Chapter 1"Push him."Celeste said it without raising her voice, standing on the edge of the north wall with a broken ankle and three years of her lies finally laid out in front of him, actually laughed."You're going to kill me over a map?" he asked. "Celeste, those people in Block C are starving. I gave them food. That's all I did.""You gave them food behind my back," Celeste said. "Out here, that means they'll follow you instead of me. I can't run this base with two leaders, and you know where every can of food in this city is hidden, so I can't let you walk away either."Grant, her head of security, stood beside her with his arm around her waist, and he didn't even try to hide it anymore. "Told you he'd find out," he said."I knew about you two a year ago," Damon said. "I stayed for the people here.""Then you're more stupid than I thought."Damon kept his eyes on Celeste. "I built this place for you. Every wall, every route, every supply run.""I know," she said. "And I'm gratef

Chapter 3 Damon looked at the wet keys on the counter, then up at Celeste."Jace keeps his keys in his left pocket," he said. "He was leaning over me pouring wine. They probably fell out, somebody kicked them, and a waiter tossed them in the tank so he wouldn't get blamed.""That's a good answer," Celeste said. "You've had all weekend to come up with it.""It's the truth.""It isn't, and we both know it." She picked the keys back up and dropped them into her pocket. "You don't have to tell me today. I'll find out myself, and you know I will, because I always do.""Then I guess you'll be busy for a while."Jace shoved past his sister and grabbed the front of Damon's shirt. He smelled of old whiskey, and his eyes were bloodshot. "You think you're smart now? You think one lucky bet makes you somebody? Two days ago you were washing my car."Damon looked down at the hand on his shirt. "Your sister's watching, Jace. Do you want her to see what happens next?"Jace's grip tightened, and for

Chapter 5 Damon spent the next two days at the warehouse, testing what he could and couldn't do.He found out on Thursday morning that living things wouldn't move. A mouse ran across the loading floor, and he had touched it by accident chasing it out from under a pallet, but no matter how hard he pushed, it stayed exactly where it was, twitching its nose at him. He couldn't move himself either. He tried twenty times, standing in the middle of the warehouse with his eyes shut and his whole body aching, until Lena walked in and asked why he was standing in the middle of the floor with his fists clenched making constipated faces.So he couldn't just pull his mother out of the Sterling clinic. He would have to do it the hard way."The hard way," Benji said on Friday afternoon, sitting in the van outside the clinic with a stack of papers on his knees, "is me walking into a fancy hospital with Lena's uncle's lawyer and pretending I know what I'm doing.""You don't have to pretend anything.

Chapter 7 "Turn it up," Damon said.Benji turned the radio up with a shaking hand. The newsreader's voice filled the yard over the sound of the fire hoses."...the officer was taken to St. Anne's Hospital, where staff say he became violent shortly after arrival. Police have closed Northgate station and are asking residents in the area to stay indoors. Sterling Pharmaceuticals has not responded to requests for comment...""St. Anne's," Damon said. "That's in the middle of the city.""Is that bad?" Benji asked. "Tell me that's not bad.""It's bad."Lena still had her thumb over the call button. She looked from the radio to Damon, and he watched her put it together, the twenty-seven days, the steel doors, don't open them for anyone named Sterling."This is it," she said. "This is the thing you told me about.""Yes.""You said twenty-seven days.""It was supposed to be twenty-four now. It's early." He stood up off the curb, and his head swam, and he had to grab the side of the van. "Get