Of course I can't tell my friends what I'm doing. There's too much to explain, and I don't have time, and they won't leave the CC if they know that I'm going back into the Grid.

But this has to end now.

Otherwise all those kids, the people that I have spent my entire life with, will have died for nothing.

I know that there's a good chance that I won't escape a second time.

But I have no choice now.

If I don't do this, then Taffy, and Priya, and Sonny might still escape the CC, but they will always be on the run, always looking over their shoulders. They will never truly be free.

The Trials will continue, and more and more Seconds will die.

I think of the nursery behind the CC, where Second babies are taken until they're old enough to move into the main building. Years from now, they'll be the ones desperately slaughtering each other in the Grid.

I won't let that happen.

Even if it costs me my own life.

With a Predator knife in one hand, and Rosie's bag in the other, I leave Records and make my way back to the lifts.

There's still no sign of life, but my nerves are stretched out like wires. I've already seen how quickly plans can go wrong – it could happen again. A Handler or a Predator could emerge from any room and stop me.

But they don't.

I can only assume that the Predator who chased us down in the Grid found easier prey there rather than following us up. Or maybe he was too scared to follow us. Even Predators have been trained to play by the rules.

All too soon, I'm back in front of the lifts, and my stomach is a rock, because I am terrified of the Grid and I would give anything not to go back down there.

Closing my eyes, I think of Roan. I picture his eyes, the same colour as my beloved sky. If my soul had a colour, it would be that beautiful blue.

I push the panel on the wall, and the lift doors slide open.

"You can do this," I whisper as I step into that shiny metal box.

"It will be okay," I tell myself, as I push the button on the wall, the one I watched the Handlers push when they took me down to the Grid the first time.

I can taste the bitterness of my own lie, but it won't stop me.

The lift starts to move downwards, and I feel like I'm leaving my heart behind in the CC. My friends will find a way out, and Roan and Rosie will rescue them and take care of them, and they will have proper lives, actual futures. I just don't think that I will able to share it with them.

Opening the back, I pull out the small metal stick that Rosie gave me and press the button on the side, just as she instructed. The stick telescopes outwards, until it's long enough that I can reach the cameras, however high they are on the walls. I press the button again and the stick collapses down.

It seems pretty sturdy; I wonder if I can use it as a weapon as well as my knife.

The lift comes to a stop and a curious calm settles on me. The Handlers thought I wasn't strong enough to be a Predator, but I'm going to show them just how strong I am.

I'm pretty sure now that I'm not getting out of this alive.

Even if I get Roan and Rosie the footage they need, the CC won't let me escape the Grid again. Once the effects of the RP finish then the lift will be locked again, the cameras will come back on, and I will be trapped down here.

The lift doors open, and I instinctively fall back, clutching my knife. But there's no one on the other side, except bodies. There are more of them than when I left, and I'm stricken with the sudden fear that I'm too late, that everyone is dead already.

"No," I fiercely tell myself.

I have to have hope.

And if I am too late, if the Prey have already been slaughtered, then I will make sure the outside world sees their bodies, sees what the CC forces Seconds to do.

I march out of the lift and go straight to the nearest camera. Voices echo from somewhere in the Grid, but it's impossible to tell if they are Prey or Predator, or where they're coming from.

Taking a bug from the bag, I place it in the little cup at the end of the stick, then press the button again, extending it so I can reach the cameras. My heart thunders as I reach up, still expecting something to go wrong, someone to catch me, the stick or the bug to break.

But they don't.

The little disc clings to the camera, and the breath escapes my lungs in a sudden gasp. I'm really doing this. I'm really going to change the world.

I move through the room, putting bugs on every camera I can see. The second the RP ends, Rosie will have instant access to the carnage that these cameras have witnessed. She will see everything. The world will see everything.

Maybe I won't get a bug on every camera, but any footage is better than nothing.

My heart stutters as I approach the maze. It's quieter than it was when we came through it the first time, but I can still hear voices, coming from what seems like everywhere.

Keeping myself pressed against the wall, I start moving through the maze, following the streaks of blood that Taffy left on the panels of glass. I think of the Seconds that she fled that first room with, and whether any of them are still alive. She said she told them to hide, but how long can anyone stay hidden in this place?

