Chapter Fifty-Two

Caleb

"Miracle?" I demanded incredulously. "What are you doing here?"

Miracle chuckled, her eyebrows raised. "Now, that's a silly question," she murmured. "Is it not obvious? I was looking for you." She flashed a predatory smile.

"Well, I'm flattered," I replied dryly. "But you should know that, as you were searching for me, you missed your train."

Miracle gave me a strange look.

"So he took the train," she murmured to herself.

I honestly doubted that Leary had intended for Miracle to be on that train. Though she was his favorite, his treasured first success, she was a part of the old generation. Leary was a psychopath, but I could understand what he was thinking. With the candidates, he could start fresh: they were young, naïve, and entirely dependent on his leadership. He could mold them in any way he wished.

Miracle seemed to know it, too, because her smile disappeared at my words. She stalked toward me with slow, careful steps, stopping only once we were less than a foot apart.

"Dr. Leary deserted me," she said quietly, her breath tickling my chin. "He left me here to die while he saved his precious, darling candidates. But not me, no; what use would I be of to him now? It's been too long, and I'm old news."

Above us, the shaking came to a stop, but a few stray bits of gray floated down and found their way into Miracle's hair. She took no notice.

"But," she went on, "when I die, I won't be alone." The smile came back now, creeping onto her lips with a fierce purpose. Her hands moved slowly to mine, threading our fingers together. "You'll be with me," she whispered.

And suddenly, our situation was forgotten. Immersed in a pleasant haze, I could no longer remember where I was, or why; or who those two people standing behind me were. All that existed was Miracle, her eyes locked on mine and her lips curled up into a beautiful smile that was oh so close. She tilted up her chin and I leaned down, closing the gap between us, when—

BOOM!

An earsplitting explosion rocked the floor beneath us, forcing me away from Miracle and propelling me back into reality. When I regained my footing, I remembered with a start that it was two o'clock, and within minutes, the city above our heads would be nothing but ashes and debris. Our escape was only a few steps away, and behind me stood Trai and Delaney, looking horrified but incredibly anxious.

I cast a quick glance at Miracle, who was leaning against the wall with one hand on her head and a dazed expression on her face.

It would have been so easy to leave her: all I had to do was say the word, and the three of us would scramble away, to freedom and to safety. Yet...when I looked at the Superior who had stolen me from my life and forced me to become like her, I felt a strange sense of sympathy. I pitied Miracle; she had lived her entire existence under the maniacal guidance of Dr. Leary, learning his twisted ways. It's no wonder she ended up being such a terrible person.

I didn't want to just leave her there.

I turned to Trai. "Take Delaney and get out of here," I said seriously. He looked surprised that I was addressing him. "Please. Just do it."

He took a deep breath and nodded, his expression hardening. "Delaney," he said, turning to her, "come on."

Delaney, pale and shivering, shook her head, her eyes widening. "No! What about Caleb?"

"I'll...catch up with you later," I said, smiling ruefully.

With her mouth half open, Delaney gave me a pain-filled, desperate look, silently begging me not to stay.

"Come on," I heard Trai whisper. "For Abby."

Abby. His sister. His dead sister who had risked her life trying to stop Leary when I couldn't. The sister I had forced him to leave behind. There was unmistakable anguish in his eyes, but it was laced with solid determination.

Finally, Delaney nodded. "For Abby," she echoed dimly.

I heaved an inward sigh of relief. "Go," I urged, giving Delaney a light shove in the small of her back. Trai grabbed her hand, pulling her across the uneven gravel. She glanced back at me one last time as they reached the tunnel, her eyes filled with compassion.

And then they were gone.

○●○●○●○

When I turned back around, Miracle had righted herself and was once again wearing her signature smirk. "How chivalrous of you," she teased, pouting prettily. "Telling your friends to leave so they don't have to see you die."

Sighing, I took a step forward. "Miracle, listen to me," I said earnestly. "That, right there, is our way out. We don't have a lot of time, but I can get you out of here alive. Come with me. Please."

She was silent, and for a moment I thought I'd convinced her. But then she laughed, soft and humorless.

"Oh, Caleb," she murmured. "Sweet, sweet Caleb. Don't you understand that we can't go out there?"

"If this is about the Pro-Inferiors, I can—"

"This doesn't have anything to do with the Pro-Inferiors," Miracle snapped. "I couldn't care less about them. This is about us, and what we are."

It took me a while to understand what she meant.

"Superiors," I murmured.

She nodded, brushing her hair from her eyes. "You have to understand that we don't belong out there. With people, with humans. We're too different."

