The silence is thick, and my pulse races as I try to make sense of what I'm witnessing.

"How certain are you of her death?" A voice asks, breaking the stillness. It's not a human voice—there's something twisted about it. The voice is neither male nor female but a warped choir of hundreds of voices speaking in unison.

"We are a hundred percent certain." This time, it's a man who answers. I can see him a few feet away, standing rigid. Somehow, I know he can't sense me here.

The strange voice slithers, a chilling sound that seems to bypass my ears and sink directly into my mind. "Do you have her body?"

The man's voice wavers and I can see a tremor run through him. "No, the Catchers took her."

"You fool!" the voice bellows, a blast of rage that forces me to shrink back. "Do you have any idea how much of a liability that girl is?" I hold my breath, every nerve on edge, as I wait for it to continue. Deep down, I know they're talking about me.

"She's just a human—" the man starts, but his words are immediately cut off.

"That human has access to the hive mind!" the voice booms again. The man goes pale, his shock is visible even from where I stand.

"What?" he stammers, disbelief flooding his face.

"And what's worse," the voice hisses, laced with venom, "is that we cannot sense her! And now you tell me that she's joined forces with the Catchers!"

A sudden voice behind me breaks the moment. "Evangeline?" I spin around, heart pounding, and come face-to-face with a familiar figure.

"You?" I breathe, unable to hide my shock.

It's the Catcher!

"What are you doing here?" I whisper.

But before he can answer, the man's stammering voice pulls me back to the strange scene. "But she couldn't have survived. You saw it yourself, in that child's mind."

"No," the sinister voice replies, cold and certain. "She's still alive. I know it. I feel it when a connection disappears. Her's still pulses."

The man stands a little taller, his fear momentarily replaced by purpose. "If you can feel the connection, then perhaps you could locate her?"

Dread washes over me, my heart hammering. I try to force myself to stay calm, but the fear is electric, searing.

"I cannot." The voice is tense with frustration. "All I feel is a phantom connection. I cannot reach her mind, cannot read her thoughts. That's what makes her dangerous. Her connection to me is severed, yet she still has access to the hive mind. This is why they knew about the plan at the detention facility. Right now, that girl is our greatest threat. She must be eliminated."

The Catcher's gaze moves to the man and then locks onto me. His expression, dark and intense. His eyes bore into mine, filled with a mixture of surprise and something else—realization, maybe? His voice drops, soft but charged with conviction.

"It's you," he says quietly, his stare unwavering. "You're the key."

~~**~~

My eyes slowly peeled open.

It was a dream.

I blinked against the light as I used my elbows to lift myself off the bed. The sharp excruciating pain radiating from my chest at the sudden movement had me falling back.

I took in my surroundings. I was in the room I had been placed in when the Catcher had first brought me here.

I huffed out a determined breath as I slowly started to get up again. This time the pain was bearable thankfully.

I noticed that I was currently shirtless and my entire upper torso was bandaged. I felt the thick gauzy material between my fingers.

My eyes widened in realization as my brain finally recalled what had happened.

That child... he had stabbed me.

Blurry memories of what had happened after pierced through my head-

Zee running to take hold of the boy. Him struggling against her and then suddenly going limp. The Catcher carrying me to the lift. Getting into the back of the truck again.

The Catcher looking down at me, this time without his armor.

"Don't fly away, my lovely dove." I heard him whisper.

I replay the words in my mind again and then shake my head. I had clearly been hallucinating because there was no way he'd said that, it made no sense.

Just as I began to lose myself in the chaos of my thoughts, the door opened softly, and Zee walked in, her presence immediately brightening the dim room. Her face lit up when she saw me awake. Her face lit up when she saw me. "Oh good! You're awake." She clapped her hands together excitedly. "Come on let's go!"

"Go where exactly?" I raised my eyebrows in question and folded my arms in front of my chest only to wince as a stab of pain pierced through me at the movement.

She gave me a pointed look.

"I think it's time you learned what's really going on around here, don't you?"