Every time I see a camera, I pause and attach a bug to it.

It's slow going, and I don't know how far into the maze I am when the lights on the cameras blink back on. The effects of the RP are over, and even though I'm bone-tired, even though my wounds are burning with pain, even though I've resigned myself to dying down here, my weary heart flaps to life and soars.

As soon as those cameras went back on, Rosie's bugs activated. She can see everything now.

We did it.

I stare up at the nearest camera, and I hope that Roan can see it. I hope that he gets to see me once more, even if I don't get to see him.

Voices sound around the corner up ahead, and I instinctively drop to the floor. I don't know if it's Prey or Predator approaching, but I can't take any chances. I tuck Rosie's bag beneath my stomach, and wedge my bandaged arm and the knife beneath my chest so no one can see them, and then lie still, eyes closed.

There's so much blood on me – Gavin's and my own – that I have to gamble that anyone who sees me will think I'm just another corpse.

My heart crashes frantically against my ribs. My instincts want me to run, and it takes everything I have to stay completely still.

The voices are louder now, footsteps thudding along the floor. "They have to be here somewhere," says a girl.

"Yeah, and we'll find them. It's not like they can get out," a boy says back.

I think I hear the girl sob, and the footsteps stop. It sounds like they're right by my head, but I don't open my eyes to see.

"We will find them," the boy says, his voice gentle. "And we will kill them."

Predators, then.

I wonder who they are. I vaguely recognise the voices, but I can't place their names. I wonder if, whoever they are, they are friends or if there is something more between them, like Sonny and Priya.

I wonder if either of them are aware of the horror of him comforting her by promising that they will commit murder, and I'm glad that Rosie will see and share this particular moment, because, for me, it's a grim snapshot of what the CC is and what it does.

The pair move off, and I crack open one eye, peering through bloody strands of my own hair.

I'm guessing that neither of them have been able to kill anyone yet, and surely that means there are Prey still alive in this awful place, hiding somewhere. I feel a surge of hope, but it dies down when I remember that, even if they are alive, they're still trapped here. We all are.

The cameras are back on, which means all the locks are working again. The lifts won't open for me now. There's no way out.

The maze is empty around me, and I climb to my feet. Maybe Rosie already has enough images of slaughtered children to tear down the CC, but I don't stop. I want the world to see more. I want all the people who turn their backs on Seconds, all the people who think that our treatment is somehow justified, I want them to see everything.

Even if I can't save the Prey who are still alive, I want the world to see their faces, know their names. I don't want their deaths to be in vain.

I progress through the maze, but twice more I have to play at being dead, and now I really hope that Roan isn't watching this. I can't imagine how I would feel if our positions were reversed – I wouldn't want to see him suffer like that.

But . . . if either Roan or Rosie can see me right now, then is there any chance at all of them saving us? How much footage do they need to expose this horror? When they've got enough, is there even a chance that they will send out another RP, disabling the locks again and giving me a way out? I'm scared to hope, but at the same time I have to. I need that spark to keep me alive.

I move through the maze again, planting more and more bugs, and with each one, I am torn between fierce pride and crushing sadness. Because the Handlers can see me now. They can see everything that I'm doing, and any minute now, they are going to come into the Grid to stop me – which will almost certainly involve killing me. Even if Roan wanted to mount some kind of rescue, he won't get to me in time.

Tears burn my eyes.

I do not regret doing this, but I wish . . . I wish that I could have been free too. I wish that the price for our freedom, the price for getting justice for all these murders, wasn't my own life.

But it is, and it's a price that I will pay.

I'm almost at the end of the maze when something heavy hits me from behind. It's enough to knock me to the floor, but I roll with the movement, and scramble back to my feet, knife at the ready. Just because I've resigned myself to dying doesn't mean I'll go down without a fight.

But when I see who's standing behind me, my heart shrivels, and the breath stops in my lungs.

I'd really hoped to never see his evil face again.

Fletcher.

We're almost at the end, guys! Four chapters left! Unfortunately, I'm going to be reducing updates to once a week instead of twice, so new chapters will be posted every Friday. I'm really sorry and I hope you're not too disappointed. I'm still looking forward to sharing the rest of this journey with you xx