Eden dropped her gun as if it had burnt her, as if it were her who had been destroyed instead of Bianca, who lay smoking on the floor. They were silent, the three of them, as the alarm wailed around them. Rory was staring at her, his eyes filled with tears and something else. Fear maybe? Disgust, having just seen her kill a woman with her back turned? Later. Eden tried to shake the thought from her head. She’d deal with this later. They were still in crisis. Her own eyes were unexpectedly blurred with moisture, but she blinked it back. They weren’t finished here. Far from it.

“Can you destroy it?” she asked Rory. “Does it have some kind of self-destruct?”

Rory nodded slowly. “Can I make it blow up? Yeah, of course.”

“Will it reach the city?”

“It might,” he said, hesitating. “It shouldn’t.”

“Would we have time to get out of here?” She tried to keep the hope from her voice. She might end up a martyr after all. “You could just show me which buttons to push, okay?”

Rory frowned at her. “We’ll have time to run,” he said.

He stood at the control panel, and his hands began dancing across the panel, more quickly and skillfully than he had before. Her own hands were shaking. She stuffed them in her pockets.

Lucas, a green look on his face, pulled the gun from Bianca’s limp hand and stuffed it in his waistband. “We’ll probably have company soon. Can we hurry?”

“‘We’?” Eden repeated, arching an eyebrow at him. “Don’t you have a terrorist cell to return to?”

“I hate to say it,” he said, but there was a hint of humor to his voice that suggested he did not hate to say it. “I think I’m stuck with you guys now. There is no Hive without Bianca.”

Eden considered it for a moment. Where could she and Rory go, after this? She looked up at the corner of the control room. Just as she suspected. A camera was blinking in the corner, swiveling to catch their every movement. She waved at it. There was no going home now. Not for any of them.

The wail of the alarm changed abruptly, finding a new faster rhythm.

“That’s our cue,” Rory said, leaping up from the control panel. “Let’s not linger, huh? Where do we go from here, Eden?”

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They both looked at her, with time they didn’t have, waiting for her answer.

“It’s a long walk to Paradise,” Eden said. “But I think it’s our best shot. It might be our only shot. We can at least let them know where their resources have been going.”

The ladder seemed shorter on the way up, and the trio hurried up it as fast as they could. Outside the green door, they turned toward Paradise instead of Haven. The tunnel shook violently, dirt shaking down from the ceiling, and Eden threw herself against the wall.

“That’s not a train,” Rory said.

Footsteps were echoing down the tunnel, coming their way quickly.

“Let’s move,” Eden said, letting Rory lean against her.

He was in rough shape, but he moved beside her as quickly as he could, and Lucas followed behind them, a laser gun in each hand. They ducked inside the first maintenance room they passed, panting in the darkness. The footsteps didn’t reach them, and Eden assumed they had turned off at the green door. It wouldn’t be long before they discovered what had happened. She peeked her head out the door, once minutes had passed with no sound of footsteps.

The tunnel was empty.

“I think it’s safe,” she said.

“I doubt that,” Lucas said.

“Do you have a better idea?” she asked. “We should keep moving.”

His silence was answer enough. He pushed past her and stepped out into the tunnel and took off towards Paradise in a brisk walk.

Eden moved to follow him, but Rory’s hand caught her arm and stopped her.

“Hey,” he said. “Are you okay? What happened back there, I just—Thank you.”

She thought of Bianca laying on the floor. “Don’t thank me,” she said.

“You saved me,” he insisted. “You saved my life. All of ours, really.”

She smiled at his insistent gratitude and impulsively wrapped his lanky body in a hug. He winced, and she wondered how many other injuries he had. They were both scarred from this forever, she imagined. Inside and out. At least the exterior wounds would heal quickly.

“We saved each other,” she said. “Together.”

“Hurry up!” Lucas shouted, his voice echoing through the tunnel, caution clearly in the wind. “I’m not waiting forever.”

Eden and Rory couldn’t help but laugh, deep true laughter like they hadn’t had since before all of this. Since they were children probably. Their laughter filled the room and spilled into the tunnel, and soon, Lucas was laughing too, at the ridiculousness of all of it. It was gone as quickly as it started, and they marched on, into the darkness, towards Paradise.