She was approaching me again, her arm extended, and I stumbled back with a thick swallow.

"You don't know that," I hissed. "You've never lived a life besides this one. Even if I don't remember it, I did. And I was Popular. I had friends who—"

"Will be horrified by how you've changed," Miracle finished, cutting me off. "You're not one of them anymore, darling. Why do you think Superiors only live in the Capitol? The real world is cold. Maybe when they see us on TV, it's okay. But our kind of perfection will not be tolerated, especially if our control of the government has been taken from us. Humans are not forgiving creatures."

"You don't know that," I repeated. She stepped forward again, and this time, I didn't move back. She wrapped her arms around me, burying her face in my shirt.

"Just face it, Caleb," she murmured into my chest. "Whatever Popularity you had before means nothing now. People prefer perfection to be unattainable, because then, even if they can't achieve it, they know that nobody else can, either. Seeing Superiors face to face will show them that perfection exists. Seeing us will only remind them of what they are not. It'll just make them hate us even more."

She paused, took a deep breath. "I don't have a place out there. I never have. And you must realize this, sooner rather than later: neither do you."

I thought of Dr. Leary's explanation, his dreadfully shallow reason for creating the Superiors. He had wanted to shove perfection in everyone's faces, so that they felt the same humiliation and self-hatred that he had always suffered through. And because of that, Miracle and I could never be normal.

Just then, another explosion went off. This one sent me back against the wall as another chunk of ceiling fell where I had just been standing. Miracle still clung to me, her cold fingers digging painfully into my shredded back.

"You're one of us now, Caleb," she purred, so sweetly that my heart clenched in fear. "You admitted to it, remember? And if we're going down, darling, then you are most certainly coming with us."

She looked up at me, our faces inches apart. I knew I should argue—I had to say something—but I couldn't seem to focus on anything but her eyes. The gravel crunched beneath her feet as she rose onto her toes and ever so carefully dusted my lips with her own.

The kiss was over so suddenly that I could have dreamt it, but the brief second of contact made my head spin. I blinked away the confusion as Miracle stepped back, her warmth disappearing. From somewhere in the distance, I could smell smoke. And if I wasn't mistaken, it was coming closer, along with the sickening crunch of falling rubble.

The look on Miracle's face was disgustingly smug. I understood then that I was nothing but a plaything to her; she could care less about my emotions. She knew I was attracted to her, despite all that she had done, and was only using that to her advantage.

"Get away from me," I snarled, pleased that my voice didn't tremble. "Step back."

Surprise flickered across Miracle's features, but she did as I ordered. I wiped my mouth violently with the back of my hand before turning my wrath on the beautiful Superior before me.

"Never do that again," I hissed.

Miracle shook her head. "Oh, Caleb," she flirted. "You know you liked it."

There was another detonation, much closer than the others, and it took all my strength to keep from being thrown to the ground. Miracle looked up as dust rained down above her, coating her skin in a fine layer of ashy gray.

"Aren't you worried?" I questioned. "Your precious empire is crumbling, and you're not doing anything to stop it. Don't you want to fight back? Don't you want the Superiors to survive?"

But Miracle only laughed lightly. "Oh, Caleb. Do you really believe that the Superiors have been beaten? It's only a minor setback, and an expected one at that."

"You're all going to die."

"Maybe," she mused. "But Dr. Leary has all of the candidates. I will never forgive him for how he betrayed me, but that doesn't change the fact the he's a genius. And a determined one, at that. With his dedication, we will come back someday. And the Pro-Inferiors will not stand a chance."

I stepped away from the wall, my hands in fists. She was right, and we both knew it. Dr. Leary was a smart man, and that was one thing. But his absolute loyalty to the Superiors made him dangerous. He would do anything to place them back into a position of power.

But that was a fight for another time. At that moment, the battle was between me and Miracle, and I was determined to win.

"Maybe he will be back," I conceded, "but that doesn't change the fact that he betrayed you. What better way to get revenge on him than to survive? He meant for you to die; if you live, he'll have failed."

We stood there in silence for a moment as ceiling chunks rained down around us. Miracle stared at me, her expression softening. Then she took my hand in a very simple, human way.

"If I were a better person," she said, surprisingly gentle, "I would send you away. I would tell you that you owe nothing to me, and that my life is not worth yours. But"—she took a breath—"I'm not. I'm not a good person. I never have been; evil has been instilled in me since before I was even born. And so I can't send you away. And I can't go with you, either." She looked up at me, and her eyes were so genuine and tear-filled that my breath hitched. "I'm sorry," she murmured. "I wish—"

But she didn't finish, because suddenly, she collapsed, her body falling into mine. Surprised, I jumped back, and she crumpled to the ground. In the space she had just occupied stood an incredulous Perfecta, her hand clenched around the hilt of a bloody knife.

