I felt like I'd plunged beneath cold water, like I'd inhaled smoke straight from the Incinerator. The only piece of evidence, the dead woman's necklace, was literally hanging around my neck.

Reason and panic warred inside me. They couldn't be looking for it. Who cared about a stupid necklace? It was all I could do not to rip it off my neck and fling it away.

We turned the corner.

The K-guard Kaptain with the smashed nose and rancid breath, who'd taken Yerik's coin, stood in the center of the hallway. He smiled, his eyes slowly taking in the stiffness in my body.

"Hands on the wall," the Kaptain called. "Submit for inspection." There was a smugness to his voice, as if he could sense the way the necklace burned against the skin of my chest. It felt like I'd just lifted it from the flames. Would I cry and beg when he found it?

Farther down the hall guards ransacked rooms, but all I could see was the Kaptain's steady progression towards us. I choked back the impulse to run—that would only make things worse for Xyla, and I could see her door from where I stood. The K-guards were already inside, tossing out books and clothes. Xyla stumbled out as if she'd just woken.

Then the Kaptain reached us, and began to pat down Wesson. I placed my hands on the cold metal wall, trying to steady myself. He can't know about the necklace. How could he know? Then he moved to me. His hands roamed all over my body, his body pressed close to mine.

"So you'll put out for a W, but not a K?" His voice was hot in my ear, his hand running over my chest and squeezing. Through my terror, I realized he wasn't looking for the necklace; he was looking for a reaction. The sudden relief was followed by a surge of disgust and anger. He wanted a reason to hurt me, or more likely to hurt Wesson, but I wouldn't give him one. Instead, I closed my eyes, and thought of a blue, blue sky.

Finally he stepped back.

"Keep checking!" he roared down the corridor. "No one sleeps till we find them!"

Them? But I hadn't seen them scan a single chip—so who, or what, were they looking for? It couldn't be Xyla and I. We didn't leave anything for them to ID us with. We were safe.

The guards moved closer and closer to Xyla, her hands pressed against the wall, waiting for the inspection.

"Z," I heard Wesson whisper distantly. "It's alright. It's just an inspection. She's going to be fine."

I should have felt better. Xyla was safer than me. If they ID'd her she would be fine. So why was I terrified?

The guards were almost to Xyla. Raised voices, and children crying echoed from the family and women's section.

One of the guards reached Xyla.

Just keep moving. Just search her and go.

But I was caught in a living nightmare. The guard searched her, and then stepped back and pulled out his gun. "Kaptain," he called out. "We've got something."

Wesson's arm wrapped around me. This wasn't happening. This was a nightmare. I was still asleep in Xyla's room.

There was nothing, no evidence—

Xyla's bullet wound. It hit me like a bullet. There was one piece of evidence we'd been in the Chute, and it was burned into Xyla's skin.

The Kaptain strode toward her and ordered her to lift her shirt. She made an act of being offended and refused. He pulled out his gun and aimed it at her head. Cold settled over my heart as Xyla lifted her shirt, and the Kaptain tore off the bandage, ignoring her cry of pain.

He nodded to the others. "Take her."

Time began to move strangely.

Xyla walked down the hall, the K-guards flanking her.

Wesson dragged me back, my throat burned as I fought him, I was screaming, but the noise felt distant, muffled, like an explosion had rendered me temporarily deaf. All I could see was her and all I could hear was the dull ringing noise.

I had to save her.

This couldn't be happening.

Wesson was shaking me, saying something, but I couldn't focus on him, couldn't break the lockhold of his arms around my body. So I sank my teeth into his arm.

Then I was flying through the air. I smashed into a wall, and when I righted myself, I found myself locked in a small, janitorial closet, Wesson gone.

"Xyla," I whimpered into the silence.

#

"Z, catch."

I turned, reaching up to catch the book flying through the air—and failed. The metal arm was new, ungainly, every movement painful, and the book now staring at me on the ground proved it.

"Alice in Wonderland," I read as I forced myself to use my metal fingers to pick up the book. "What's it about?"

Xyla leaned on the railing next to me. She'd been at one of the official Belly gatherings, where they gave out monthly supplies and medicine—but Xyla always came back with extra. Not all the K-guards were observant when a beautiful blonde smiled at them. As Yerik said: you drop a crumb, and a rat's gonna eat it.

"It's about a girl on Old Earth," she said as I turned the books over. "Goes down a rabbit-hole and into another land—a wonderland—and has all these weird adventures."

"Why would she go down a rabbit hole if she already lived on Old Earth?"

"Prolly cuz she was an A."

We both laughed and then stood there looking out over the Belly— a world with no sky, and no rabbit holes.

"I think we should make a deal," she said. "Should either of us ever find a rabbit hole, we go down it. No questions asked."

"Agreed."

I rested my forehead against the metal door, trying not to think of all the dreams I'd once had. The raised voices continued in the distance, none answering my calls for help. Whatever Wesson had done to jam the door I couldn't undo— the only way out was to manually remove the doorknob. Only the barest of lights leaked below the door as I took out the tools needed from my arm and began. At some point I heard the heavy boots of guards walking past, but they didn't even pause at my calls for help.

Finally, what felt like hours later, the door handle fell free.

"XYLA!" My voice echoed down the long hallway. Blankets, clothes and belongings littered the way, doors gaping open. Not a soul answered me. At the end of the hallway, a fluorescent light flickered, the high pitched buzz loud in the sudden silence. Maybe I already went down the rabbit hole.

But then, from the end of the hallway, a man with a deep gash on his forehead limped towards me. Blood painted his face bright so that I nearly didn't recognize him.

"Wesson?" I took a half-step back. "What— what happened? Where is— "

He stumbled towards me, and I danced back as his voice wavered. "Disappear, Z. Right now.."

"Is Xyla alright?"

His head bowed. "They took her up to the next level." The panic doubled, my chest tightening even as I forced myself to breathe— no one came back when the guards took them. But not this time. I'll find a way to save her.

"I have to help her." I stared past him, down the dull hallway of flickering lights, not seeing any of it as my mind raced ahead. "I need to find Yaneli. She'll know what to do. She'll know how to save her."

"That's why I came to find you." He put a hand out to the wall, needing its support to stand. "The K-guards took Yaneli. They said she matched the description."

"What description?"

His voice came out as a hoarse whisper that hit me with the impact of a bullet to the chest. "Yours."

And suddenly, it all made horrible sense: the K-guards had been looking for the other person who had been in the Chute with Xyla. Me. Everyone always said how Yaneli and I favored each other. Of course they assumed it was Yaneli who'd been there with Xyla— she was her engineering partner. My stomach churned, bile crawling up my throat.

My fault. This is all my fault.

"Where is she, Wesson?" It felt like I was standing on an Old Earth boat— the floor rocking and tilting beneath me.

His hand left behind a bloody smear on the wall as he took a half-step closer to me. "They're holding the Letter Trial early. Right now. She didn't want you to come."

This time when he moved, I was ready. Xyla had once called me a panther, but even if I didn't have the power, I had the speed. Wesson's voice called out behind me as I sprinted down the hallway.

I didn't look back.