But today, I’m going to give myself a present that will last.

A dead Roth.

And a living Wright.

Congratulations to me.

I hear footsteps echoing from the back of the room. Then voices lift in a soft song.

“Happy birthday to you . . .”

I turn to see Ava, Haven, Owen, and the rest of my teammates—my friends—moving toward me, tiny colorful sparklers raised high.

“Happy birthday to you . . .”

My eyes sting, joy welling up, coming out through tears.

“Happy birthday, dear Mira . . .”

Ava offers me my own firework. It sparks green and blue, the little streaks of light landing on my skin, burning as bright and fierce as my soul.

“Happy birthday to you,” I join in the last line of the quiet song, locking eyes with my sister. “Thank you,” I whisper, wiping my salty cheeks, all at once overwhelmed, humbled, heartbroken.

Scattered thoughts cut through my glowing warmth like a bitter, cold knife.

Father, Project Albatross, the poem, his guilt.

Father found a way to direct evolution. His discoveries have the potential to alter the course of human history.

And a ruthless, ironfisted man—Roth—has that technology. The immense power he could wield is unimaginable. He could engineer our entire world if he wanted.

The most personal implications hit me the hardest when I gaze at Ava.

We could be the last generation of twins.

I pull my sister into a hug. I can’t recall the last time we embraced like this, but Ava wraps her arms around me tight, like she needs an anchor just as much as I do. We hold each other until the sparklers grow faint, then burn themselves out.

The room darkens and the moods shifts, an earnest, unified energy fanning out from every member of our team.

I glance at my watch: 7:50 p.m. It’s almost time.

Ava and I pull away as Barend approaches, holding down his right wrist in the Common salute. The two black lines of a V mark his skin, symbolizing either victory or peace. I’ve never asked him which. But I suppose the two are interchangeable.

The soldier clasps his hands on our shoulders. “For Ciro and Kano,” he says solemnly before moving for the stairs.

Skye steps forward next, traces of a cruelly removed tattoo hot pink against her pale skin. “For all those labeled ‘undesirable candidates,’” she says. “The governors’ control ends tonight.”

Then Lucía moves toward us, her rosary coiled around her wrist. “Our paths were meant to cross,” she says. “For this moment. So two tyrants can fall by our hands.”

“No le tenemos miedo,” I tell her. We show no fear.

Owen advances as Lucía follows Skye to the stairwell. He tugs his bandana down from his mouth, rolling up his sleeve to display his rebel mark. A silver-and-yellow rattlesnake poised to attack, shadowed expertly to make its rattler look as if it shakes in warning.

“For Rayla,” he whispers, the muscles of his forearms tensing, flexing, ready to reach out and strong-arm whoever stands in our way. “Let’s make today a govdamn holiday.”

Ava folds her hand into his, and Owen smiles down at my sister in a way that pangs my chest. A painful tug that reminds me of the tie Theo has around my heart. And the strong, unabating pull I feel toward him.

I told you I’m with you, and I meant it, Theo said to me before storming the Governor’s Mansion. Before he was taken.

I will do everything to get Theo back. To find him, protect him, keep him safe.

A weight on my shoulder eases, a burden I realize I’ve been carrying with me my entire life. Owen feels the same for Ava. I see this. I accept it. Ava has three of us watching over her now. Me, Owen, and Haven.

My aunt wraps her sturdy arms around my sister and me. What’s left of our family.

The bottom edges of her tattoo peak out from her uniform, the roots of a tree, the symbol of her Center. “For us,” she says. “Tonight, I fight for us.”

With a deep breath, I close my eyes, thinking of my mother, my father. Of Rayla.

And then, inevitably, of Roth.

When I finally open my eyes again, my tears have dried, hardening over my skin like armor.

I see Alexander standing before me. He must have been hiding in the back—I didn’t register his presence until now. He looks like a high-speed rail has smashed into his nose. I crack the knuckles of my left fist, ready if Alexander seeks to ruin this moment with another petty clash.

But to my disbelief, he holds down his right arm in salute.

When did he get his tattoo? I think fleetingly. On one of his drunken nights in Dallas? Black ink marks his wrist over his bulging veins. The number 2.

For Halton and Theo, I realize. His two sons.

Brothers who will never meet.

Alexander looks to Ava, then me. “You’re both extraordinarily lucky to have each other.”

Before I can say anything in return, he disappears after the others.

Haven squints at my watch. “Five minutes,” she tells us with a nod and a smile, leaving the room with Owen to give Ava and me some time.

“I got you a gift,” Ava says, digging into her rucksack. She pulls out a real clothbound book. That in and of itself is a sublime surprise.

But it’s the gilded title that makes me exclaim, “Impossible.”

Though I know full well nothing truly is. Especially when it comes to my sister.

“Frankenstein by Mary Shelley,” she says with a grin, handing me the perfect present.

I flip through the yellowed pages, reveling at the surreal feeling of my favorite story in my hands.

“You carried it all this way?” I say.

“For your bookshelf. When we return home.”

The idea of making it through this fight—of making a home again—is almost too much for me to take in.

I reach for my backpack and pull out my own nonessential baggage that I carried with me all these long miles.

The extra uniform for Theo.

I wrap Ava’s gift carefully inside the padded material and store the bundle between my water bottle and ammo.

Ava nods, her grin spreading. “Look, it’s stopped raining.”

Our mission won’t be starting in a downpour now.

Good news. I thought we’d had the last of that.

I set down my bag and we move to sit on the ledge. As our feet dangle in the breeze, Ava leans her head against mine, and we stare out at the last traces of the sunset disappearing below the winking skyline. We don’t say a word and I let my mind clear.

This is our day, I think.

And the night will be ours too.

OWEN

Roth hid his tunnels. The Salazars show theirs off.

Our team’s microbus followed the North Line for two miles, just one of the hundreds of watercourses that make up the cartel’s ingenious network of aqueducts. Aboveground steel pipes as wide as a whale’s mouth that eventually lead straight into the belly of the beast.

The Salazar Reservoir. Their main stronghold, and our main event.

We just have to make it inside one of those invincible pipes first.

Their source of power will prove to be their weakness, Mira promised when Team Takedown agreed on our master plan.

Govdamn right it will be, I vowed then, and promise again now as I excavate a pair of binoculars from my coverall’s deep pockets and slam them to my face.