"What just happened?" I demanded.

"I stabbed her," Perfecta stated calmly, wiping the red stain onto her pantsuit.

I looked down: sure enough, a circle of scarlet was blooming out from a gaping hole in Miracle's side. She wasn't moving.

"Is she...?"

"Dead?" Perfecta shook her head. "Not yet. And I'd love to stay and watch her take her final breaths, but we don't have the time. I'd also ask you why you're still here, but we don't have time for that either." She stepped over Miracle's body without so much as a glance. "Come on, hurry it up."

In my head, I knew I had to go with Perfecta: that was the only rational thing to do. Anyone with a good sense of self-preservation would have followed her without hesitation. But, looking down at Miracle's prone form, I was frozen in place.

There was no reason for me to care about her. She had said it herself: she wasn't a good person. That last thing she had told me, though—

"Caleb, what the hell are you doing? Get over here!"

—that had come from a different Miracle. A different, better Miracle. A Miracle that had been hidden behind years of cruel bitterness, but could manifest in reality if she tried.

And I knew that I couldn't leave that Miracle to die.

Delaney

We crawled for an eternity, scrabbling on sharp pebbles through a tunnel that was tight, steep, and very, very dark. The space around me was nothing more than a cloud of black, pressing in on me from all sides and sending my anxiety to dizzying heights. Trai climbed in front of me, occasionally shouting words of encouragement over his shoulder. I was grateful for the interaction, but every time he turned, his feet sent a spray of gravel bits into my face.

The needlelike deluge, though, was the least of my problems. I could feel the fever coming back strong, causing my skin to freeze even as sweat streamed from my pores. The consequence of missing breakfast was beginning to rear its ugly head—heightened, I'm sure, by the fact that I'd left the previous night's dinner in a green soup all over the subway line. And it certainly didn't help that we were moving at an extremely precipitous angle, and I was having a particularly severe case of vertigo.

I tried to focus on my movements: hand, hand, knee, knee, elbow, elbow, toe, toe. Every time I felt the sting of rock in the flesh of my palms, it only served as a reminder that I was still alive. I clenched my teeth together as the ground trembled, dislodging bits of dirt from the earthen walls around us and flinging them onto my head. Given our situation, I couldn't have cared less about the condition of my hair, but the thought of the amount of debris I'd have to wash out brought on memories of Lizzy, who often lectured me on the benefits of a proper conditioning.

I randomly remembered the party that had started all of this, and the painstaking care Lizzy had taken that evening in making sure my hair was decently groomed. That night, as I spoke to the unapproachable Popular named Caleb Payne, I never would have guessed that two weeks later, I'd end up on my stomach in a cramped dirt cave, scrambling to get out before the ceiling collapsed on my head. And when I'd first met Abigail Kaiser in science class, my mind never pictured her lying half-dead on a forgotten subway platform. In fact, any expectations I'd had of how things would turn out had been completely blown out of the water. Caleb's intriguing little research project was much more than that: it had become the adventure of my life.

As it turned out, retrospective thinking an excellent distraction; when I returned to reality at the sound of Trai's voice, we had covered a lot of ground.

"Delaney," he was saying, "do you see that, up there?" He paused in front of me and pointed to a spot ahead of us.

"Yeah, I can totally see when—"

I bit off the tail end of my snide remark when I realized that I could, in fact, see. Trai's hand, previously invisible to me in the darkness, was now outlined in a faint glow of light.

"I think it levels out over there," he went on. "We're getting close."

Another explosive decided to detonate at the moment, the sound of it feeling intimidatingly close. I wondered, briefly, if Caleb had gotten out, but swallowed the thought after a heartbeat. I couldn't let myself worry about him when my own life was on the line.

"Well, then, let's get going," I said grimly.

○●○●○●○

Trai was right; the tunnel did even out, becoming flat ground with a ceiling high enough that we didn't have to crawl. We traversed that segment quietly, holding our in anticipation, as the tunnel got lighter and lighter until I could see individual hairs on Trai's head.

We'd been walking for about five minutes when I saw the strange ring of white, set into the ceiling a few dozen meters in front of us. Trai was walking just ahead of me; I grabbed his arm.

"Hey, Trai—"

"You see it too?" he asked softly, his voice filled with dubious hope.

"I see it," I affirmed.

