Hal was exhausted. He'd hardly slept a wink the previous night, staring at the ceiling as he thought about what he'd done a few hours earlier. Granted, at some point, he'd fallen asleep to wake up now, but it hadn't been nearly enough rest for him.

When Hal rolled out of bed—literally rolled, since he accidentally fell on the floor—it took him a minute to figure out what the heck was going on. He groaned before sitting up, rubbing the back of his sore head. Once it hurt a little less, he looked up and saw Brick sitting on his bed, staring down at his phone.

"Morning," Hal said, crawling back onto his bed.

Brick didn't answer. The disturbing thing was, he wasn't even looking at the phone anymore; his gaze was locked on the wall, the phone screen lit in front of him. "Brick?" Hal said tentatively. "What's up?"

Finally, Brick looked at Hal, blinking as if waking up. His expression still wasn't normal, though. "Look at it." Dully, he pushed the phone towards Hal.

Although he actually didn't really want to know now, Hal reached over and took the phone, still watching his friend. It took him a moment to look down at the screen of the phone, and doing that didn't exactly make him feel better. The screen was on a news page, detailing the prison escape of Eagle, including the deaths of seven guards. Hal felt ill just looking at it. "I know," he said, putting the phone down beside him. "I blew my cool. I ..."

"Not that," Brick said harshly. "You could've burned them all and I wouldn't have cared. Look further down, Hal."

That was a surprisingly brutal statement, and Hal again wasn't sure if he really wanted to look at it. But he wasn't sure if he wanted to look at the weird expression on Brick's face, and picked up the phone to avoid that.

But when he read what was on the bottom of the article, Hal wished he'd looked at Brick instead. "One of the perpetrators of the breakout has been caught and confessed to the crime. The former hero, Silence, has been sentenced to be eliminated from Haven at three o' clock this afternoon, along with sentenced murderer Ivy. Stay tuned for updates on the mad pyro hero who physically killed the unfortunate guards last night."

Hal dropped the phone. "Brick—"

"Delphi can read minds, Hal," Brick said, his voice sounding as if it were on the point of breaking. "How could we have been so stupid? It's obvious that she would've known what Silence was doing and where she went. And now she's going to ... they're going to ..."

Hal fell backwards, onto his pillow. "We're not going to let that happen," he said. "No matter what we have to do."

Brick likewise slumped over. "I wish I could believe that. Silence is the only one I've got left."

Hal rolled off his bed and dug his phone out from underneath it. "Not the only one," he said, finding Art's number he'd saved yesterday. "We're here for you, buddy. Which means we need to call in some back-up."

"W-wait, you think we should break her out?" Brick said, his eyes widening. "But we could get into all sorts of trouble for that."

Hal gave him a look that clearly said, "Duh." He started flipping through his contacts. "We literally just did it," he said. "I mean, we can't get into any more trouble than we already are. And are you really going to let your sister get executed because you're afraid of getting into trouble?"

"Of course not," Brick said defensively. "I just don't want to get us executed too."

Hal shrugged. "Well, we won't. Probably." He dialed Art's number and put the cell on speaker phone.

A second later, Art's voice came over the phone. "Hal? What the heck are you doing? Are you nuts? You're only supposed to use this in an emergency."

"This is an emergency," Hal said. "It's Silence. She's been arrested and given Ivy's sentence."

"Oh." Hal could picture Art scratching his head on the other end. "That's probably an emergency, yeah. When's the date?"

"Umm ..." Hal tapped the screen to bring up the current time. "In five hours, Art."

"Great." The sarcasm was forced into a light tone, but there nonetheless. "Just ... great. Okay, let me see. If you leave now, you'll just get caught. Guardian's likely going to interrogate you, so that won't be fun. What you need to do is go down to the cafeteria, now, and get the table closest to the trash cans. There's a syringe taped to the side of the trash bin. You're going to need that when you go to talk to Guardian. Jab it into Diana in anyway you can, you got that?"

Although Brick and Hal were confused by the request, Hal nodded before remembering Art couldn't see it over the phone. "Okay. We're going down now. What do you—"

"Call me when you get out," was all Art said before hanging up the phone.

Brick rubbed his buzzcut ruefully. "That wasn't exactly helpful," he said.

"We'll find out how helpful it was when we get that syringe thing," Hal answered. "Come on! We'd better go, before we're summoned to be interrogated."

. . . . . . . . . .

Silence was unceremoniously shoved into the cell with Ivy. The other girl looked up, her eyebrows shooting towards her red hairline when she saw Silence sprawl out, unable to catch herself with her arms cuffed behind her back. "Ow," Silence complained.

Ivy tugged at her manacles, eyeing the other girl. "Who the heck are you?" were the first words out of her lips.

After several seconds of trying to haul herself into a seated position that finally worked, Silence looked at Ivy. "Hi," she said. "I'm Silence. And you're Ivy?"

"Yep." Ivy sat back down again, looking for all the world like a wilted flower. "You're sharing my fate?"

"I guess so," Silence said, shrugging. "Not that I wanted to."

Ivy stared down at the floor. "I didn't want anybody to. It seems like a lot of people are getting into trouble because of what I told Delphi. I didn't mean for it to happen like this."

Silence looked at Ivy. "Hey, it's not your fault," she said. "I mean, we all thought Guardian was on the side of angels, and ... yeah, turns out he's not. What a surprise."

That made the other girl crack a smile, albeit a small one. "Admittedly, people probably should have seen it ahead of time," she said. "I can't believe I was the only one to notice for years. Or maybe I'm just naturally suspicious. Whatever the case, the truth will get out now, one way or another. People are bound to smell something's up when Eagle turns up dead."

"Well ... actually ..." Silence shifted uncomfortably. "Art's free. We broke him out. That's how I ended up getting caught."

Ivy's eyebrows shot up. "You broke into Guardian's prison? You bunch are braver than I thought."

"Umm ... thanks?" Silence said.

"No problem." Ivy leaned back, closing her eyes.

Silence was drawn to Ivy's nose and the flecks of blood under her nostrils. "What happened?"

"Guardian punched me," Ivy answered without opening her eyes. "I didn't feel so badly, since Eagle did the same to him. And it's no more than the monster deserves."

"True," Silence agreed. She rested her chin on her knees with a good deal of effort. "Don't suppose it makes any difference to either of us, though." Silently, she was praying that Hal and Brick would manage to avoid Delphi or even just cut and run when they learned what was going to happen to her. That probably wasn't likely, but it was worth hoping, right?

Ivy kicked at manacles irritably. "I guess you're right," she answered. "It could've been worse, I suppose. At least drowning isn't painful."

Silence slid over onto her side, eyeing Ivy with a slightly annoyed look. "Not dying at all is way less painful," she replied.

Ivy sighed. "You've got a point," she said, and the two girls fell silent as they tried to make themselves as comfortable as possible.