My lungs contract, and I struggle to breathe. This can't be happening. Not now, not when we've gotten this far. I sprint to the car as fast I can, ignoring the rattling of my lungs.

Suddenly, Reece rounds the car and comes into view. I keep on running until the distance is closed, throwing my arms around his neck.

"What's wrong?" he asks, clutching me tightly. "What happened?"

For a second, I am silent as I breathe in his shirt, relishing in the warmth of his skin. When I can finally speak, I mumble something senseless into the side of his neck, my tears already soaking his shirt. "I couldn't see you. I thought–" I don't finish my sentence. I'm acutely aware of how pathetic I sound.

"It's okay," Reece whispers, kissing my neck. "I'm here. I just got out to get a little fresh air, and then I noticed one of the tires is flat. I'll have to fix it later."

I pull away from him and take a deep breath, trying to calm myself down. When Crystal gets to us, we set off in the direction of room 314, our sanctuary for the night.

The room is nicer than the last motel I'd stayed at. The walls are a soft eggshell white, with a watercolor canvas of sunflowers hanging on the forth. Two double beds sit in either corner of the room, and a big screen tv hangs on the wall opposite.

Without a word, Crystal runs over to the nearest bed and collapses on top of it, causing her hair to flip across her face. Reece and I both share a smile. He walks towards me and pulls me into his arms, burying his face in my neck.

"I thought I lost you today," he whispers. His voice is low and filled with emotion. "I knew something was wrong when you didn't answer your phone. When I saw you on that operating table–" he squeezes me tight, like he's afraid of ever letting go. "I don't ever want to feel like that again."

I know exactly how he feels, because I feel the same way. Somewhere along the way, Reece has come to mean more to me than I ever thought possible, and now it's hard to imagine my life without him.

He lifts his head slightly, and his mouth catches mine. My heart does this leap, and my stomach fills with warmth as his tongue pries my lips apart. Everything about him tastes sweet and inviting; he tastes like freedom.

I pull away slightly, hating myself for it. I want to kiss him forever; want to stay permanently attached to his hip, but these past few days have been physically destroying, and I know he needs to rest.

"You need to sleep, Reece," I say. "You're barely standing."

"I don't want to." He goes to kiss me, but I dodge from his grip.

"I mean it," I say, smiling slightly. "You can kiss me until your heart's content when you wake up, but first, sleep."

He flashes a mischievous smile in return. "I'm going to hold you to that," he says, kissing my forehead. "You're sleeping with me."

He throws back the covers and we climb into bed, pulling them up to our necks. When we're safely cocooned, his arms wrap around me and he pulls me into his chest, trapping me in place.

"Goodnight Aura," he murmurs, nuzzling my neck.

I smile as something in my heart explodes. "Goodnight, Reece."

***

We sleep all the way through the evening, right up until the next morning. When I finally awake, Crystal and Reece are tucking into a breakfast of croissants and bagels.

"We thought you were never waking up," Crystal says. "We got you some food."

For a second, I just watch them, happy to see the two people I love most eating breakfast together. We might be mismatched and completely dysfunctional, but this, I realize, is my family; I wouldn't change a thing.

"You look a lot better," I say to Reece as I join them at the table. The shadows under his eyes are gone, and his ashen skin has returned to its usual olive color.

"I feel a lot better, too," he says, wolfing down his bagel.

I take a croissant from the basket and break it apart, looking at Crystal. She is settling in surprisingly fast considering this is all so new to her, and for the first time ever, I don't feel so afraid for the future. Crystal is resilient, as am I; whatever happens next, I think we'll be just fine.

"We need to release the footage as soon as we can," Reece says once he's finished his breakfast. "We don't want to risk anything happening to it."

He's right. I don't know what tricks Marine World has up their sleeve, but the sooner we show the world the truth, the better. I reach into my bag and pull out the phone, handing it to Reece.

He tells me he's going to make a social media account, something which will give us a platform to release all of our evidence. After a few minutes or so, we're set up and ready to go.

He hands the phone back to me and I scroll through the videos. There are hundreds of me on here during the experiments I did, and I pick one of me locked in the submersion tank and one in the cube. After a little more scrolling, I find the more sinister ones, like videos of Dr. Wells performing her operations on the missing engineered girls. I feel sick to my stomach, but I add them to the post and then hand it back to Reece.

"Now we just need to write a short description," he says, typing something on the phone, "and we're ready. Are you certain you want to do this?"

Crystal and I share a look. She gives me a reassuring nod that soothes my nerves, and I lean over Reece's shoulder, pressing the send button for him.

"Now what?" Crystal asks.

Reece's eyes darken. "Now we wait for the media storm."

We spend the rest of the morning lounging around. It feels nice not to be living in a constant state of urgency. I know that Marine World will be out there looking for us, but without the trackers in our necks to give them an idea, we've got a decent head start.

We pack some bagels and croissants for the road and then shower and get ready. I take my time, enjoying the feeling of hot water on my skin and shampoo in my hair. Little things, I know, but they make me feel normal. Human.

When we're packed and ready, we make it back onto the open road, the windows rolled down as the sun beats through the window. The music's turned up loud, blasting some country song that fills me with warmth. Crystal and Reece bicker over which radio station to have, and I rest my head against the window, the biggest smile on my face.

I feel freer than ever, like a weight has been lifted off my chest. I don't know how the world will react to the truth about Marine World, but I've played my last part now.

The rest is up to them.

At some point in the journey, I get out the phone, scrolling through Dr. Wells's videos. There are so many to get through, many of which bring back awful memories. But even though I wish I could forget about it all, I have to see what else is on here. I have to know.

I scroll through the recent videos until I get to last month. The third video I click on starts differently to the others, with a blonde girl in an aquarium tank. Her back is to the camera so that I can't see her face, but I can see her tail perfectly.

Angry, raised incisions still sit around her hips, where her tail merges with flesh. Slowly, she turns, her blue eyes landing directly on the camera, and the air is knocked from my lungs.

The girl in the video is Muriel–my Muriel.

And she is alive.