "Strap these on!" she yells.

I don't ask questions. I run for cover then quickly strap the stilts to my feet. One of the refugees is huddled beneath what's left of a dwelling near me, so I yell to him, "Pull me up!"

He runs toward me and pulls me to a standing position, so that I'm now at least 4 feet taller than him. "Thanks," I yell over the chaos.

I take a step and feel the stilts spring beneath me. I take another few steps to gain my balance, but I have no time to waste. The Prowlers are swatting at soldiers and falling over the camp, destroying all they touch.

I begin to run, and the stilts propel me into the air.

I am jumping at least 15 feet above the ground, about halfway up the Prowler. In my peripheral vision, I see other Deathless springing up as well, but they are jumping higher than I am. I push myself off the ground with greater force, and I find myself nearly reaching the top of the Prowler.

The other jumpers are shooting at the Prowlers, and it seems like they are causing more damage from their heightened position. Maybe the machines' control panels are at the top of their bodies.

I load my slingshot and push myself into the air.

Time moves slowly.

I hang suspended at the top of my leap and release my bullet.

In an instant, it hits the Prowler. I hear gears sputtering. I am falling back to earth as an electric pulse gun—Mom's—finishes the Prowler, and it is covered in electric light.

It begins falling to the ground.

I jump to get out of the way, and see Mom beneath me, trying to run from the Prowler as it collapses.

I leap toward her, and grab her hand before propelling myself off the ground.

The Prowler falls behind us, and as we're landing, the impact throws me off my balance. I fly forward, meters ahead of my mom. I try to brace myself for impact, but my shoulder and arm skid against the rocky earth, scraping the skin away from the left side of my body.

All I can feel is an incredible burning sensation, but I have to check to see if Mom is okay before I give in to the pain.

"Mom!" I cry.

"I'm here," she yells, running toward me. She must have somehow landed on her feet. "I'm okay."

She lifts me from the ground, and checks my wounds. "You have to go to the infirmary!"

"We need to finish this first!" I yell.

I use Mom's shoulders to regain my balance on the stilts, and push off the ground toward the next Prowler. Even though my body is flooded with adrenaline, I can still feel how injured I am. Blood pools at the surface of my skin. My legs burn and rocks scratch from beneath my skin, but I don't stop. I'm done being haunted by the Prowlers.

I see another jumper beside me. It's Nate. Without saying a word, we nod to one another, and somehow understand exactly what the other is thinking.

We quickly reach the next Prowler—it's one of the last of them—and he leaps toward its chest, as I leap toward the right side of its body. He shoots it with an electric pulse, stunning the machine, and I throw my body against it while it's still vulnerable. It teeters closer to the lake, and Nate shoots it with one last electric pulse before it completely collapses into the water.

Some others see what we've done and do the same to the last Prowler, until all that's left of them are salvageable parts.

I land on my feet, but I can't seem to gain stability. My eyes aren't focusing, my head feels weak, and the adrenaline is draining from my system. I feel the air against my wounds like a million tiny knives, and suddenly my slingshot feels like it weighs a thousand pounds.

I hear someone yelling my name, so I look around. General Sato is standing below me with his arms open. I can't hear him over the sound of the soldiers cheering, but as my vision darkens, I think I see him telling me to fall.

So I do.

***

"What the hell happened tonight?" Phoebe yells.

I've been awake for hours, but I finally allow myself to focus now. I'm covered in bandages, and sitting in a deep, leather chair in the corner of the General's office. All eleven of us are there: me, Mom, Declan, Nate, Gabriela, Mitchell, Dr. Patel, Alexander, Phoebe, Winston, and General Sato. We must be discussing the Prowler attack, but I am only now paying attention.

"How did they find us?" she yells again, and my head pounds at the high frequency of her voice.

"They must have followed us," Dr. Patel says.

"They couldn't have, we would have seen them on the radar," Winston says, his head in his hands.

"More importantly, what did they want? The droids are not war machines, so what was this about? They clearly aren't collecting survivors anymore," Dr. Patel says. "Did anyone else hear what it said?"

"It sounded like Isla Blume, right?" Winston asks. "But it couldn't have. The machines aren't programmed to say anything. They are only programmed to collect."

