I have no idea how long I've been here, or where anyone else is. All I know is that every now and then, the light under the door turns on, and I am given something else.

First it was the bread and the note: "Hold on." I still have no idea who wrote it, or why.

Then it was a tube of ointment. I should have been more suspicious of it, but by then, the pain from my burns and cuts was too unbearable to question anything that might help. Then, a roll of medical tape and some gauze pads.

I sat on the floor and put the tape and gauze on either side of me, so I wouldn't lose them in the darkness. My hands smoothed over the surface of my skin, finding the open gashes from falling into the bush after the explosion, and from wounds still healing from the Prowler attack at the refugee camp.

The camp.

My mom and Declan are probably doing their best to hold each other together right now. I wish somehow I could let them know I'm okay and that my dad is still out there. If I had the necklace Declan made me, I would stop worrying and just release the signal. But it's gone.

I may never see any of them again.

I may never have the chance to say goodbye to my mom. At least with Declan and my dad, I had that opportunity. At first I thought, at least I can see them in my dreams, but every time I try to go to sleep, I think of their faces lying in pools of blood, and it keeps me awake. I know it's just my mind playing tricks on me, but I still feel like I need to stay up. To make sure I'm awake if anything happens.

After the bandages, I was given more bread and a pouch of water, which I drank in one gulp. Whoever has me here is trying to keep me alive. Wherever this is.

Finally, a few minutes ago, I was given a pouch of dehydrated potatoes and a plastic spoon. I scooped the food into my mouth, and it's enough for now. But I can't keep living like this, being fed prisoner food and kept in the dark. I have to find my way out.

I begin crafting my weapon. Just in case. A few months ago, I would have probably just sat here crying, hopelessly worrying, wondering where Daniel was to save me. Not anymore. I am alone in this room and I need to take control.

I take the spoon and break off the scooped end. I shove the handle into the ointment tube, and begin scraping it against the rough cement wall to sharpen it. Then I wrap it in the remaining medical tape to hold it steady.

Now I just have to wait. Even if whoever has me here is taking care of me, they are almost definitely working for Gunther Quail, and cannot be trusted.

I remember what he said: "Bring her onto the tank, and get her to the infirmary. Let Crowley know when he's conscious." The way he said Daniel's name—the familiarity of it—sends shivers up my spine. I'm not dumb, I know what it means. Gunther and Daniel know each other. Daniel's working with them. Somehow whatever the President needed from him, Gunther must need as well.

What is it they need?

Daniel must be conscious by now. Why haven't I heard from him at all? Unless... unless, he's not only working with them, but is actually one of them.

I shake the thought from my head. He couldn't be, not the Daniel I know.

Maybe I'm still here because of my wounds, but this can't be the infirmary. Unless it is, and this is just another example of what the scientists told me about Gunther not valuing life. That and the fact that he and the President set all their soldiers up to die in the Deathless attack. They knew we were coming. Why didn't they tell them? It doesn't make any sense.

I've been trying to suppress my anger about the entire situation, and now that I'm focused on my escape, I feel it working. Being angry is useless right now; it won't help me get out of this room or get back to my mom and Declan.

I think of how Nate would be proud of me for controlling myself, for knowing to stay focused instead of panicking, but the thought makes my stomach ache.

Was I wrong to shoot Nate? I wonder. But I know what he would tell me. He would say not to worry, that he knew death would always be his fate, that I did the merciful thing in ending his pain quickly.

Still, I can't stop thinking about how, all along, he had my back, and in our final few meetings, all I could do was actively hate him. If he had outted himself as the mole, the President wouldn't have kept his guard down long enough for me to escape. I probably would have been shot on site, because no one would have been there to hesitate.

Gabriela would have had no trouble killing me. Strange, how the woman who had made me feel so at ease during my virtual reality immersion as Misty would have been my killer if Nate hadn't planted the microchip beneath my skin.

The microchip. Maybe Declan and my mom can track the signal from that instead of the necklace. I touch the area around my neck, hopelessly feeling for a chip, when I feel something else. Stitches. There's a stitched gash along my collar bone. Maybe it's from my fall into the bushes. But then why only stitch this wound? It's more likely that they've already removed my chip, and that these are the stitches to prove it.

I have to focus.

I find the metal door in the darkness, and stand beside it, waiting with my makeshift weapon poised over my shoulder, ready to attack.

I don't know how long I wait for it, probably hours since my arm cramps in pain, but eventually, the slit opens, and light floods the room.

This is my time to attack.

I stab at the slit, trying to hit whoever is on the other side, and it catches on something.

Yes!

