Records isn't what was I was expecting. It's a small room, and painted dark green rather the usual white, with a blind covering the single window on the far wall. There's a large desk in the middle of the room, with a swivel chair behind it, and on the desk is a computer, a glass paperweight shaped like a cube, and a small stack of paper files. Lining the walls on either side are metal filing cabinets.

I feel like I've stepped into another world.

But there's no time to absorb my new surroundings.

I hurry over to the desk. There's no point trying the computer – even if I had any idea how to work the thing, Taffy's told me before that they need passwords, and I'm not even going to attempt to guess that.

So I turn my attention to the files. They're all bound in grey, but they're numbered instead of obviously labelled, which isn't helpful. Still, I suppose I couldn't expect to find all the information about the Trials just conveniently waiting on a desk for me to find.

I start flipping through the top file, scanning its contents as fast as I can. Somewhere in all this, there must be something useful. But there's nothing that I understand, no mention of Seconds, or the Trials. There are a few names, and some random sums of money, but I can't make sense of any of it. It might as well be written in another language.

I pick up the second file, but it's as meaningless as the first, and my heart starts to sink. I know that there's no guarantee of finding anything, but I've been hoping that I will with every single part of myself.

The third file, the biggest so far, just seems to contain lists of names, but I realise with a sudden jolt that I recognise them.

Amara, Amy, Anush, – they all live on the fifth floor. With me.

I read on.

Beatrice, Benny, Bianca – I know them too.

They're not my friends, but we've all lived in the CC our entire lives.

Seeing these names recorded like this isn't surprising in itself – it makes sense that the Handlers need to keep records of us as there's no telling when new Seconds will arrive – but what makes my skin prickle is the fact that every single name has a word written next to it.

Next to Amy, Anush, and Beatrice's names is the word Prey.

Next to Amara, Benny, and Bianca is the word Predator.

I read it twice to make sure that I'm seeing it right, and my stomach twists and turns because this feels all wrong.

My tongue is dry.

The lists are alphabetised, which means I'm in here too. It means that, like the others, I'll have one of these words next to my name.

I flip to the C names, while black wings flap in my chest.

My name is at the top of the list, and I close my eyes, because I don't know any of this means, but it's making me very uneasy. The file suddenly feels very heavy in my hands.

"There's no time to be nervous," I whisper to myself, trying to gather up my courage.

I'm not sure exactly how long Nurse Barrett will be asleep, and I can't afford to waste any time. Every second is precious.

I open my eyes and read what's written next to my name.

Undecided.

I frown. What does that mean?

Every single other Second has the words Prey or Predator written next to their name, but not me. I have Undecided instead.

Cole's name is three below mine – three that are all marked as Prey – and she is also marked as Undecided.

I flip faster through the papers, looking for the names of my friends, while my heart beats and beats and beats against my ribs.

Priya, Sonny, and Taffy are all marked as Prey.

"What the hell is this?" I mutter aloud.

I don't understand any of it, but there's a heavy, oily feeling in my stomach, creeping up my throat and settling on my tongue.

Dropping the file onto the desk, I turn my attention to the cabinets that stand on either side of me. None of them are labelled either, so I pick one at random.

Each file here is marked with a name, and like the lists on the desk, they are marked alphabetically, but I don't recognise any of them. I grab a couple from the middle and riffle through them. A handful of photos are clipped inside each of them, and when I look closer, I realise that I know these faces. I don't recognise the names, but I have seen these kids at breakfast every day for years. They're Seconds, but they're younger than me, so they live on a lower floor.

But the faces that I know are older than the ones in these photos. It's like someone has been documenting their lives here in photo form, and my heart gives a sudden, painful wrench.

For so long I have wondered what I looked like before the attack scarred my face, even though I was only five at the time, and wouldn't necessarily look much like I do now. But I always thought that my old face was something unknowable, something I could only imagine or dream about.

But what if it isn't?

I have to know.

My hands shake as I rummage through the drawers until I finally locate the file with my name on it. My skin is flashing hot and cold, and my head feels like it's spinning.

Since meeting Roan, I have come to accept myself in a way that I never thought I could, but . . . I can't shake this strange need to know what I looked like before. I can't ignore this chance that I never thought I would have.

I open the file.

The first photo is of me after the attack, and my face is a mess of stitches. Nausea curdles my stomach. I'm no stranger to my scars, but I don't remember much after the attack and I suddenly realise that I barely remember what my face looked like after it had been stitched up. Maybe I'd been too young when it happened, or maybe I've just blotted it out over the years, I don't know.

But staring down at that photo makes me swallow bile. My face looks like it is literally being held together by surgical stitching, and if someone were to cut those stitches, my skin and flesh would fall away, leaving nothing but gleaming white skull underneath.

Tears sting my eyes.