And then we were running, both of us, me ignoring the pain in my body as we sprinted toward the distant light. The passage ended abruptly, but there was a shining metal ladder secured into the muddy wall.

"Go!" Trai shouted. "Up, up, up!"

I didn't need any urging. I hurled myself at the ladder and scrambled over its rungs, going up and up and up with Trai right behind me until my head was immersed in the blinding light—

"Stop right there."

I blinked away the bright white haze and found myself face to face with the barrel of a gun. The woman on the other side of it was tall and wiry, with a square jaw that was set firmly. She narrowed her eyes at me as I hung there, half in the hole and half out. We spent several long seconds locked in a staring contest before a man jogged over and said, "Nessa want you to let them up."

Though she still looked suspicious, the woman stepped back without a word, allowing me and Trai to pull ourselves up onto solid ground. We were in the midst of what looked like a military camp, with black-clad people milling about and several dozen tents set up on the thick, dark soil. Everyone I saw had gun in their belt, but no one seemed particularly eager to bother us. The majority of the camp's inhabitants hadn't even appeared to register our presence.

I was just about to ask the woman where we were when someone called out my name, then Trai's. I turned and saw a familiar blonde head weaving through the crowd, making her way toward us.

Nessa.

"Oh, thank God you're alive!" she cried, skidding to a stop in front of us. "I was so worried, I thought you were..."

Something in my expression must have betrayed my disgust, because she trailed off without finishing.

"I see," she murmured softly. A quiet sigh escaped her lips before she straightened and looked me in the eye. "I'm glad to see you're all right. Why don't you two come with me? We'll find you a comfortable to wait until this is all over." Her voice was halting and stiff, her words insincere. But at that moment, all the torture I'd put my body through suddenly caught up with me, and I almost collapsed right then and there. So, though I wanted nothing to do with Nessa, I nodded, and Trai and I followed her without a word.

○●○●○●○

"There's no more time for stalling," said Jeremy Fairleigh. "We have to release the final detonation right now."

He was standing a few feet away, conversing loudly with Nessa and a few other Pro-Inferiors. A remote was clutched in his hand, one with a big white button at its center. He rubbed his thumb absently along its side.

"Sir, Perfecta's still inside," said a mousy young woman.

And Caleb, I thought, but didn't say a word.

Fairleigh spat out a string of colorful language. "Well, what the hell is keeping her?"

"No idea," Nessa inserted, her brow creased in worry. "She must have lost her phone; I can't reach her."

Running a hand through his light hair, Fairleigh cursed again. "Two minutes," he conceded. "No more than that. If Perfecta isn't out here in two minutes, I'll assume she's dead and this place will go down."

"Yes, sir," the young woman said as the group dispersed.

With their conversation over, I turned away and stared up at the big dome that was the Capitol. It looked so much bigger from the ground than it had from the sky: a hulking, looming, glass monstrosity. From the chairs Trai and I were parked in, I had to crane my neck to see its top.

I'd heard Fairleigh say that we were half a mile from the city; far enough away so that we wouldn't be hit by an stray rubble from the "final detonation." I was skeptical, though. The dome just looked so big, sitting there and looming over us, that I half-expected it to simply topple over on our heads.

"Do you think Caleb's okay?" I asked worriedly, squinting against the glare of light off the glass dome. A noncommittal "Mm" was the only response I got.

Trai hadn't said much since we'd sat down; the only time he'd opened his mouth was to ask Nessa for a bottle of water. I guess that now, without the consistency of movement to occupy his thoughts, he was remembering all the gory details of Abby's death.

There was a deep, haunted look in his eyes, and it didn't go away no matter what I said to him. I could only imagine what was going on inside his head. He was probably blaming himself for it, thinking that it was his fault for not keeping a better eye on his sister. I could have told him that it wasn't, that there was nothing he could have done—but I had a feeling it wouldn't have changed a thing.

"I hope he's okay," I murmured after a while. I picked at the plastic of the little fold-out chair.

A while later, Fairleigh returned with Nessa at his heels. "Jeremy, you can't," she was saying. "Perfecta hasn't come out yet. Just give it another minute, I swear she'll—"

"Nessa, I can't worry about Perfecta," Fairleigh snapped, whirling on her. "I said two minutes; it's been two minutes. I'm sorry, but this has to be done, and I can't have your emotions getting in the way."

I watched as Nessa stepped back, looking stricken. "Y-you have no idea how much Perfecta has done for you," she said. "How much she has given up just so that the Pro-Inferiors could succeed."

