I hear Director Wix before I see her. Her voice is shrill, twisted with fear and desperation.

“Governor!” she wails from inside a State Guard helicopter. Dead men in suits hang out the side. “You can still save yourself! Get inside, now!”

She clutches two silver armored briefcases.

“Wix has the bioweapon!” Emery warns.

When Emery and I raise our guns at her, the cries for Roth to save himself cease. The massive, autonomous chopper takes off. Rises into the sky, fleeing the battlefield without him.

But within seconds, a Common helicopter blasts a high energy laser at Wix’s chopper, sending it crashing to the ground, setting fire to a grove of palms. Emery signals, and Barend and Ciro take off to retrieve the briefcases from the wreckage.

Owen and I exchange a look. Mira locks eyes with Theo. But now’s not the moment for a reunion either.

We all turn our focus on Roth. The man we came all this way for.

For different reasons, but with the same purpose.

Yet no one takes the shot.

“What I’ve built will not die with me,” Roth promises.

He places his Lone Star cap back on. Presses his hand to his medals.

Bravado to the end.

Delusion.

Owen lifts his gun, but I place a hand on his wrist, lowering his arm.

From the moment Mira and I were born, for our entire lives, I took everything as the firstborn. The microchip, our name, our identity.

It’s right for Mira to be the one now.

Everyone else senses it too. Even Alexander stands down.

Mira points her pistol between Roth’s eyes. Where he aimed his own kill shot at Father, at Rayla.

But the moment draws out too long.

The weight of killing in cold blood proves too much to bear.

Haven grabs the gun from Mira and pulls the trigger.

And just like that, the man who caused so much turmoil and heartache, pain and division, falls to the ground, dead.

A thousand miles from his home, on the wrong side of his own Big Fence.

No one will ever find his grave.

“It’s over,” I say.

And now the work of rebuilding begins.

PART IV

THE RETURN

MIRA

I used to spend Tuesdays underground. It was one of Ava’s days up, her turn to breathe the outside air, to feel the sun, the rush of seeing and being seen. Her turn at our shared life, while I waited in the basement.

Time moves so much faster when you’re truly living.

This Tuesday marks an anniversary. The first year commemorating the Rule of All.

The day that power was taken from the governors and put back into the hands of the citizens.

It’s been a year since the Loyalists surrendered to the Common and the first peace talks began.

A year since the decisive bullet that saved our country. Changed our future. Rid the world of Governor Roth.

What Owen wanted came true. Our birthday has become a national holiday.

“Mira,” Ava whispers, nudging my arm. “We’re up.”

I pull my wandering mind back to the small auditorium. To the white piano keys in front of me. To Ava at my side on the bench.

Together our hands spring and skip across the keyboard, leading Strake University’s choir in my favorite song. Thirty students stack the risers, not a single one in a white uniform or color-ranking sash, every eye on Ava and me.

My sister and I take a deep breath and raise our voices into a harmonizing chorus.

Words our mother wrote and sang.

A tune that made our father smile.

Not the usual lyrics that once bounced off Strake’s walls, about power, duty, war, and victory.

This song is about much more important aspirations. Love. Happiness. Hope. A toe-tapping melody that perfectly captures the fleeting euphoria of life at its best.

The choir joins us as we hold the last note, thirty-two voices blending as one.

As soon as I lift my foot from the pedal, and my fingers from the keys, my heart falls.

I close my eyes, trying to hold the transitory high for a few more seconds, but it’s gone, and I’m left once again with the raw, heavy feelings that time has not yet healed.

Post-traumatic stress, Ava diagnosed me.

Sometimes I find myself still trapped inside the tunnels. The aqueducts. The basement.

Sometimes I spend entire days roaming the blooming groves of my family’s graveyard.

But most days, the good outweighs the bad. With every passing second, I feel stronger. Lighter. More willing to smile at change, and the future that we made.

“Lovely,” Choirmaster Dashwood says. “We will open tonight’s parade with your song.” He swings his head back and forth at the two of us, his grin stretching. “Class dismissed.”

Even after almost a year of seeing me walking the university side by side with my twin, many students still can’t believe there are two of us. Their heads tilt, their eyes narrow, trying to figure out how exactly they missed what was right in front of them. Naturally, there are those who approach us and lie. Well, I knew all along. Or my favorite: I always suspected Ava Goodwin was just too perfect to be one person.

Some days—usually Tuesdays and Thursdays during the few classes Ava and I share—students and professors gawk or snap photos, shout, Thank Goodwin you did it! Other days—usually on Mondays and Wednesdays when I’m alone in my advanced literature classes—students approach like they want to take me down. With words. Threats. Violence.

But a reputation gets you far, I’ve learned. I have faced and survived the three most dangerous leaders on the continent. A president, a capo, and a governor.

They’re all underground now, and I’m alive. Walking and breathing. Feeling the sun.

I’m no longer an easy target.

The muscle and steely glares of Kano and Barend help, of course.

Our bodyguards march toward us from the doorway, Barend with a slight limp, Kano with a bend in his right shoulder. Their injuries left them little choice but an early retirement from the Common Guard.

We won’t need their protection forever, I promised them and myself, but we’re fortunate to have the former soldiers—our friends—as our guards.

As we move out of the auditorium, down the hall, and into the crowded cafeteria, Barend clears his throat, announcing a surprise. “Ciro and I have adopted Ellie. The official documents were sent this morning.”

Pawel’s little sister, Ellie. One of the thousands of children left orphaned at the hands of the State Guard.

I once made Pawel promise me he’d watch after my sister when I couldn’t. I feel lighter now knowing Ciro and Barend will look after his own.

“Amazing news,” Ava says, tears welling in her eyes. She often visits the thriving American elm tree Pawel is buried beneath.

Sisterhood, nowadays, is also thriving.

After the announcement of President Moore’s illicit dealings and subsequent murder, Ciro’s parents and all three of his sisters were released from prison and returned to the States. This past year, two of his siblings have helped Ciro establish permanent Paramount safe houses with their family money. Every climate and political refugee who sought shelter in one of his hotels in Canada has a place to call home. And every US second-born from the Camps is now being raised in grandeur and style.

With a second chance at life. Like me.