"Let me get this straight," the prisoner drawled, eyeing us disbelievingly. "You want two of us to fight so we can get free?"

"Cause a distraction, yes," I replied, shifting from one foot to the other.

There was another tense moment of silence before the woman shrugged. "Okay."

Nik and I glanced at each other, hesitant smiles splitting our faces. "Really?"

"Yeah. We got families to get back to." The prisoner crossed her cell to the next and murmured something to its residents. Then, she returned to us as the other prisoner began whispering to others.

"A fight's gonna start in the center of the cell block. We'll all be loud about it."

"Thank you so much," I breathed and hurried back into the cafeteria with Nik before anyone could change their minds.

"Meet you on the roof," Nik told me, pulling me into a quick hug before hurrying away to find solitary.

I waited awkwardly until suddenly, a huge commotion erupted from the cells. Within seconds, guards were rushing past me. I fought the tide of people to reach the control room.

One guard remained. We stared at each other for a moment before I blurted, "There's a fight!"

"On it." She stood and pushed past me, leaving me alone in the room.

I closed the door and hurried to the panel of buttons and security monitors. Just as the Gambler had predicted, everything was clearly labeled. Even with that being the case, I couldn't understand several of the instructions.

My gaze fell upon a button labeled "OPEN." Crossing my fingers, I slammed it down.

Letting out a breath I hadn't realized I was holding, I sprinted out of the control room and back to the cafeteria, following the prisoners to the exit. Thankfully, none of them paid too much attention to my uniform, and soon I was bounding up the fire escape to the roof.

Nik was waiting for me. Mouse was limp in his arms, unconscious, and Charlie was gripping his hand, crying with confusion and fear.

I dropped to my knees, shaking, and my little brother stumbled over to me, falling into my arms and gripping me tightly as he sobbed. I murmured soothing words and stroked his hair, tears stinging in my eyes as well.

"Claire," Nik said warningly. Remembering what was happening and where I had to be, I released Charlie and stood, although he continued to cling to my legs, sobs gradually fading.

Hastily, I glanced over the side of the roof to ensure that nobody had seen us yet. "Okay, we need to get going. The Gambler was right, I can see the city perimeter." I gestured, striding over to stand in front of Nik. "I don't know when we're supposed to leave or how much time we have, so we need to leave now - "

Nik caught my chin. "Hey." His voice was gentle.

Reluctantly, I met his gaze.

"Claire, I'm not leaving."

My heart stopped. "Wh - what?"

"Sarah and I were talking the other night. We're going to start a family, Claire." My friend's eyes sparkled with excitement.

"Are you serious?" I spluttered. "Don't you know how dangerous that is? Nik, she'll have to give birth naturally, without any sort of anesthetic. And you're seventeen!"

"You think we didn't talk about all of that?" Nik snapped. "We know what we want, Claire. We want each other. We want a family."

"You were never planning on coming with us," I whispered. "You were never even going to consider it."

Nik bit his lip, eyes full of sorrow. "I wish there was a way to do this without hurting you. Without losing you."

"I just want my family to be together," I managed, throat clogging with tears.

"Caire, you have to go. You have to save yourself and Charlie," Nik urged. "Don't for a second think we won't see each other again."

"How could we? I'm leaving, Nik. Forever."

"We might enter a later Lottery. Or the conditions of the city could improve. We'll find a way, I promise."

The tears exploded out of me. This was the pain I had felt time and time again during the Uprising, the pain that came from losing everyone and everything. "I can't lose you, too."

"You're not losing me," Nik assured me, eyes bright with his unshed tears. He stepped forward and pulled me into a one-armed hug, the best he could do with Mouse in the way. "We're just saying goodbye for a little while."

"What's going on?" Charlie asked, his voice trembling.

I dropped to my knees, taking his shoulders. "We have to leave, Char. For our safety. Nik's not coming."

Charlie's lower lip trembled and he flew at Nik, wrapping his arms tightly around the boy's legs. I enveloped both of them in a hug.

It ended far too soon. The chaos on the street escalated - reinforcements had shown up.

Nik pushed us away, eyes wide. "Go, now."

I nodded, grabbing Charlie's hand tightly. "Goodbye, Nik."

He offered me a sad half-smile. "Goodbye."

I turned, breaking into a run with Charlie so we could jump to the next building. Once we were a few rooftops over, I glanced back over my shoulder at Nik's receeding form.

I took a deep breath, summoned my courage, and kept going.

"Where are we going?" Charlie asked quietly.

"You remember the stories Sarah told you about how Horizon used to be?"

"Yeah."

"We're going to someplace like that. Somewhere like the old Horizon."

"Oh." Charlie let out a small smile, squeezing my hand tighter. Relief flooded my syste, at how well he was taking this - although after whatever hell he had just been through, it made sense that he would want to put this city far behind him.

As we neared the perimeter, I took Charlie to street level. We snuck through the tight alleyways until I caught sight of a large truck idling next to a huge concrete wall.

We had reached the exit point.

A sizeable group of people was filing into the openbacked truck and I caught sight of Evie and the Gambler surveying them. Hoisting Charlie into my arms - he was almost too big to do so - I hurried over to them.

"Claire!" Evie exclaimed, startling my touch. "How did it go?"

"It went great," I replied quietly.

The Gambler gave a signla and two massive doors in the wall grumbled slowly open, previously obscured in the concrete.

"Where's your friend? Nik?"

My smile faltered. "Probably Rooftop by now."

Evie frowned. "Oh, Claire, I am so - "

"We have to get going," the Gambler told us tightly. Evie pressed her lips together and nodded.