MARCH 5, 2022

Zoey All stood in Betty's bedroom.

It was the fifth of March. The year was 2022.

Betty, conscious and alive, sat on her bed. Lilly had forced Vamp into her bloodstream, but the Watcher wasn't powerless. Not anymore.

Today wasn't yesterday.

Zoey wore a pink shirt and blue jeans. Betty, clad in a blue shirt and blue jeans, sighed.

"Me and you are very alike, Zoey," Betty said. Her pale hands were against her knees. "We both have sisters we can't see anymore."

Lena Majestic.

She had left.

Zoey, who had been born on the first of January, stayed in the space station. Her younger sister was already gone. Zoey had to leave.

"You're going to see Clementine again," Zoey said. "And a great person will see Lock Tannis, then they'll kill him."

Zoey's father would never be Lock's killer.

In the future, Betty's older sister might stand in the bedroom Zoey was in. Boone Windsore wouldn't.

Zoey wished she could stab her father's killer thirty-three times, then she could stab him more than that many times.

"When the invasion was still happening, I had a duty to do," Betty said. "Lena's parents wanted her to become a High, so I had to go to them. I had to find Lena. Then I had to get her to Theo Majestic. I did all of that, of course, but I couldn't check on my sister. Still, I made the right choice. I just wish me and Clementine escaped Soy together. I lost so much. We both have, Zoey. I don't have Lena anymore, either. Me and her don't even share the same last name. Not anymore. It's unfortunate. Lilly Majestic came here. She beat my girl, then made her into a Majestic. And that happened after Hailey tried to murder her. You made her stop. Thank you."

Zoey had slit Hailey's throat. Lena had needed help, and Zoey had given it to her.

"I was supposed to help Lena," Zoey said.

"Lena is like a daughter to me," Betty said. "And I'm like a mother to her. She lost her father, a man who was only in her life for five years. I've been with her for a longer amount of time than five years. If I get killed, it will break Lena. I don't doubt that."

"But she's not broken now," Zoey said. "Plus, you're still alive."

"Better Soynites than me have been killed," Betty said. "I'm immortal. But it's not impossible for someone to kill me. Lilly made me powerless. She injected me with Vamp, and it made me lose my Saves."

The average adult Soynite couldn't develop any new Saves. Betty, though, had touched water on Still.

Betty sighed.

"Anyway, you want to leave and that's your wish," Betty said. "But you can still talk to me. If you want to talk about how you feel, you can. It's just me and you here. You're safe."

A throwing knife didn't shoot toward Zoey's chest. But a man had taken one to the heart yesterday, and the weapon hadn't gone into Zoey. It hadn't pierced her heart.

No, Zoey lived.

Did she deserve to?

"I want to stab a Freeman, Betty," Zoey said. "I want to do it over and over again. A Freeman threw a knife into my father's chest, but he should've done it to me."

"Zoey," Betty said. She stood.

Hero. Wade. Everett. Macy. Kat. Sydney. Zoey didn't stand in the same spaceship as them.

"I'm the one who always abandons people," Zoey said. "I left Hero and my friends. And you're grieving, but I'm going to leave you, too. Why didn't that Freeman just kill me?! My father had a daughter to protect!"

Lena.

"And you're his second daughter," Betty said. "That Freeman chose to kill your father. He didn't deserve to die yesterday, and you don't deserve to die."

A throwing knife had slipped into Zoey's father. Why hadn't it gone into her heart?

"What if I do?" Zoey said.

Betty embraced her. As liquid went down her cheeks, Zoey hugged the woman back.

"You left your friends to meet me," Betty said. "In life, there are times when you have to leave people to meet others. That's just the way it is."

The embrace broke.

Betty put her hands on Zoey's shoulders. "You're going to find everyone you want to find, Zoey."

"I know," Zoey said. "But the waiting hurts. And that Freeman hurt my father yesterday. He killed him. Lena never saw him again, and I want her to see me. But she can't."

Lena Majestic. Would she be blind forever?