Fairleigh met her shocked gaze with a steely one. "Actually," he countered loudly, "I do. Don't you talk to me about sacrifice, Nessa, not until you've walked in my shoes. I've given up everything. My friends, my family, any hope for a normal life—all for this goddamn organization. It is all I have. This is all I have to live for. And I'll not have you ruin it because your friend can't manage her time."

His face was bright red with anger, nostrils flared and mouth pressed into a thin line. "Well?" he demanded. "Anything to say?"

Nessa was silent.

"That's what I thought. Now, we've wasted enough time already, I must—"

"Sir!" The mousy girl was back, panting as she sprinted over. "They've found Perfecta! She just came up through the hatch!"

Nessa was on her immediately. "What?" she demanded. "You're certain it's her, Sioban?"

Sioban nodded breathlessly. "Yes, it's her! I saw her myself. And she's with a Superior boy."

That caught my attention immediately, and I jumped to my feet. Even Trai was roused by that, and stood up beside me.

I could feel the blood rushing in my ears as I stumbled weakly toward Sioban. "Caleb," I said, grabbing her arm. "That's my friend, Caleb. Do you know where they are?"

The girl looked flustered, but responded with a hurried, "They were just coming out when I saw them, they should be somewhere near the—"

I didn't catch the rest of what she said, because I was already running, snaking through the sea of people toward the hatch. Trai was right beside me, and Fairleigh and Nessa were at our heels.

Perfecta was the first person I saw. She was standing just beside the hatch, yelling at a skinny man who cowered at the sight of her. I barely glanced at her, though, because beside her knelt the obvious form of Caleb. He was hunched over the hatch, reaching into it, pulling something out.

A body.

For a moment, I thought he'd gone back to save Abby. But no; not only was this figure larger than Abigail, but it was decidedly less mangled. Caleb stood, grabbing the person by the hands and dragging them out of the hole. A curtain of brown hair shielded their face, but it was blown out of the way when Caleb released the body and let it fall to the earth. A lovely face was revealed, with eyes closed and pursed lips that were just barely moving with panting breaths.

It was Miracle.

"What is she doing here?" Nessa demanded, recognizing the Superior just as I did.

Perfecta shrugged helplessly. "He insisted on bringing her. She's dying, though. Won't live through the next five minutes."

Caleb stood next to Miracle's still body, one hand in his hair and the other on his waist. He stared up at the Capitol dome, panting, as sweat dripped down his face and mingled with his blood.

I said his name quietly, and he turned around.

"Delaney, Trai," he said, relief etched across his features. "You made it out."

"Yeah," I murmured. "So did you." He nodded.

Beside me, Trai said nothing.

"Are we quite done here?" a voice bellowed, interrupting us. Everyone in the vicinity stopped their chatter and explanations as they turned to Fairleigh, who looked ready to explode. The remote, still clutched in his hand, was pointed at the dome.

"If everyone," he began tightly, "is now out of that city, I am going to press this button. Does anyone have any objections?"

"Actually, sir, Joel and Christine are still—"

"I DON'T GIVE A DAMNED CARE!" Fairleigh thundered, and his thumb slammed down onto the center of the remote.

From inside the Capitol dome came a strange, muffled sound, much like a cracking eggshell. It was followed by a deep, heavy, resounding thud, one that rippled through the air almost visibly. The ground shuddered wildly beneath our feet.

A thousand hairline cracks began to form on the dome's surface, tracing down its sides in slow motion. The entire structure shuddered.

Trai let out a strangled cry. I turned to him, concerned, and suddenly his arms were around me, his face buried in my shoulder and his hands fisted in my hair. "Abby," he whimpered in a voice thick with emotion. I could feel his tears soaking through my shirt, and my own pouring down my face. Tears for the amazing, courageous girl whom we had left behind.

"It's okay," I murmured. "We're okay."

We stayed like that, tangled in a despairing yet relieved embrace, as the Capitol dome gave a final shudder. Then, with a rush, a pillar of fire came rushing up from the earth and burst through the the glass in a shower of sparks. Millions of glittering shards came raining down , coming to rest in the ash-filled crater that had once been the Capitol. Light bounds off of their sharp edges, reflecting golden beams into our eyes. It was over. It was really, truly, finally over.

And all around us, a hundred Pro-Inferior rebels screamed for joy.

A/N: Contrary to how it may seem, this is not the final chapter. I suppose I could end it here, if I really wanted to, but there are a few loose ends that I have to tie up.

I also feel the need to inform everyone that this story is now over 128,000 words and 200 words pages long. At this rate, it's going to be even longer than the original draft. Joy.