Not so once the pharmaceutical companies shut down.

I glance in the cabinet above the sink. Toothbrushes and one half-used tube of toothpaste. Nothing more. I sigh and limp out. I move to the next door but hear movement from downstairs. Am I being too loud?

I’m torn between peeking to see if it’s possibly Stranna or concealing myself in case it’s not. I opt for the latter. A door closes, a dish clinks, and then footsteps move from somewhere out of sight and come my way. I hurry to the next door and slip inside, easing it to a crack so I can peer out.

A hiss comes from the darkness behind me. I jerk around, crutch foot at the ready. The room is dark, and I immediately picture the snakes from the alleyways forming to latch on to my ankles, my neck, my eyes. The hiss comes again, and my heart thunders, but my eyes adjust to reveal two twin beds and two bunk beds—six sleeping spaces in total all shoved together in the small room. And all six beds are occupied.

The hiss comes a third time as a man’s chest rises and falls from the bed to my right. I almost laugh out my relief. He’s snoring. No snakes. No threat. I lower the crutch foot limply.

I’m about to turn back to peer through the crack in the door, but my eyes stop on the bed closest to me. A figure lays under the covers, tucked in like a small child, her brown hair splayed across the pillow.

Stranna.

She looks so different lying in peace as though napping rather than hiding under a hooded cloak in a blackened alleyway, surrounded by dead snakes. I cross the room in three strides and pull back the covers to see a nice thick bandage around the bullet wound in her leg and a cushion beneath the injury on her back. It’s bandaged, but thinly, and I see the bulge of stitches.

Thank heavens. Only now do I realize my own shoulder is stitched up, though not bandaged. These Adelphoi people work fast.

I gently cover Stranna back up. My risks in Tenebra were worth it. Finally. I saved someone. Even though the attempt resulted in her capture along with about thirty innocent kids and the true death of Erik.

I slump. Can I do nothing right? Do all my attempts for life only end in death?

I think of Luc’s father . . . waiting on me to rescue him. Will that somehow end in more death too?

I know life and death are a set of scales, balancing each other and always affecting each other, but all the stories I read as a boy and the sayings from Samwise Gamgee and Gandalf and Dumbledore promised me that life wins. Love conquers. Light is brighter.

All this time I’ve been surrounded by darkness, stripped of those who love me, and quickly dying. Yet hungry . . . so hungry for light and goodness. Why is it denied me?

My balance wavers, and I grip the bedpost, then lower myself onto the edge of the mattress. Imbalanced. That seems to be the theme of my life. Neither standing nor sitting, just wavering.

Undecided.

In the middle.

All the comparisons and analogies Nole loved to share stream into my mind. Is the reason I’m always causing death because I haven’t chosen? I’m one foot in Tenebra and one foot in the Real World. One foot with Luc and one foot with the Adelphoi. One foot in wanting to cure the Nightmare but also one foot in wanting a LifeSuPod so I can live in the Nightmare.

I took Heidi to the Adelphoi instead of the coliseum, but that wasn’t choosing a side. I’ve been leaving the back door of my mind open for an alternative. For a backup plan. Not willing to sacrifice one or the other. Not willing to choose.

Just like I did—and am still doing—with God. Using Him when I want, denying Him when I want.

Nole used to say Mom would be proud of me. Would be. Not was. For the first time I don’t trust his words. I think she’d be ashamed of my inconsistency.

Stranna’s eyes flit back and forth beneath her lids. Dreaming. Or Nightmaring. Her breath speeds up, and the muscles in her neck tense.

“Stranna.”

Her breathing increases. Hitches. Gasps. I take her hand.

“Stranna!” Can my voice make it into Tenebra from here? Bring her some comfort? Maybe I’m trying to calm myself because I’ve seen this before with Nole right before he died.

Stranna’s breaths grow faster and faster. Muscles tighter and tighter. The man across from her keeps snoring with his hissing breath, unbothered by the scene of growing panic unfolding mere feet from him.

Veins stand out like sharp cords beneath the thin skin of Stranna’s temple. I grip her hand tighter and give her a shake.

“Stranna. Stranna!”

Someone rushes into the room from the landing, candlelight dancing.

“Get away from her!” A woman’s voice.

If anything, I hold her even tighter. “Something’s wrong!”

“I said to leave her alone!” My good shoulder is grabbed. I look up and startle. She’s the woman from the Macella Quarter “counselor” booth with platinum hair shaved on one side and spiked in a half pixie down the other side of her face.

Here, instead of a toga wrap, she wears baggy gray sweatpants, a black tank top, and a whole bangle of bracelets that goes halfway up her forearm.

She was there when Stranna was mobbed. She’s a Adelphoi too. I try to reconcile this with what I know. She’s here—awake. Is this Adelphoi magic? If she’s here, she must know how to help Stranna.

I release Stranna’s hand and move aside. The woman shoves me as she comes up to Stranna’s side. “You can’t be in here. Get out!”

I don’t move.

“Erik!” the woman shouts.

With a sharp gasp, Stranna goes limp. Quiet.

“No!” I launch myself at her and grab her shoulders. The Adelphoi woman doesn’t bother to yank at me anymore. Instead, she pales and reaches a shaking hand toward Stranna.

The moment her fingers touch Stranna, Stranna bolts upright with an agonized scream. Then she dissolves into rough coughing and sputters as though emerging from being held underwater. The Adelphoi woman pounds her on the back.

I’m so relieved to see her alive that I wrap my arms around her and pull her tight to my chest. I know I’m the cause of the majority of her misery, but I hold her with no plans of letting go.

In this moment I know what side I’m on.

I don’t have to have all the answers, but Stranna is life. She is hope to me. She’s shown me again and again that life conquers. Whatever number of days I have left I want to spend them being a part of whatever she’s a part of.

Somehow she feels more solid here in my arms—here in the Real World. Not a figment of my memory of physical touch and human interaction. We’re actually both here. Breathing. Awake. Alive.

She coughs one last time, and I let her go, bracing myself for the moment she recognizes me. I don’t meet her eyes, though I feel hers on me. I can practically taste her confusion, and I think to apologize.

“Cain,” she breathes. Her tone is not angry. Not relieved. Not . . . anything, really. Which means there’s also no fear.

The Adelphoi woman lets out a long breath. “You worried me this time, girl. Now tell us what’s going on.”

Us. I notice two more forms standing in the room, but the light from the hallways shadows their faces. I focus instead on Stranna.

She curls in on herself, resting her head in her hands. “They have us in the noxior quarters, and they’re delivering us one by one to the Arena. Even the children! Jules, they’re killing us one at a time.” Her eyes, filled with accusation, slide to meet mine. “I put up a fight and . . . they slit my throat.”

The woman, Jules, flinches.