"One day she will," Betty said. "Lena will be worthy. Planet Still took away her vision, but she is going to get it back. I don't know what Lena has to do to become worthy, but she is going to see again. She brings trouble. She brings love, too. But she will also bring back her eyesight. Despite what that spooky planet thinks, Lena is worthy to me. She's going to be back here. I don't believe Lilly will kill her, and I don't think Hailey will. They're going to be good to the greatest High. Lena will come back. She's going to return to me. You're going to leave, but you will be back here, too."

The light in the bedroom touched brown hair and orange hair, but Zoey would have to leave the room. She would have to exit the space station, find the people she needed to reunite with, keep living.

Her father couldn't.

But Zoey lived and breathed. That mattered.

"I wish I could stay, but I have people to find," Zoey said. "My mother said that I have to find my parents. My birth parents. And I have to see Hero and his siblings, too. They miss me. I know they do. And I miss them, too."

Hero wasn't in the room Zoey stood in.

The room was furnished with a bed, a wooden dresser, and a desk. A notebook sat on its wooden surface, closed. Because she couldn't see, Lena couldn't read. But Zoey and Betty had eyes that worked. They could see.

But neither of them saw Hero, Zoey's favorite Shame.

Zoey, if she wanted to, could grab the notebook, open it, and read the words Betty had written in it. Lena couldn't. Hailey's plan to murder Zoey's sister had failed, but Lena was still blind.

She had gone to live with Hailey and Lilly, her new family members.

Lena hadn't been born as a Majestic, but she might die as one. Zoey shared her sister with Reese, Nick, and Anne. Lena would rather make Theo Majestic kneel for her than hug him. She hurled spite at the Majestic family, her new family.

Who was Lena Majestic?

Zoey knew.

She had met Lena, but the brown-haired girl hadn't seen her birth parents in years. Hero's actions had started a chain of events that had led to Zoey learning the truth. She, Zoey All, was Alice Endman.

Her birth father's parents were Boris Endman and Virginia Endman.

Zoey's friend Hero had been obsessed with the deceased Boris. Zoey had learned her grandfather had joined Lock Tannis.

Did Hero know?

Zoey's mother didn't toss her belief that Boris Endman was alive. At some point in the past, Zoey's mother had fought Boris.

The former High hadn't killed Zoey's mother.

The woman hadn't killed Boris.

Hailey hadn't murdered Lena, and no one had murdered Zoey.

Even though Boris Endman was dead, Zoey could continue his legacy, his bloodline. She needed someone to help her do it, a partner.

Zoey. Hero.

Like that distant Shame, Zoey had gained two fathers during her life. Freemans had captured Hero's father. One of them had murdered Zoey's father Boone, and Betty had taken his life. His seeing daughter should've done it.

Boone Windsore's killer was dead. The damage had been done. Thanks to a Freeman, a father's chance to survive to see tomorrow had been snatched. Zoey had lost her stepfather. Her second father.

"Hero and his brothers and sisters are hiding something, but I don't know what it is," Zoey said. "I never found out their secret. But I know they have one. Hero and his siblings are uncanny. They're weird. I like them, but they're weird. Hero blindfolded me before. I still don't know why. I wish I did. Hero is hiding something from me, but I still want to see him. When I was with him, I was away from my mother and her slaps. For some time, anyway. But me and Hero had some great moments. And he saved my life."

Zoey touched her Soynite pendant. She had seen Hero fiddle with his own more than once. If he hadn't saved Zoey, she wouldn't have the power to touch her pendant.

Her mother had taken her from her birth parents, but she had given her the pendant.

Alice Endman's pendant.

Inside that Freeman base on Washington, the one where Zoey had spoken to Hero for the first time, she had worn her mother's invisibility bracelet. She had lost it. That had led to her mother slapping her after their reunion hug.

Zoey wasn't in pain. She was with Betty Fly, her sister's Watcher.

Betty didn't slam her hand against Zoey's face. She never had. Zoey doubted Betty would ever slap her, and she doubted she would never see Hero again.

What Zoey knew was that she had people to find. Her mother had slapped her, but the woman had also kissed the cheeks she had slapped.

