“You did this, all of this, because of Jean?”

“And to stop you from killing the bidders.”

That hits him.

“You care?” He laughs. “Why should you care? They’re no one to you. They’re nothing.”

“They’re people.”

That only makes him laugh louder. “If only I’d realized how surprising you would be. This could have been fun. You know it’s useless, don’t you? I’ll just rebuild. You haven’t done anything but waste my time and signed your own death warrant.”

I pull a pair of gloves out of my pocket and slip them on, then I walk over to him. I sit on the edge of his desk, sliding my hands along it. It’s actual wood, and I don’t think I’ve touched real wooden furniture since I’ve been in the city. Shame I can’t take off the gloves.

“You weren’t so wrong about me. You’re a genius, after all.”

I lean forward. He should stop me, but he doesn’t, because he’s intelligent and the downfall of all intelligent creatures is curiosity.

    “You said when I wanted revenge I would come into your house and kill you. And that’s exactly what I did.”

I grab the empty vial of eyedrops he shoved away when our interview started.

“You’ve been putting Lot’s Wife into your eye every four hours for the better part of two days. First, your iris will bleach, then I imagine your hair. But soon enough your entire body will be a white and frozen statue. Best guess is you have three years, but you’ll be blind long before that. You can either begin training someone else in how to keep the hatches running…or let them break, and let your legacy die with you. No one remembers traversing, and no one remembers your name.”

“I would have known.”

But I can tell his eye burns more with every word I say.

“Decide who you want to be, Adam, with whatever time you have left.”

“I’ll kill you,” he says. “I’ll tear you apart.”

“I very much expect you will.”

He hits a button on his desk. It must be on the local network to buzz his assistants, not the larger communications that a runner named Mr. Splice jammed, because moments later four Maintenance workers enter, thick jumpsuits rustling like leather. For the first time I realize the jumpsuits are easy to rinse off; that’s why they wear them.

“Grab her. We’re going to the border.”

My chest is singing as I am yanked out of the room. I tell my dead hush. I tell my dead I will see them soon. There was a time when the thought of ending up in the same desert I came from was the worst possible fate, but now I am comforted by it. Being beaten to death on the same sand that raised my sister, that made me enough of a fighter to get me here, it feels like coming home. If it’s good enough for Jean, it’s good enough for me.

Fingers dig into my arms, and only then do I realize I’m dragging my feet; my body reluctant though my mind is at peace. Then the office’s double doors open, and I see Dell. At first, I think I’ve invented her, because I wanted her to be my last thought and because I want her to be there when my heart stops beating this time. Selfish, I know, to wish that violence in front of her.

    But then I notice the enforcement officers standing on either side of her.

“Good, you’ve already detained her,” Dell says. She nods to enforcement. I’m close enough to read their patches so I can see they’re immigration. “That’s the one, you can take her.”

The enforcement officers grab me, gentler but just as sure as Adam’s team.

“What is going on here?” Adam says, not quite in control again, but who would be?

“I filed the report with HR last night,” Dell says. “She’s been caught violating company policy. Smuggling, fraternizing off-world. Her visa was dissolved this morning. Immigration has orders for her immediate dismissal.”

It’s all moving so fast, but I understand, just barely, that Dell has saved my life. I look over my shoulder at Adam, expecting rage, but instead he’s calm. He can’t follow me. He won’t risk himself or his men being caught in the wasteland after the message Nik Nik sent with his mansion. But he’s already looking past me and through me, which means he believes me about the Lot’s Wife, and I just became his least-important problem. Maybe he’ll figure out a cure, maybe he won’t. He’s an evil man, but the world will lose something unique when he goes.

“I hope you choke on every lungful of ash, knowing you will never taste clean air again for the rest of your days…” His eyes shift from mine down to the scars on my face, and he tilts his head. “However long that may be.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

He smiles. I knew he wanted me to ask even before I did, but I couldn’t help it.

    “You have no idea what I’ve been putting in your veins. Even I don’t know all of the long-term effects. How long did you intend to live, Caralee?”

Three hundred and seventy-odd deaths in, it’s a stupid question to ask.

“I don’t, Adranik. I never did.”

I could tell him I didn’t want this. That every time it’s happened, he’s made me kill him. But I let him keep his anger, even though I can’t match it.

“Take her,” he says, and they do.

Immigration allows me ten minutes to pack while supervised, but I only need five. I take a moment to drop my gloves and Adam’s eyedrops into the incinerator. Bringing Lot’s Wife into the world feels no different from bringing in a gun. I’ve taken precautions to contain the damage of both, but anything can happen.

I grab the things I packed yesterday and I’m ready. They confiscate my cuff, but I’ve already messaged Esther that I’ll need a pickup at the city gates. It doesn’t feel like much, six years of trying as hard as I could, but it’s all gone now. When I walk escorted out of my apartment, Dresden is waiting for me. His smile is crooked, not sad but awkward, and I shrug at him so he knows it’s no big deal, that I’m fine. He hands me a basket, and I know without lifting the cloth cover that it is full of apples.

I hear Starla in my head from what feels like a lifetime ago.

It’ll be you soon enough.

She was right. She always was.

Enforcement leaves me in the desert. I stand in the sun eating an apple from my friend while waiting for my sister and feel very, very lucky.

* * *

THE ACIDIC AIR only burned for the first week. After a few days I can’t even taste the salt on my lips. Early on, I spend most of my days feeling my own pulse, waiting for it to slow. Adam Bosch made it seem like the long-term effects of the serum would kill me, but after the second week I have to admit that I’m feeling better every day, not worse. It’s possible the smartest man in the world was wrong or just bluffing. But maybe it isn’t one of those quick corporate deaths, like the factory accidents from long hours and lax safety protocols, maybe it’s one of the slow corporate deaths, like that dust that settled in our grandparents’ lungs until there wasn’t room enough for air.

    I’m not dying quickly, but I can still starve. I’m not eligible to work at any of Eldridge’s import sites or processing facilities, so I start out doing scavenging, but that only pays out big once every so often, with a lot of starving in between.

Esther pressures me to come back to the Rurals, but to join with the holy I’d have to confess my sins, including murder, and if I can’t regret it I won’t be allowed in. And I don’t regret it. I could lie, I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first liar in a tunic, but it’s time to stop pretending I’m anything but a girl from downtown Ash.

Mr. Cheeks keeps dropping stronger and stronger hints about becoming a runner. But a runner is a runner for life, and if I’ve proven anything it’s that I never go anywhere to stay.