The ride back to the facility was long and silent. Elena sat in the front while Patrick and Sam slept in the back. The engine sputtered a few times when Jim first started it up, but the car still ran.

Based on the rate of growth of the flux, it wouldn't have worked if they had kept running for one more day. Her detecting devices had stopped working already. She hoped Tech United would have more sturdy equipment.

The pain was still overwhelming. Jim offered her some painkillers when they had first taken off, and he had taken twice as many himself, but it wasn't quite enough to keep her from suffering. She tried to think about something else, anything else—but what came to mind was the terror of what would happen next. The colors around them were obviously off. Drivers of cars nearby stared. Sam slept fitfully, whimpering and sweating, and Patrick grimaced in his sleep. She worried about what would happen to them, what would happen to Sam . . .

She squeezed her eyes shut and focused instead on the excruciating pain. Far from fearing it, she welcomed its distraction. When Jim offered her more painkillers a couple of hours into the drive, she told him she was fine.

The drive was a few hours, surprisingly short considering how many days they'd been going. They'd kept away from main, exposed roads, so their path had been a bit roundabout. They also didn't drive nearly as fast as Jim was driving now.

Elena held back her tears as they pulled up to the facility. She'd tried so hard, and it had all been for nothing. If they could somehow solve everything, that would almost make it worse. They never would have had to run in the first place. If Michelle died, her death would be Elena's fault.

A team of two scientists came from the building wearing surgical masks and white lab coats; they removed Sam on a stretcher.

Elena opened the door on the other side, where Patrick slumped. He stirred and unbuckled his seat belt. "How long was I out?" He blinked a couple of times and jumped. "Where are we?"

She bit her lip. "We're at Tech United."

He lowered his voice. "We can still get out of here. We can—"

She shook her head and grasped his hand. "No, Patrick. I asked Jim to drive us here."

His eyes widened. "What on Earth is going on?"

"Sam's dying. And so are we."

"So we're giving up?"

"I don't have anything more to try, Patrick. I'm out of ideas. Sam's old families were no help, Michelle got hit in the head, Jeffrey betrayed us and let Tech United set a trap for us. Tech United thinks they can figure out what's wrong with Sam. We'd learned some things they didn't know, they know some things we don't. We're going to try to work together."

"They're going to kill him!"

"He's already dying."

They locked gazes for a moment

Just at that moment, a feeling of euphoria came over Elena. It felt like an enormous pressure had been relieved from her head and chest and stomach, and like a million needles that had been pressed into her skin had suddenly vanished. She let her breath out and almost grinned—her lingering worry wouldn't quite let the corners of her lips turn upwards.

Bliss came over Patrick's face as well. "You felt that, too?" he asked.

She nodded in confusion. "What was that?"

"I don't know. It was like . . . you know that feeling when you've been ice skating or something, so you've been wearing skates, then you take them off and put on your real shoes? That feeling all over."

She couldn't remember the last time she'd gone ice skating All she knew that the pain was gone. No, not all of the pain—the exhaustion, the muscle soreness remained, but she couldn't feel the pain from the anomalies.

Realization swept over her. "We've been in range of the anomalies for days."

"Of course."

She smiled wryly. "Not anymore."

Patrick jumped up out of the car. "You let them take him."

She said nothing. There was nothing to say.

He paced, his hands on his head. It was as if the pain clearing had suddenly awoken him to the gravity of the decision she'd made. "Elena, you let Tech United take him!"

"He's dying!"

"We were going to stop that! Michelle told you you had to solve this!"

Her breaths came ragged. "I—I couldn't!"

"You're smart, you were running tests, we were making progress—"

"I ran out of tests to run, Patrick! He couldn't control the flux, and it kept getting worse."

"So we did all of this for nothing. All the running, all the fighting, Michelle's injury . . ."

"I've been thinking the exact same things, Patrick, but what do you expect me to do?"

"Literally anything else!"

This wasn't him. The stress, the pain, the fear—all things he was so skilled at holding off—were finally getting to him. "Patrick, you have to listen to me. I didn't want to do this. They would have dragged us away if we hadn't gone with them."

"I didn't take you for a coward, Elena Holmes."

She grabbed his hand. "I am a coward. I've always been a coward. But this—this is the one brave thing I've managed to do. Sam's going to die, at the hands of the anomalies or at the hands of Tech United. If the anomalies killed him, even if I somehow survived, I wouldn't live in guilt. If Tech United kills him, I'll never be able to live with myself again. But this is his only shot. It's the only, only possible way he'll live."

"It's a guarantee he'll die."

"If you're right about that, I'll have to live with that. But Patrick, there was nothing else I could do." She stopped for a quick breath, her mind racing. "What would you have done?"

Patrick fumed, silent for a few moments. "You're right," he said finally.

Elena breathed a sigh of relief.

"You're not a coward." He pulled his hand away. "I should have said, I didn't take you for a traitor."

He stormed away, and her legs locked, frozen. "Where are you going?" she managed to call after him.

"I'm going to find Sam. I'm going to be there for him."

She shook her head. "The pain alone—"

He whirled to face her. "Is that all you care about?"

"Patrick, listen to yourself! I'm just trying—"

"No. You. You listen to yourself." He stepped closer to her with each new statement. "Sam's a foster kid. He's been passed from home to home, and nothing ever quite worked for him. Not even science worked for him. He was scared, he was scared enough to pull in his powers to the point where he almost killed himself."

His expression softened for a moment. "But you and I, Elena. You and I made him feel like a superhero. For once in his life, he wasn't a specimen, he wasn't the demon-possessed boy, he wasn't the leftover camper that no one wanted to work with because he couldn't do anything right. He was special. And we were training him, not experimenting on him." His eyes narrowed once again. "At least, that's what I thought it was to you, too. That's what it was to him."

"But we failed."

"You don't know that. We didn't finish trying. He was fighting hard, Elena, he was getting better every day. I know, I know, the flux was getting worse. So what? He was going to learn."

She winced. "But the pain—"

"Would you shut up about that already? You and I were the only ones complaining about that. He wasn't. You know why? Because he was a superhero, and he believed he was strong enough to take it. And he was. We never wanted him to die, but better for him to die thinking he was a superhero than thinking we betrayed him like everyone else in his life."

"I wanted to help him!"

"You didn't want to help him. You just wanted to control him. When you couldn't do that, you gave up."

The words stung, sharper and deeper than anything else he had said. She breathed in to speak, but she couldn't. She had nothing left in her defense.

Patrick shook his head, sighing, and turned to walk toward the facility.

Jim returned from the building, passing Patrick as he went. He turned toward Patrick and started to say something, but Patrick ignored him and continued to trudge toward the building. Jim shrugged and jogged the rest of the way to Elena.

"My colleagues are ready for a collaboration meeting."

She nodded, her eyes still stinging.

"Hey. We're going to try to solve this, okay?"

Elena couldn't respond against the tightness in her throat. She simply followed him into the building.