Misty had been awful to Zoey. She had been loving to her daughter.

"Most of Hero's siblings wanted to kill me, but he convinced them not to," Zoey said. "They like me now. All of them like me, and I'm glad they do. If they didn't help me, I wouldn't be here."

She gestured at the space around her and Betty.

The Fly residence was a space station. Zoey's mother, Hailey, Lilly, and Boone Windsore had gone into the home. They had left. Freemans had invaded the space station. They had died.

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Betty had ended Freeman warriors' lives. Lilly had made Lena's time as a Fly die.

Years ago, before the incident on planet Still, Lena had been able to fly. The power to heal wounds had been hers, but Still had changed that. The planet had made her Saves vanish. It had taken her power to fly, her power to heal injuries, her power to see. Still had blinded Lena.

"Someone can hide something without being a horrible person, Zoey," Betty said. "Hero seems like a good person. I really do hope you find him. Years ago, me and Lena lived with a boy who was good at finding people. I already told you about Path Seekman. But I wonder if that Bloodhound is still alive. I hope he is. Path was a great kid, and great kids don't deserve to get killed."

Crammer Cole.

Like Zoey's father, that Bloodhound man was dead. He had joined the Children of Still. He had left that group. Then Zoey and her mother had found Crammer, and he had become their friend. Zoey assumed her mother had whispered the truth to Crammer on that day. The fact she was Alice Endman was the truth. One of many.

Poor Crammer.

Zoey couldn't move life back into him. Crammer wasn't the only man Zoey couldn't revive.

Soy. No one had revived that planet. Because of that, it lacked the beauty it had possessed over ten years ago. Lock Tannis had ordered his pale warriors to launch a full-scale attack on Soy. The Freemans had obeyed.

Lock owned the Red Throne. Not Zoey.

Despite his ownership of a red chair Zoey had never used, the Freeman ruler hadn't destroyed Lena's throne. Zoey had seen it. Lena hadn't.

Maybe she wouldn't see the throne she loved.

Zoey had never occupied Lena's blue chair, which was in the room where Lilly had made her submit.

The throne in the home was Lena's. She had lost her sight, and she had gained a throne. Lilly had sat on it. Zoey hadn't.

The only person with the right to use Lena's throne was the High herself.

"Path hated Lena," Betty said. She sat on the bed, then patted the spot next to her. Zoey sat. "Path hated Lena, and so did Reese. Lena and Reese are sisters now, but Reese doesn't know it. Sisters should know each other. If they don't, they can't love each other. I want Lena to love Reese, but there is so much hatred between those two girls. They don't want to hug each other. They want to hurt each other. Hailey was good when she came here, and Lena hurt her. Even though she did that, Hailey didn't hate her. Lena and Reese already dislike each other. Getting Lena to like Reese will be difficult. Fortunately, difficult doesn't mean impossible."

As Zoey pressed her hands against the comforter's blue softness, Reese Low stayed gone.

Zoey had never hugged her. But the brown-eyed girl had hugged Hailey, and she had hugged Reese's birth mother.

Lilly.

She had met Zoey years ago. The woman had held her when she was a baby, and Zoey didn't remember it. Lilly hadn't forgotten Zoey. The two had been reunited yesterday. Inside Lena's throne room, they had found each other.

Lilly had aimed a dagger at Zoey. She hadn't slit the girl's throat, and she hadn't stabbed her. Lilly wasn't a Freeman. Pale warriors had invaded the space station, but Lilly hadn't helped them. She had attacked Lena in the throne room, but she hadn't assisted Freemans. Still, she would have helped Lock Tannis if she had murdered Lena.

Lock Tannis, like Zoey's deceased grandfather had been, was immortal.

Would Zoey meet an immortal Freeman?

"I know Lena makes life difficult for people, but I love her anyway," Betty said. "And she does have a good side. Lena isn't horrible all of the time, and even Hailey saw her compassionate side. Lena was made a ruler because she found Theo Majestic during the invasion. He was going to turn the first six Soynite children who came to him into Highs. He wasn't being picky. If you and your Watcher were there and not me and Lena, Theo would've made you into a High. Theo wasn't being picky. But Lena still deserves to be one of our six rulers, which she already is. I need Hailey and Lilly to be sweet to her. Knowing Lena, I already know they're going to have trouble with doing that."

