Tucked into the alleyway, out of sight from VIPs and wardens alike, I stand back with Caleb while Dani and Frank plan our route. They plot an invisible map on their palms, debating the best way to avoid detection while Frank returns to Emotiv—partly for supplies, partly to avoid raising suspicion. We’re about to steal from the warden’s supply of Oblivion. The last thing he needs is to be seen involved with us.

I lean back against a tenement wall, grimy with graffiti and soot, and nudge Caleb in his side. “I’m glad you came.”

He gives me a lopsided grin. “Thanks, I—”

“I’m also pissed that you came,” I grunt, holding up a hand. “I’m grateful, but you’re getting in way too deep. You should watch after mum instead. Where is she?”

Caleb shakes his head, pressing his lips together.

“What?”

“You’re being a brat.”

“Hey!” I almost shout, but bring my voice down to an angry hiss when Dani shoots me a warning look. “I’m worried about you. And mum—I don’t want to drag you into the gutter with me.”

“Don’t worry about mum, she’s safe. I haven’t told her anything. But we’re family, Kyla. Family. I’m not about to just let you lose everything, not for a jerk like Harding.”

I gaze at the ground, too ashamed to meet his earnest gaze. “I did it, you know. It’s not like I’m wrongly accused. It’s even on camera.”

Caleb snorts and paces the alleyway, from one side to the other. “What about him? Dosing you during an interview? Is that on camera? When he beats his captives, is that on camera? He’s scum, Kyla. The system may have gone to shit, but he’s the worst of them all. He’s not even a product of the system, he’s just… evil.”

“Nobody’s ‘just evil’,” I say, watching a bug crawl across the toe of my shoe. “Everyone thinks they’re the hero of the story. Maybe he really believes he’s doing the right thing.”

I don’t know if I really believe that—maybe I’m just trying to make myself feel better. It’s easier to ignore the way Harding has treated me if I humanise him, try to empathise with him. Otherwise, he’s just a monster, and while I may have thought of him that way before, it won’t help me fight back against him. You can’t reason with a monster.

“Whatever,” Caleb scoffs. “We need to get a move on. Gemma’s meeting us at noon.”

Frank strides back on to the sunlit street, and Dani comes deeper into the shadow, where we’re waiting. Straightening their shoulders, they give a curt nod. “Okay, we have our route. Frank’s going to meet us back at Lena’s tonight. Let’s go.”

We pick our way through the hive of dark alleys and pathways—Dani knows the back routes much better than I do, and takes us down paths I didn’t even know about. But as we loop back around to Main Street, I tug on Dani’s wrist. “There’s no route through here. We have to cross the street, right?”

Dani taps their nose and grins. “Just watch. I’m not about to walk all three of us right through a warden’s route. I know a better way.”

They lead us to the base of a tall apartment building. Its concrete facing crumbles and peels from the bricks to the ground below, giving it a scarred appearance. Most of the buildings on Main Street are in impeccable condition, but that’s only on the face of things—the front side, which faces the road, is maintained to keep the VIPs happy. So long as their route to Central Square looks good, the rest can go to hell, as far as Premier Sheridan is concerned.

Dani reaches up to a rusted fire escape and yanks hard on the ladder. It clatters to the ground with an ear-piercing shriek. I check the sunlit street instinctively, expecting a warden to come around the corner to investigate.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“Don’t panic,” Dani says, climbing the ladder. “We’re making great time. Follow me.”

Caleb motions to the ladder. “Ladies first.”

I climb one rung at a time, trying to ignore the smell of stale urine, and haul myself up to the first fire escape platform. From here, we loop around the rickety stairwell, climbing to the top of the building.

“We’re nearly at the meeting point,” Dani says over their shoulder. “Frank thought we should go underground, through the underbelly, but I figured we’d be able to keep a better eye on things from above.”

With this, we emerge on the roof of the tenement building—a large square of blank concrete with a squat wall on all sides, and chain-link fencing to prevent falling… or jumping. It’s only seven floors up, but it’s impossible to see the street, between the fence and the adjoining buildings—all I can see for miles is more rooftops, and the occasional billboard.

Dani heads to the far side of the roof and pulls a panel of the fencing up, leaving a gap underneath big enough to crawl through. I stare at them in shock.

“You have got to be kidding!”

They roll their eyes and jerk their chin. “Look over there.”

The gap between this building and the next is about six feet, and the fence on the other side has been tampered with, too—pulled up in the past and patched back together afterwards. I trail my eyes along that rooftop to another patched section of fencing, and find a path trailing from one building to the next.

“You want us to jump these?” My stomach turns at the thought—could I even jump that far? It looks doable… on the ground, maybe. But seven floors up?

“Not all of them. If we get to that building, two over, it has access to the subway station. We can avoid Main Street but still cut right through. It’ll save us an hour’s diversion.”

Caleb rests a hand on my shoulder to calm me, but I can feel his hand trembling. When I turn to look up at him, I notice his face is much paler than usual. His jaw pops occasionally, and he can’t drag his eyes away from the gap in front of us.

“Guys?” Dani says, the strain in their voice becoming obvious. “This is kinda hard to hold back, so can we just get a move on? One of you will have to pull it from the other side for me to get through, too.”

Pulling out of his doubts, Caleb nods and ducks under the gap, out onto the short brick wall. He sidesteps along it, leaning back against the fencing with one hand. It looks precarious, and more than once I imagine him losing his footing and slipping from the roof, but he steadies himself and grabs on to the section Dani’s holding, pulling it back against the fence.

Dani lets go with a sigh and holds my hand. “Come on, Kyla. You can do this.”

Their eyes are warm, caramel brown, with dark, soft eyelashes and crinkles at the corners. I soften a little at the sight, and let them lead me to the hole in the fence. I follow them through and, while sucking in huge lungfuls of air, step up onto the wall, willing myself not to look down.

“Okay, Caleb. You can let go now.” Dani turns around with amazing poise and patches the fence panel back with a zip tie—from the ground, it would be hard to tell that anyone had tampered with it. “Just watch the spot I aim for, and don’t look down.”

They shuffle to a ledge which juts out of the wall by a few inches, their toes flexing slightly over the corner of the bricks, and bend their knees. My heart leaps into my throat as they leap across the six-foot gap, and land on the other side, instantly clutching on to the chain-link to hold still. The fence clatters loudly when they land, and my instincts take over again—I glance down at the street to see if anyone is paying us any attention.

“Ugh.” My stomach churns again, threatening to send up my meagre breakfast.

“Kyla,” Dani hisses. I look up and meet their gaze—rock steady and certain. “You can do this. Trust me.”

Caleb gives me a nod. “I’ll go first. Take a breath.”

He jumps the gap with little issue and makes a space for me in the same spot Dani jumped to. I sidestep to the ledge and shuffle to the edge. With my toes overhanging the corner of the brick, I bend my knees, just like Dani showed us. I search for their confident gaze, and count to three, willing myself to move as soon as I’m done.

One.

Two.

Three—I push hard with my feet and vault across the gap, keeping my gaze on Dani’s the entire time, refusing to look down. The air breezes through my hair, and both Dani and Caleb reach out a hand to me.

I grab them both by the wrist and land—less than gracefully—on the wall, instantly collapsing against the fence with another metallic clatter.

My heart pounds in my ears, deafening me to Skycross and everything in it. Every nerve in my body hums with adrenaline, flooding my brain and making me dizzy. After a few seconds, Dani shakes me.

“Kyla?” The sound of traffic below us comes back to me. The pounding noise recedes.

“Huh?”

“Are you alright?”

I can’t stop a grin from spreading across my face. “That was wild!”