Unable to stomach it anymore, I turn to the next photo.

My heart gives a single, solid thump that I can feel in every bone.

It's everything I hoped for and everything I never thought I would see.

It's me before the attack.

A younger me stares out from the photo, my cheeks still round with baby-fat, my hair in little pigtails. It's blonder there than it is now, and wispy strands fly around my face.

My face.

I can't stop staring at it.

There are no scars on my skin, no marks splitting my face in two, and in that moment I feel like I am split in two – like I am the Caia in the picture, and the Caia of now.

But I am both.

Before I know what I'm doing, I pull the photo from the folder and stuff it in my pocket, its edges sharp against my fingers. It's stupid, I know it is – someone will surely notice it's missing – but I don't have time to properly process everything I'm feeling right now. I have to prioritise the Trials, but I can't bear to leave this photo here, where I might never get another chance to look at it.

Maybe I'll regret it later, maybe I'll realise that this is a colossal mistake, but I can't seem to stop myself.

And then something else occurs to me, something that makes me go cold all over.

I have never forgotten the name of the boy who attacked me, but over the years I've struggled to fully recall his face. He is a monster in my mind, something huge and towering, made of flashing blades and pain and nightmares, with a voice like the darkest part of the night, but of course he doesn't really look like that.

And I don't know why I suddenly need to know what he really did look like, only that I do.

Thomas.

His name was Thomas.

I go through the drawers until I reach T, and then I scour the necessary files, but there's no Thomas here. I check them again, just to be sure.

I deflate.

There's no reason for his file to still be here – the attack happened ten years ago and he was never brought back to the CC – but I can't help my disappointment.

Maybe his file is somewhere else in these rows of cabinets, but can I really justify looking for it? He has nothing to do with the Trials, so surely any time spent looking him up will just be time that I'm wasting. Time I won't get back.

And yet . . .

I glance back at the big file on the desk.

There are still plenty of documents in the same file than I haven't tackled yet. Is there even a chance?

It's quicker than going through all the cabinets, and I give myself a compromise – I will look in that file, and if Thomas isn't in there then I won't look anymore. I will put him to the back of my mind and focus on the real reason I'm here.

I go back to the file, and start leafing through pages.

When I get to the last names in the alphabet, the list abruptly stops, but when I turn to the document beneath, the names start up again, all the way from A.

Some of these names I recognise too – they were Seconds a year or two older than me, kids who have now gone through the Trials and onto . . . whatever happens after.

Does that mean every Second who's ever lived in the CC is in here?

That means Thomas has to be too.

I go further back in the file, until I no longer recognise the names, back through ten years worth of T names, and suddenly there he is.

A painful jolt runs through my whole body.

My heart is a ball of ice.

There's no photo of course, but even seeing his name, stark in black and white, is bad enough, and maybe it's better that there are no photos of him, because if his name alone makes me react like this, I'm not sure I'm strong enough to see his face again.

But it's not just his name I'm looking for.

My eyes travel along the page, to the word written next to his name. It's different handwriting, so presumably it was written by someone else, but what does that matter?

All that matters is the word.

Undecided.

The same word assigned to Cole.

The same word assigned to me.

I have no idea what it means, whether it's some sort of classification, or code, or something else that I can't begin to guess, but the fact that I have been lumped in with the girl who takes great delight in bullying me, and the boy who slashed up my face, makes me feel like a storm is building in my chest.

What.

Does.

It.

Mean?

I try to marshal my racing thoughts.

The Trials are not mentioned anywhere, so I shouldn't jump to conclusions and assume that this is anything to do with them.

This really might just be some sort of code that only makes sense to people like the Handlers, or the government, and it's silly to panic about something that I simply don't understand.

I tell myself all this, but it's really hard to think straight.

I haven't found out anything useful, but my brain is full of Thomas, and the fact that someone obviously thinks we're the same in some way, and I just don't understand why.

In my mind, I again see that blade flashing towards my face, the impact when it sliced through my flesh. I remember not feeling pain at first. I remember thinking that maybe he'd punched me rather than slashed me, and it wasn't until I saw the horrified faces of everyone around me, until I became aware of warm wetness just pouring from my face that I realised what had really happened.

Then the pain had hit.

It had burned me alive, all-consuming, unrelenting.

There has never been any point in my life when I have felt that I'd be capable of doing that to anyone else.

So why, why, could I ever be comparable to Thomas?

I take a couple of deep breaths and try to calm myself. I have to remember that I don't know what Undecided means, and the fact that that word is by both our names doesn't necessarily mean that I'm being compared to him in any way.

I cannot jump to conclusions based on nothing more than a word.

And then I don't get time to think about it more, because the one thing that I absolutely cannot afford is happening – there are voices moving down the corridor outside, faint, but getting steadily closer.

Someone is about to come in.