Lena had tried beating Lilly to death. Zoey's blind sister hadn't come close to making that happen.

A Majestic had confronted her.

A Majestic had beaten her.

A Majestic had healed her.

Lilly and Theo had gained a fifth child, but only one of those two blond-haired Majestics knew. Inside a space station that didn't belong to Theo, his wife had adopted Lena.

Years ago, Reese doubled as a High and Theo's daughter. Now Lena was the man's ruler and his child.

Zoey.

What was she now? She was without a stepfather, without Boone Windsore, and she was Zoey All, Alice Endman, a former High's only grandchild, a kidnapping victim, a daughter, the kid of a baby snatcher, the child of two Soynites she didn't remember.

Hailey's father had turned Zoey's grandfather into a substitute High. Boris had replaced Lock Tannis as one of Soy's six rulers. Regardless of how much time passed, Boris would never be one of the six original Highs.

Lock's identity as a High had receded. Boris's status as a High had come.

"Lena is a ruler, but Hailey and Lilly don't like her," Zoey said. "We like her, though. And I have to find the people who like me."

Zoey pulled a round stone from her pocket. With it, she could do what Wade and Betty could.

Teleport.

"I'm not going to take a spaceship with me," she said. "If I have any problems, I'll come back here. I'll come back to you."

Zoey had left her mother, and she didn't know the woman's location. Betty, though, lived in a space station. So did Zoey. For now, as she sat next to Betty, Zoey was one of the space station's residents.

She could go to Soy.

Hailey had suggested Zoey should return to their home planet, a place she hadn't been on in years. No trees stood on Soy. It lacked grass. And it didn't have Zoey.

"You can stay here for as long as you want," Betty said. Zoey moved the teleportation stone back into her pocket. It could teleport her from the space station to planet Soy, a barren wasteland, her home planet. "There's a lot of space here. It's just the two of us, but hundreds of Soynites can live here, too. This space station is huge. I know Freemans have attacked this place, but it's a safe haven right now."

A safe haven.

Zoey and Betty weren't in danger now, but Freeman enemies had infiltrated the space station. One of them had murdered Zoey's father, and Betty had turned that Freeman into smoke.

More than once, the home had stopped being a safe haven.

"Listen, Zoey," Betty said. "I know something horrible happened to your father here, and I know that you miss him. I miss him, too. Boone Windsore was a good friend of mine. He was one of the best of the best. I wish you and him could still hug each other, and I wish that Lena could see him, really see him. She's blind. And planet Still made her that way. When she saw her father for the last time, it was during the invasion. Your father couldn't go with us. Because of that, he was able to meet you. He fell in love with your mother. And then he became your stepfather. He's dead now. Just like so many other great Soynites. I'm sorry."

Betty moved a hand to Zoey's shoulder. The woman could show Zoey affection, but she couldn't bring the dead father back from the dead. No one could.

"I'm grateful that I helped both of Boone's daughters," Betty said. "He wasn't your biological father, Zoey, but he did love you. I know he did. You know it, too. He had to go away from his first daughter, but then he met you. I'm glad he did."

Zoey's father was absent and deceased. But Zoey hadn't forgotten him. Lock Tannis deserved to be forgotten. Not Boone Windsore, never him.

"I loved him," Zoey said. "I still do. He wanted to take me away from my mother, but he had a good reason to. I just wish he could've stayed with me and my mother. But he didn't. And that's my mother's fault. I'm never going to stop missing my father. He was good."

Her breath trembled.

"He was," Betty said. She rubbed Zoey's back. "You're good, too."

Zoey. She hadn't succeeded in keeping her father safe. In a blue space station far away from his home planet, Boone Windsore, had been killed inside his daughter's throne room.

His life had left his body.

And his eldest daughter had to leave her home.

"I'm going to leave now," Zoey said. She kissed Betty's cheek. "Thanks for being good to me."

