I woke up tied to a chair. It took me way too long to figure out where I was or why I couldn't move, but when I did, I let out a panicked yelp and jerked forward. There were two soldiers at the other end of the room, by the door, and they both chuckled under their breaths.

"Where - where am I? Leo? What's going on? Where are you? Why ..." I swallowed hard and tugged on my wrists, but they didn't move. They were tied to the back of my chair, I guessed. I could barely feel my fingers.

No one answered me.

"Leo?" I called again, my voice wavering. I wanted to sound strong and brave, but I was terrified.

"I'm sorry, Joel." Leo's scratchy voice came from the other side of the room, behind me.

"We're only saving everyone else," another voice said. It took me a second to comprehend what I'd heard. Varien.

"Varien?" I tried to twist around in my chair, but I couldn't see very much in the darkness. I swallowed hard, a pit sinking in my stomach. "You too? Who else is there?"

"Just us," Varien said. "And maybe Sky if you really want to count him. He's not here. He's the one I blackmailed to get you out there." He chuckled sadly.

"What did you do to Sky?" Leo demanded, his voice cracking.

"Nothing, don't worry."

"No one else is here?" I asked bitterly. "No one else is going to betray me?"

"No," a third voice said - one I knew I'd never forget. "But you'll do some betraying, won't you?" Howell entered the room and stalked toward me like a lion. Immediately, the scars on my back tingled like crazy. "Alright, Joel. Listen up and you won't get hurt. I know how much you hate pain." He chuckled and I shivered. "Though the other two have been very good at helping, I can't seem to get anything out of them about the silent boy. None of my methods seemed to work." He rounded the chair and rested a gun against my temple. Immediately, I went rigid. "Tell me where he is," he ordered.

"You won't kill me," I whispered. "You need me alive."

"For what?" he said, laughing again. "I don't need you at all. I can always get another one." He pressed the gun harder against me and I winced in pain, trying to make myself look smaller. "Where is he?"

"I ..." I hesitated and brought my shoulders up. "I don't know?" I tried.

The gunshot sounded more like an explosion, and I screamed, jerking in my chair. He didn't even hit me. He was aiming at the wall. It was a warning shot.

"Wrong answer," Howell said coldly.

My ears were ringing, the sound of the gunshot rattling through my skull. I didn't bother trying to speak. I couldn't do it anyway.

He rounded my chair and backhanded me across the face - though I'm not sure if it can really be called backhanding, since he hit me with the gun, too. I jerked to the side with a gasp of pain, stars dotting my vision. My face stung where he'd hit me.

"You have three seconds to tell me where he is or I will kill you. Do you understand?" Howell ordered.

I honestly don't know what I was thinking at this point. I was terrified out of my mind. He started to count, and I could feel the sweat plaster my shirt to my back and soak my hair, dripping down my face. I think I was crying. I didn't want to die. I knew he'd kill me. I knew he wasn't bluffing. And I knew I was a coward.

So I told him.

"Perfect," Howell said, overlapping with Leo's terrified yell. "That was a lot easier than I thought. I didn't even have to shoot you. See, Joel, us  humans are all the same." He slipped the gun back in his belt and motioned for the two guards at the door. "Take him to a cell in the arena. I want him fighting Leo tomorrow night."

I barely heard him. All I did was stare at the floor, silent tears slipping down my face. The guilt was already eating me alive. Braken didn't deserve this. He'd been my only friend in this mess, and now I'd sentenced him to a horrible death filled with agony. I'd seen how much Howell hated him. It wasn't going to be a death like any of the other Gifteds. He was going to suffer.

"You know I'll do it," Leo said, his voice low, though it rose slowly to a scream as he continued. "You know I'll kill you for killing Braken! You know I'll make your death as painful as possible!"

"That will be enough, Leo," Howell said.