"This wasn't about collecting," I say. The room becomes quiet, and everyone looks at me in surprise. It's the first time I've said anything since the attack. "They wanted to scare us. I've seen the collector droids when they were in collecting mode, and that's not how they behave. This was a scare tactic."

"Makes sense. They know we are going to attack," Sato says flatly.

"But how did they know where to find us?" Phoebe asks.

"The mole must be in this room," General Sato says.

"Why this room?" Winston asks.

"The leak has been with you all along. Those machines knew you arrived, they knew to go toward the weapons tent. They knew everything. You're the only newcomers."

"Who would it be?" Phoebe asks, allowing her voice to become shrill with frustration. I hold my head in my hands and close my eyes to stop the pounding.

"Well, who has the most connection to the bunker?" Sato asks.

"Alexander."

Then I hear his voice, frantic and desperate, like it was last night. "Me? It's not me. I would never release that information."

"Oh no?" Phoebe's raising her voice again. "You're the one obsessed with getting Gunther back. Maybe this was your way of gaining his trust again."

"That's absurd."

"Can you account for your time away from the group?" the General asks.

"I was working!"

"Alone?"

"Well, Gabriela was with me sometimes."

"Gabriela?"

"I don't want to get in the middle of this."

"Gabriela, please."

I hear her sigh, and I lift my head. "There were times when he was alone. He could have easily done this behind my back," she says, pain in her voice.

"I don't believe this," Alexander says. "How would I even contact them?"

"It could be a remote signaling device. The bunker has some that are subdermal microchips," Gabriella suggests.

"Dr. Harper, scan him for frequency waves," Phoebe orders as Winston watches the scene unfold in a shocked silence.

One of the soldiers hands Mitchell a frequency scanner, and he waves it over Alexander's body. Nothing.

"I don't think it's anyone in this room," I say. "We've all worked too hard."

Phoebe glares at me. "Your boyfriend is at the bunker, right? Maybe it's you. Scan her," she orders Mitchell.

"Is this really necessary?" Mom asks. "She needs sleep, not a scan."

"I would be quiet if I were you. If she's found to be the mole, then you're an accomplice," Phoebe says.

Mitchell approaches me with the scanner, and waves it over my body. It begins beeping wildly.

"I knew there was something wrong with you," Phoebe says.

"Isla?" Winston asks, apparently hurt.

"I have no idea what that's picking up," I say, beginning to panic.

How could I be transmitting frequency waves? Then I remember: Nate injected me with the enzymes. Maybe there was a microchip in the injection too. I glitched out. My fingertips glitched out because I was giving off a frequency! But that means Nate is the mole. He was the mole all along.

"Ask Nate! He's the mole!" I am now yelling.

"Nathan?" Winston asks.

He looks me straight in the eye, and says, "I have no idea what she's talking about."

"Liar! He's lying!"

"Hold her overnight," General Sato says to one of the soldiers standing at the door.

The soldier crosses the room and grabs me. He doesn't let me go, no matter how much I kick him.

"No! I have to go to the bunker! I'm not the mole!"

"Oh you're going, all right," Phoebe says. "We'll return you to your people and then we'll kill you with the rest of them. Take her away!"

General Sato and his guard carrying me out of the room, and I block out everything the sound of Mom calling my name. She's scratching at the guard to let me down, when Nate and Mitchell come up behind her to pull her off.

Once we are outside the community lodge, General Sato motions for the soldier to put me down, though they both continue to squeeze my arms in restraint.

"Where are they taking my mom?" I yell. They squeeze my arms tighter.

"She's going to stay here in our camp detention center. She'll be our hostage in case we need one."

"Wait—she's not coming with us?"

"Not now. She's staying here."

"No!" I begin screaming. I've never been apart from my mom. How will I know she's okay?

I try to break free, but the soldier just picks me up again and swings me over his shoulder. He carries me into the dam and through the great room. Sato opens a door and the soldier throws me into the dark, turning the light on before locking me in. I run to the door and begin pounding on it, screaming and clawing at the metal. "I'm not the mole!" I am still screaming, but no one hears me. Or at least, no one cares.

I fall to the ground and weep. This can't be happening.

I open my eyes to check my surroundings when I see that I'm in the library. That was thoughtful, I think, but that's little consolation. I struggle to catch my breath, but eventually, I am able to rest long enough to feel how raw my throat is from screaming. I am defeated.