As they sat, the girl and the woman hugged. If good fortune was on Zoey's side, it wouldn't be the final embrace she shared with Betty.

Zoey's destination: Soy.

Later, with her blue backpack on, Zoey All ran. Above her was Soy's morning sky, blue and lacking clouds. Zoey had spotted a spaceship. A familiar one.

She dashed, intent on reaching the spacecraft.

People went around the space vessel, armed with laser pistols. They took aim.

A heart hammered in a girl's chest. Guns pointed at it, and sunlight reflected off blue metal. Boris Endman's granddaughter panicked.

"It's me!" Zoey said. She stopped running, and raised her hands. "It's me!"

Zoey All. Alice Endman, sixteen, Hero's friend.

"Put your guns down!" Hero said, lowering his weapon as his siblings did the same. "It's Zoey! It's Zoey."

Hero grinned. As Zoey ran toward him, she took off her backpack. She let it hit the gray dirt. Hero dropped his gun.

He ran.

When they were close enough, Zoey and Hero embraced. She put her legs around him. She shut her eyes.

Zoey had found her friends.

Soy had many miles of land, but Boris Endman's granddaughter had found Hero Shame. And she had found the boy in an area she hadn't known he would be in.

You can't fight fate.

After her feet met the ground again, Zoey shared a sweet hug with Sydney. Then she exchanged hugs with Wade, Everett, Macy, and Kat.

"There's so much I have to tell all of you," Zoey said.

Her hand was on Kat's shoulder. Zoey moved it. Like it did to Zoey and the others, Soy's sunlight covered Hero. He approached Zoey.

"Let's get you inside, Zoey," Hero said.

After belongings were retrieved, Zoey went with Hero and his siblings, and they headed into the fastest Soynite spaceship.

After Zoey and Hero went into Hero's bedroom, the boy closed the door, locked it.

"You can get on my bed," Hero said. "It's okay."

He put his gun on the desk. Zoey lowered her backpack onto the blue floor. She and Hero took off their shoes, then did the same to their socks.

Zoey and Hero went onto the bed, and they rested on their sides, but they faced each other. Elbows went against pillows. Their hands supported their heads.

"I have so many questions," Hero said. "Will you be my girlfriend, Zoey? That's the question I want you to answer first."

"I will," Zoey said. "I will be your girlfriend."

"Fantastic," Hero said. He smiled. Zoey stroked his blond hair. "Okay, good. And I'm happy that you're back home."

Zoey was with Hero, on his bed, in his home. Their home.

"I'm happy I'm back, too," Zoey said. "I met my sister. I met Lena. That's Lovely Windsore's new name. But she's a Majestic now. Lilly Majestic adopted her yesterday. My theory was right. Lilly really did have children. Hailey is one of them. I met her. There's another one, and her name is Reese Low. She probably changed it, though. She's one of the Highs. Her original name is Nova Majestic. She was adopted. And there's Nick. He's the oldest child of Theo and Lilly. The youngest one is Anne. She was kidnapped by Summer, the Watcher you already met. And the woman I saw in Hawaii was Betty. She's Lena's Watcher."

Zoey had left Betty.

But it had been necessary. Zoey had kissed her cheek, they had hugged, and the girl had departed.

"I didn't know that was Betty," Hero said. "I also didn't know Theo and Lilly had children. But me and my siblings learned a lot, too. Betty is Marina Tome, right? You told me about her. We met Jill. Kara Ascend. We met her Watcher, and he's also her father. Her adoptive father. His name is Joseph now. It used to be Victor Valley. Jill lives with Cambridge, too. He's Don Ascend's brother-in-law, remember? And we met a woman named Vera. She's a Bloodhound."

"Vera is Hailey's Watcher," Zoey said. "I never met her, though."

Hero frowned.

"I met her," he said. "And I know she's a Bloodhound. She told me that. She let me and the others know. But we had to get away from her, and we had to get away from Jill. I can't tell you why."

Zoey frowned. Hero looked away, and his eyes searched the room, as if a Freeman warrior hid. He focused on Zoey.

