“Let her go!” I scream, the words leaving my mouth with all the force I can muster. “Let her go!”

If it hears me, I know it doesn’t care.

“Please,” I beg, and a part of me wishes my plea will be heard.

But nothing stops the thing.

Mina’s gaze locks with mine.

I see the moment she gives up like a fire dying in her eyes.

And then, she slips from my grasp.

The force of the pull is lost and I collapse, but my eyes remain locked on Mina’s as she disappears into the dark hole.

I want to go after her.

But before I can move, the hole closes, as it always does.

It closes, but not before Mina’s screams reach our ears.

ADIRA

When Mina returns, Sam and I are waiting.

There is movement. The wall pulses and the hole opens.

Mina’s body is a blur as she falls through and we rush to break her fall.

She is choking, her body heaving and shivering at the same time, and she is wet.

She clutches her belly, and I swallow hard.

We don’t need to speak.

We all know what’s happened.

It’s the same thing that happened to all the others.

“Kill me,” she chokes out. “Kill me now.”

I glance at Sam and my heart slams against my chest. I can feel Mina’s pain.

“Do it!” she screams.

Her eyes are on us now, red, bloodshot and she chokes again, spitting blood.

The fluid promptly disappears into the wall of the orb.

She claws at her stomach and a lump forms in my throat.

I can’t see clearly and it takes me a moment to realize tears have clouded my eyes.

I try to hold them back as I watch her claw at herself, trying to remove it.

Because what’s inside her is like a death sentence.

It is a death sentence.

Mina’s belly is going to swell.

And then the machine will take her again.

Mina continues to clutch at her belly and a wail leaves her lips that shatters me at my core.

Hopeless.

Desperate.

Forlorn.

It will kill her like it’s killed the others.

And then…then it will be my turn…

Or Sam’s.

My chest heaves with huge breaths as I pull my gaze away from Mina to stare through the wall before me.

In the back of my mind are Mina’s cries.

We can’t help her. Even if we wanted to.

There is nothing we can do.

Sam and I made a pact.

If one of us gets taken…the other will have to do a horrible deed.

Asphyxiation is our only weapon.

But what would happen to the other once the deed is done?

We don’t know.

We don’t talk about it.

The last woman who came close to killing herself was crushed by the metal claw.

“There’s water ahead,” I whisper. The thought comes almost like an afterthought whispered in the back of my mind.

I can see it.

A great lake.

The machine will stop. Suck it up. And then it will move on.

Mina’s wailing slowly turns to low sobs as she settles back. Her chin is on her chest and through her ripped clothing, I see deep welts across her abdomen from where she’d clawed at herself.

I take her hand and settle back too.

Sam follows, sitting on Mina’s other side, and we rest in silence, lulling ourselves with the sway as the machine moves.

For the next few minutes, my gaze is focused on the lake as the machine heads toward it, and when it gets there, it steps into the water and pauses.

Mina’s sobs feel like my own.

No one is coming to save us.

No one is out there.

The thought registers like a hurricane and I gulp back a sob.

I’m not allowed to cry.

I feel guilty for wanting to do so when Mina is facing death much sooner than I am.

I can’t look over at the Feeders either—the men on the other side.

Thankfully, the vines cover most of what we can see.

I don’t know which side has it worse.

Them or us.

So I force my gaze ahead, my eyes glazing over with unshed tears.

I cannot do anything to help Mina, but I can be strong.

I can be strong for her.

Through my blurred vision, I think I see something, and I frown a little as I force the tears away.

With the back of my free hand, I wipe my eyes and squint for I…I think I see movement in the distance.

Something black, moving toward us through the sky.

It’s dusk and I haven’t seen any sort of bird in so long.

I blink again and my vision clears, but the bird is still there.

Bigger now.

For a moment, I don’t know what I’m seeing.

It seems to be getting bigger the closer it comes.

Out of nowhere, a bright light erupts in front of me. Far too bright. As bright as the sun.

The sudden brightness blinds me and I hiss as I shield my eyes.

Something moves over my skin like an invisible web. I feel it move all the way through me and it’s such a strange sensation that I let go of Mina’s hand to clutch at myself.

There’s nothing there.

As if whatever I feel is invisible.

Like…energy.

Pure. Raw. Energy.

And as the light dims and my eyes begin to adjust once more, there’s a loud boom.

The air vibrates.

It’s the same sound I’d heard on that first day and it sends a chill down my spine that has everything within me falling.

I know what that sound means now.

It means the orb is about to attack something.

“What’s happening?!” Sam’s voice is high, panicked, but I can’t even look her way because all I can see is that bird still approaching.

Something moves in my peripheral vision. It’s on the outside. One of the machine’s walking arms. But before it can do anything, the entire orb jerks.

We’ve been…hit.

The blast is so strong, it sends us hurtling to the side.

Sam screams. My eyes widen.

There is a pain in my shoulder from where I connect with the smooth interior, but my gaze somehow finds the bird again.

My heart skips a beat.

For the first time in weeks, hope flares within me.

For what I’m looking at isn’t a bird.

It’s a ship.

And it’s firing at the machine.

Chapter Five

ADIRA

There’s no time to prepare for what happens next.

We’re thrown upside down, gravity disturbed.

Like ping pong balls in a glass jar, our bodies slam against each other.

Screams pierce my ears. I do not know whether they are my own.

All I know is that chaos has suddenly erupted.

I try to grab and hold on to something.

Anything.

But nothing is there to hold on to in this smooth, featureless prison.

Something collides with the machine once more and it shudders hard, swaying wildly.

It feels like my bones crack each time my body slams against the inside of the orb and then, the swaying stops.

There is another jerk, as if something heavy lands on the orb and as I struggle to right myself, I see movement.

Something black.

A man.

A man on the orb?!

He’s so fast, I barely glimpse him and I wonder if I imagined it.

I try to rise but the machine is suddenly moving again.

Correction: we’re falling.

Fast.

Fast enough for me to feel the pull of gravity as my blood rushes into my head.

I clutch on to Sam and Mina both, gritting my teeth with the force of the pull.

And then it hits me.

Something is happening that I didn’t know was possible.

The machine is going down.

The calm water of the lake below is approaching fast and hope has my heart in my throat.

Help has finally come.

Somewhere, somehow, humans have found a way.

The fight isn’t over yet.

But beneath me, the surface of the water is approaching and a new terror fills my veins.

Two things become clear.