Her lips form a name I haven’t heard in three years.
She doesn’t say it aloud. That’s the only reason I don’t shatter.
Her face is written in lines of disbelief and a terrible, yawning hope. I meet her eyes. That thread of shared memory and love and family tugs at my ribs, opens up a familiar ache. I can’t give her any reassurance or explanation. I can only hope that she sees me and understands that I’m doing my best.
I put my hands over hers.
“I need you to let go.” The words are the slightest of whispers. It’s all I can manage.
Nonna’s eyes never leave mine. She is drinking me in, her lips parted as though she wishes she could say a thousand things at once.
I swallow thickly. “I love you.”
Then I slide her hands from Piper’s shoulders and take the girl by the hand. She looks up at me, her face scrunched with confusion and fear.
I know the feeling. I step back, wrenching my gaze from my grandmother. From the only family I’ve seen in years.
And then I lead Piper to the mom she has been running from.
It feels like walking a condemned man to the gallows. Every step is heavy, and I want nothing more than to turn away.
Vale only has eyes for Piper. She looks at her daughter not unlike the way Nonna gazed at me: all yearning and earnest hope. It makes Vale human for the first time since I met her. She’s a bad human, but she’s still human.
“Percy,” says Vale, and there’s so much love in that single word that Piper’s eyes overflow. But she cringes when Vale reaches for her.
I inhale deeply, then look back over my shoulder. Nonna and Eames are frozen. I try to memorize them both, to trace the lines of their faces, to remember every detail. I want this moment carved into my memories, so if all else is forgotten I’ll still have it.
Checkmate.
“Activate repair mode Rho-Zero-Nine!” I say. I remember doing this only yesterday—those two boys, the vanilla doughnut, the coffee shop. It feels like a lifetime ago.
At once, Vale’s ringware blinks red and opens for its repair mode. Open—and vulnerable. All it needs is water to short it out.
Vale flinches. She whirls on me, but I’m already moving.
I crash into her. Her spine hits the railing and she falls over backward, her fingers clawing at my shirt. For a moment, she’s suspended in the air. Far beneath us, the pool gleams a light blue.
A three-story drop.
My center of gravity tilts, and I’m halfway over the railing before I can draw another breath.
If she goes, I go.
Well. That was the trade.
Someone screams behind me.
And we fall together.
IDENTITY SECURITY DIVISION
WRAITH CASE STUDY: AUGUSTA PINE
THE BEGINNING
The morning I died, I didn’t say goodbye to my family.
I slept through my alarm—because my younger sister had taken it to use in her middle school science fair project without telling me. I yelled at her, heart hammering as I jumped into the shower.
