SILAS

I watch as Shiloh takes the smartphone in both her hands, and stares down at it.

The contact ID says, Cade.

The text itself reads: "Shiloh. Are you there? I need you to answer me."

There's a certain hesitation to Shiloh's movements. I have to wonder if she's ever used a device exactly like this before. But she seems to get the idea.

She taps on the blank message bar with her thumb and types in a response.

She sends: "I'm here."

"Daimon's here. The deal's off. I don't know why. He's on a murder path. He's coming for the Biodroid."

Both of Shiloh's thumbs freeze, an inch above the touchscreen. I can see her complexion going pale white in real-time.

The phone vibrates with another message.

"Are you alone? Can he see these messages?"

Shiloh shoots me a quick, panicked look, like I've just walked in on something I shouldn't. Then her expression hardens.

"Just tell me,' Shiloh types, and sends.

Three dots, fluctuating.

Then: "You need to pull out, now. Gavin's going to terminate him. If that happens while you're still inside, you'll die too. Gavin doesn't believe me, but it's true."

What the hell. While you're still inside... What's that supposed to mean? Is Shiloh's consciousness literally hooked up to me right now?

I guess I'm not sure how else this was supposed to work. I've been taking it in stride, without thinking through the actual logistics of it. I was riding the wave of this weird, dream-like experience, trying to make some sense of it, and taking some aspects of it for granted in the process.

I had opened the door. I let Shiloh into the house, so to speak.

Now, the house is in flames.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

I need...I need to get her out.

And you know what? Maybe it's the surreality of the situation. Maybe it's the fact that, optically at least, I'm standing in my old bedroom, with my mother and sister waiting for me just down the stairs. But this line of reasoning, of what needs to happen now, doesn't bother me. If anything, I feel...calm. For the first time in months—or what I've perceived to be only a matter of months—I actually have a sense of...peace. I feel...the way being in a family used to make me feel.

Shiloh, on the other hand, is typing furiously with her thumbs.

"Daimon's going to kill us. We have to assume that."

"I'm with you on that."

"You need to turn on the OS. Is that something you can do?"

"Shiloh," Cade sends back. "He has a gun to my head. He already shot Callahan, and locked the rest of the Board out of the garage."

Shiloh stops typing. She stares at the screen.

She's got this look on her face. I've seen it before. The last time I saw it was when one of my teachers got the call that her father had just had a heart attack. It's the look of something happening you truly hadn't expected or prepared for. Of an important, immortal figure in your life being rendered mortal. That's what it does to your face. To your entire body.

It...paralyzes.

Which means, now's my chance.

I snatch away the phone, tossing it into the closet.

To her credit, she recovers quickly. She doesn't say anything. She just tries to push past me, toward the closet.

I loop around her and grab her by the collar of her jumpsuit, yanking her off balance as I drag her toward the bedroom door.

She fights back immediately, thrashing to wrench herself away. But it's already in motion.

I have one hand on the doorknob. I turn it, and crack the door.

Bright, unbearable light bursts in through the doorway. This isn't the hallway outside my room. It's a portal back to reality, summoned by my mind. I just need to send Shiloh through it.

I jerk her toward the doorway, then push her. But she faces me, bracing with her legs. She grabs onto my shirt with one hand, and the frame of the door with the other.

"Silas, wait. He's going to kill you!"

"Yeah. But this way, you at least have a chance. You can get away."

"You don't...know that!" Her face is turning red, straining.

"Stop fighting it. This is the only way. This is the best I can do, for you."

"No!" Shiloh presses forward, even as her feet slide back a bit on the carpet. "I don't want this! And your family wouldn't either! They would want you to live! Don't you get that?"

Something about that gets to me.

I hesitate, with her already halfway through the doorway.

"Maybe you do deserve punishment for what happened," Shiloh says, taking advantage of my indecision. "But your mother and sister wouldn't want that for you. They wouldn't want you to just...give up!"

That look she's giving me. Makes my mind go back, to the way my mom looked at me in the hallway outside the principal's office. When she told me to fight. To always fight.

I'm frozen, now, between two possibilities. I'm pushing, preventing Shiloh from pressing back into the room. But I'm not forcing her through the door. Not yet.

Shiloh holds my gaze with hers, pleading.

Something flat, translucent, and square-shaped suddenly appears in the air between us, like a windowpane through which I can see Shiloh's face. And going off of her expression, she can see the thing, too.

The object...it's some kind of prompt window.

My eyes skim over the words.

…what?

Something about 'OS re-activation procedure'. Something about 'Protocol initialization'.

But the details don't matter. I've already made up my mind.