I expect to hear a scream or squeal or anything, but all I can hear is a weird clicking noise. I push deeper through the slit, but when I try to pull it back to strike again, I can't. My weapon is stuck. I tug at it, but it doesn't loosen. I press my foot against the door for leverage, and try to pull, but before I can, the door flies open and hits me square in the face. I fall back, my head pounding in pain.

The light from the open doorway is blinding, but slowly softens to a yellow glow, and I see a person's shadow in the doorway. I blink a few times to make sure I'm not hallucinating, but the image only becomes clearer. It's a soldier, his gun barrel pointed at my head.

He tugs at a radio clipped to his shoulder. "It's the Blume girl, sir. She disabled the monitoring drone. Over."

"Bring her to me," a voice beckons from the radio.

"Roger that," he says. He lowers his gun, which he's been holding with one hand, and turns from the doorway. "You. Yeah, you, Caregiver. Come in here and get Ms. Blume ready for Dr. Quail."

Gunther.

I start to sit up. I want to do something, anything, other than just sit here helplessly, when a woman, rushes to my side.

"Don't move. I'll help you," she says. Her voice sounds like embers crackling, warm but rough.

She helps me to an upright position. Gradually my eyes adjust to the light from the hall, and I begin to see through the open doorway. The walls are covered in creamy yellow wallpaper with diamond patterns striping them in a warmer cream color. There is a cream colored door at the end of the hall, and a horizontal stripe of smoothed white wood wrapping around the perimeter. It looks like a room my mom and I might have found on one of our runs, which makes me even more confused after I look back at the room I've been kept in for who knows how long: bare, dark, and unfinished.

The soldier lifts the disabled drone from the ground, and grabs the woman by the shoulder. "Take her to the salon to make her presentable for Dr. Quail," he orders, "then take her to his office. No funny business, or you know what will happen."

The woman nods, and he slams the door at the end of the hall shut behind him. She turns quickly back to me. "You're Isla Blume?"

I nod.

"I've heard of you. You saved all those people. Dr. Quail was angry, because he had to find room for all of them," she says, smiling.

She's heard of me. Maybe she's the one who left me that note. "Did you slip me this?" I ask, lifting the crumpled paper to her. My voice startles me. I haven't heard it in so long that I barely recognize it as my own.

She reads it and shakes her head. "No. We aren't permitted to provide anything. Only drones and soldiers. But now that you're here, maybe you can help us."

"Show me your arms," I say. I don't want to risk trusting a cyborg again.

She pulls up her sleeves. No glowing light. No controls. Only some bruises on her pale skin. Now that I know she's human, I ask, "Where am I?"

"You're in Cooper's Estate."

"Which is...?"

"Cooper. George Cooper? Of Roberts and Cooper. He's in charge of all of this. All the soldiers, all the scientists, all the workers, all the women, the land, everything. This is his fortress."

Now that my eyes are fully adjusted to the light, I am able to really see the woman before me. She has dark brown hair, nearly black, and almond eyes like General Sato. She's probably around my mom's age, since small wrinkles have begun to develop around the corners of her eyes and mouth. She tucks her hair behind her ears, and I see her fingers. They are thin, like sticks. I check the rest of her body. Even through her grey pajama-like clothes, I can tell how emaciated she is.

"C'mon," she says, "We have to get you up to the salon. The soldiers will think I'm not taking my responsibilities seriously." She coughs, and a glint of red sparkles in the palm of her hand. She tries to wipe it off against the floor before I can see, but her worry lines give her away.

"Are you sick?" I ask.

"I haven't seen the doctor," the embers in her voice crackle and break with heat, so she tries to clear her throat, "but I think that most of us are by now."

"Most of who?" I feel selfish letting this woman help me, so I stand and lift her to her feet. I wish Dr. Patel were here. He would make sure this woman and I were okay. He would help us.

"Thank you," she mumbles. "Most of the Caregivers. We are sort of like the maids and mothers around here."

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Jane."

"Why don't you see a doctor?"

"The men upstairs won't allow it. We aren't a valuable enough resource."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"We aren't as valuable. As human beings. Most of us are sick. We are temporary."

"That's ridiculous," I say, raising my voice. "Who are the men upstairs? Do you know their names?"

She nods, shaking a tear from her eye. "George Cooper's in charge. Gunther Quail is next in line. Then there's Captain Keith Jones, Flynn O'Neil, Daniel Crowley, and now Mitchell Harper. Those are the Leaders."

I want to shake more information from her, but she's so frail that I'm afraid I would break her.

"What can you tell me about Daniel Crowley? Is he working with them or is he being held captive?"

She looks confused. "Isla, he's one of them. He's their head physicist. He's one of the men holding you down here."