"Kiss me," he said.

Zoey kissed him, but not in the way she and Lena had kissed.

"Lena is blind, but I'm so glad I can see you," Zoey said. "Betty touched water on planet Still, and it gave her all of the Saves. But it blinded Lena. And it took away her powers. If she becomes worthy, she will be cured."

Hero ran his thumb along Zoey's bare forearm.

"You're worthy to me," he said. "And I'm sorry about Lena. Let's hope she gets her Saves back. And her eyesight."

Lena didn't deserve to be blind.

"We should get out of this spaceship," Hero said. "Me, you, and the others probably have this whole planet to ourselves. Let's go. Just me and you. I'm going to bring one of my blankets."

After they fetched what they had to, Zoey and Hero headed out, leaving the Shame children and a spaceship that had launched away from a museum eleven years ago.

Zoey saw no green.

Above her head, and above Hero's, was the sky. A blue spaceship didn't fly in it. The spaceship Zoey had left had gone into Soy's sky, but now it was parked. Zoey had recognized it. She had run toward the space vessel, and Hero and his siblings had spotted her. They had taken aim.

But no one aimed a laser gun at Zoey now.

Black Freeman spacecrafts didn't invade the sky. Zoey kept walking. So did Hero.

As he walked with a blue blanket in his hands, Hero said, "If we had the Soy Maker, this planet wouldn't have to keep looking like this."

A warm breeze bathed Zoey's hair as she walked beside Hero. They moved toward a crater.

When Zoey and Hero came close to the massive hole in the ground, Hero toyed with his pendant. Zoey didn't do the same to hers.

"Wait here," Hero said. "I'll fly into it, put the blanket down, then come back for you."

Hero flew into the crater. He put the blanket down, spread it. He came back to Zoey. She clung to him as he flew, and the boy made his landing near the blanket.

Shoes were removed.

Zoey and Hero sat on the blanket.

"You're wearing your pendant," Hero said. He gestured to the gift Zoey's mother had given her. "That's Alice Endman's pendant. It's yours."

"My mother came back to me," Zoey said. "She was with my father Boone. He got killed by a Freeman. It happened in Lena's space station, where I met her for the first time. She's blind. And my father is dead. I couldn't save him, Hero."

She gripped the blanket's soft fabric. Even if she did that one hundred times, her father Boone would still be dead.

"I couldn't save my own father, either," Hero said. He rubbed Zoey's back. "I couldn't save any of my fathers. I know what that's like, Zoey."

Zoey had failed to save her father from death.

Hero had failed to save his father Mitch Shame from Freeman imprisonment.

"When you and the others were aiming your guns at me, I wish a Freeman came," Zoey said. "I wish all of you would've shot a Freeman. But you're going to get the chance to, and so will I. The other day, when you were flying and carrying me at the same time, those Freemans were shooting at us. I wish I killed them."

Zoey and Hero had met each other the day before yesterday, and they had helped each other survive. Still, they hadn't kept their fathers safe.

"The feeling is mutual," Hero said. "And the Freemans took my father away. If I want to get him back, I'm going to have to fight Freemans. I'm okay with that. We're on a ruined planet because of them, after all. Soy was a beautiful place. It was a great place."

"And I'm with a great person," Zoey said.

She rested her back onto the blanket. Hero did the same.

"You're really important to me," Hero said. His hair touched the soft material underneath him. He held Zoey's hand. "I want you to know that."

"I want you, Hero," Zoey said.

She caressed his cheek, and Hero's lips caught her attention. She kissed them. With grace, Zoey straddled Hero.

"Are you okay with this?" Zoey said.

"I am," Hero said.

"Do you want to do this?"

"Yes."

Zoey leaned closer, and she kissed the wonderful person underneath her. Her fingers played with blond hair.

She leaned away before grabbing her shirt. After removing it, she kissed Hero. His hands moved along the bare skin between her pants and her bra, then he touched the back of it. The kiss didn't break.

Zoey and Hero.

They had gone to Soy. They had found each other, and that mattered.

Zoey had found her Hero.