I'm a dead woman. No matter what happens, I will die—either I am handed over and killed by the President, or I am handed over and killed by the Deathless—so I find Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and begin reading. I flip to poem 52, and read it out loud until I begin to cry. I cry for my mom and my dad. I cry for Declan. I cry for the Crowley's, and finally I cry for Daniel. I never understood the poem or why Mom always used to cry when she read it until now, as I face certain death. She cried because he's saying we live on.

Will Daniel understand that after I'm killed?

I need to sleep, but my anxiety keeps me awake. Think of the last time you felt safe, I tell myself.

I remember the safe room the night before our family was taken. At that point, the Prowlers had been coming every night, so the Crowley's decided it was best to sleep with us in the safe room. The floor was covered in blankets, as it always was at night, with my parents sleeping beside the gun chest and the Crowley's near the door. Daniel and I rested a few feet apart near the shelves along the far wall, but that night, no matter what I tried, I couldn't stop worrying about the Prowlers long enough to fall asleep.

I heard shuffling, and turned my back to see Daniel, dragging his rocket ship comforter behind him as he crawled toward me. He held his finger up to his mouth and checked to make sure our parents were actually asleep, before closing the gap between us.

"You can't sleep either?" he whispered, laying his body beside mine.

I shook my head. "I keep thinking about the Prowlers. Why do they take people?"

His eyes were distant as he thought it over. "I don't know."

"They're going to come back for us, aren't they?" I asked.

"They might, but don't worry, we'll be fine. If we've survived this long, I'm sure we can survive a big heap of metal." He smiled, but when I didn't reciprocate, I watched his fade. "You're afraid they'll take you."

"No," I said. "I'm afraid they'll take you." I never liked to admit weakness around Daniel, we had always been so competitive, but this wasn't a contest and I didn't see the point in lying.

"Don't be. I'll keep us safe," he whispered. He wrapped his arm over my body and gave me a squeeze. His face was close enough to mine that I could smell the mint on his breath. He leaned closer and stroked my cheek with his thumb.

I knew if I didn't change the subject, we would end up kissing again. On the roof, away from our parents was one thing. A few feet away from them in the safe room was another, so I pushed him back, smiling. "I can protect us too. Just you wait, I'll end up protecting you one day. I can be fierce."

"Oh yeah?" His eyes searched my face long enough for his smile to fade. "I meant what I said the other night." He moved his fingers to interlace with mine, and I was certain he could feel how quickly my heart was beating, remembering the feeling of his lips against mine after all these years. I rolled onto my other side so he couldn't see how flushed my cheeks must have become, and he pressed his body against mine, like pieces of a puzzle. "Isla," he whispered, his breath hot on my neck.

"Yeah?"

"Have you thought about what I said?"

"Of course. Why else do you think I'm so scared of the Prowlers?"

"So does that mean...?"

"Yes, of course. Now hush about it, I don't want our parents hearing," I whispered.

"I don't care if they hear," he said into my ear. "I love you."

"Sh. You should care. Imagine how they'd react. Your mom would probably die of happiness."

He didn't say anything for a moment, and with our family's recent discussions about the Prowlers and mortality, I couldn't tell if I had crossed the line or not by mentioning death. I was about to apologize for even joking about it when he said, "I don't care, because I couldn't imagine my life without you. I think we should get married." I caught my breath, but Daniel quickly filled the silence. "And I know our parents will make a huge deal about it, but you know how I feel about you, and our parents do too. I don't want to pretend I don't love you around them anymore."

He had been trying to be romantic with me for years, but I had always tried to put it off until a few nights earlier. Not because I wasn't interested—I was and often thought about our life together—but I wanted us to be kids for just a little while longer. In this life, childhood passes by so quickly, and while Daniel had always accepted adult responsibilities, I still wanted to cherish the little time we had left to be kids. But now he was right, it was time.

"Okay. We'll tell them."

"Really?"

"Of course. Let's get married."

The next day, he told his parents. That's what our dads were talking about when the Prowlers came to take them, but I try to focus on the positive, returning my thoughts to his arms around me as I fell asleep that night. I remember how every scary thing in my life—the Prowlers, the fear of not having enough food, the fear of losing my parents in a few years—melted away. I hold onto the memory of his arm around me, protecting me, but it doesn't make me any less afraid.

Still, I fall asleep feeling his warmth.