"Yeah?" Leo screamed back. I could see him now, and his face was bright red in fury. "What are you gonna do about it, kill me? I can scream as loud as I want -"

Howell pulled out his gun again, quick as lightning, and fired. The bullet slammed into Leo's leg, the same one that had been bandaged earlier, and he screamed in pain and collapsed, gripping the bullet wound.

"That will be enough, Leo," Howell repeated as the two men pulled me to my feet. They began to force me away, and then Howell sighed in mock regret and said, "I guess I should make the fight more fair, shouldn't I?"

A second gunshot rang out through the room, and this time, agony exploded through my calf and I nearly fell to the floor. I couldn't scream. My voice caught in my throat and didn't move. Blood soaked my jeans instantly, pooling on the floor. My hands were still cuffed behind my back or I would have been squeezing where I'd been shot.

I'd never felt something like this. Even after the whipping, after my eleven lashes, it hadn't felt like this. I'd never felt pain so intense in one place before. It was mind-numbing. I couldn't think. I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe.

The soldiers dragged me to my feet and shoved me forward, and all I could do was let out a strange, gurgling cry of pain. They dragged me out of the room and down the hall, ignoring the trail of blood I left all over the floor, and as we passed another closed door, I heard someone crying, though I wasn't sure how I managed to notice that through the pain. I glanced at the door and the words written on it. CAUTION. HIGH VOLTAGE.

"What's in there?" I whispered, cringing in pain.

"Our new power source," one of the guards said ominously.

"He must've acted up," the other chuckled. "Put up a fight."

My eyes widened, and then I grimaced again as I took a step. "You mean it's ..."

"A person? Not quite. See for yourself."

They pushed the door open so I could see into the dark room, and my heart nearly stopped. There was a boy slumped over on the floor, held up by some machine that had his hands boxed in by strange arm-like things that pulsed an electric blue. He had his head ducked, his long tangled hair hanging in his face, but he looked up weakly as we came in. His eyes were blackened and bruised beyond recognition, but as he softly said my name, I knew instantly who it was. I'd recognize that voice anywhere.

Gus.

"What are you doing to him?" I demanded, my voice rising nearly an octave in pitch as I lost my balance and slammed my weight on my wounded leg. 

"He's been nothing but trouble for the past couple weeks, so when you took out the power, we finally put him to good use. His Unnatural ability involves lots and lots of voltage, and all we're doing it sucking it out of him."

They shoved me away and slammed the door shut before I could say anything to him. I wanted to apologize. This was all my fault. If I hadn't insisted we take out the power, he wouldn't be used as a human battery. "He is fifteen years old!" I shouted, tears burning in my eyes. Everything I did ended in disaster. 

"And I was fifteen when a monster just like him took everything away from me," one of the guards said, his grip tightening on my arm in anger. "We're simply returning the favor."

That was when we ran into her.

"Joel!" Anna suddenly screamed, in anger, relief, fear, and a whole bunch of other emotions. She glared at the soldiers. "You said you wouldn't hurt him!"

"He wasn't cooperating."

"What do you mean, he ..." Her voice trailed off, and her eyes widened in fear, filling up with tears. I noticed that her facial expression looked exactly like Braken's when he was afraid.

"What are you doing here?" I managed to gasp out. 

"I ..." Her eyes flickered across the hall, as if searching for the right lie. 

"You betrayed me, too," I whispered, squeezing my eyes shut to try and fight the tears. The pain in my leg was starting to take over my senses. "You're just like the rest of them."

"You weren't supposed to get hurt, I promise," she said, running up to me. 

The soldiers pushed me past her, and I was actually a little grateful. I tried to block out her words as she cried out after us, but I couldn't ignore them. 

"I'm sorry I did it, Joel, but you don't understand! I'm doing it for the good of humanity! And ... I couldn't let down my own family."

"You just killed your own brother!" I screamed, unable to hold it back.

"No, I didn't!" she wailed. "You did!"

You did!

You did!

You did!

This was all my fault.