"No." I shake my head hard. "No!" I shout. "They can't be."

"They are." Mark snaps. "You disappear and then everything goes to shit."

My stomach rolls, he's right. He's so right. This is all my fault. I'm the one who abandoned my home and family, I'm the one who got them the coins that got them into trouble. I brought this onto all of these innocent people whose lives were already so depressing. Coming here to live out your days until you die a worthless death was bad enough. Now because of my actions, their lives all got ten thousand times worse while I was living it up in the Hub with the Custodes like I was someone special.

This is all my fault.

"There has to be something I can do." The resilient side of my brain refuses to admit the defeat here. "There has to be, there is no way that they're gone."

"Dead, gone, in jail, wherever they are, they aren't coming back." Mark sighs. "This is the way things are now. So however you managed to disappear before, do it again." He turns and jumps back down into the ditch, the two little girls watching me warily as they huddle behind him.

"Come on, Mali." Oliver pulls but I pull right back.

"No!" I snap at him then look back to Mark. "When did they take them?" I ask and he shrugs.

"Maybe three or four days after you vanished."

Three or four days? They'd only gotten to enjoy having coin for food for three or four days before their lives were ruined all over again? It wasn't right. It wasn't fair. I know life isn't supposed to be fair, but this just seems like too much. All those poor children stuck working now, and no Mags around to throw out bread scraps to those who can't afford it. Gods, who knows what happened to Mr. Mags without Mags here to look after him.

I feel like my whole world is crashing down around me and I'm powerless to make it stop. Powerless to do anything but stand idly by while lives of the ones I love the most are destroyed all for me. I never should have left. It was selfish and stupid of me. I should have stayed. I could have found another way to help take care of everyone. With Tawny, we could figure out anything.

If only she were here now to tell me what to do, but she isn't. She's...

I can't bring myself to say it even in my own head. She can't be. I won't let her be. She's the one who always knows exactly what to do, and to fix this I need her. I need her and Mags and everyone else to be safe. I need to find her. She can't be...I won't let her be.

"They took them to Utopia?" I ask. "You're sure?"

Mark glares up at me. "That's what they said." He bites out. "They arrested them and said they would answer for their crimes in Utopia."

"What crimes?" I sigh. "They didn't do anything wrong."

"Having that much coin around here, they assumed it was stolen somehow. It wasn't right for a couple of Ring dwellers to have that kind of coin here, and they couldn't tell where they got it from, so they took them back. They said they'd get their answers one way or the other."

"Well then you don't know what happened to them once they got there." I point out. "Maybe they're alive, or on trial, or I don't know..."

"Yeah," Mark mocks me. "Maybe they're sipping spring waters and eating cakes with the Worthy right now."

"That's not necessary." Oliver steps in. "You're being needlessly cruel."

Mark throws back his head and laughs. "Needlessly cruel? Me?" He laughs harder. "That's something special coming from you. Who are you anyway? Where have you two been while the rest of us burn? That's what's needlessly cruel. Living like this. Don't like it? Go back to whatever hole you've been hiding in."

"Looks to me that you're the one hiding in a hole." Oliver snaps back at him.

"Gee? I wonder why that could be?" Mark's voice pitches higher. "I'm trying my hardest to stay alive and keep these two alive too. What's your excuse?"

Oliver jumps forward, but I jerk him back, tossing him behind me onto the dirt. "Stop it!" I cry out. "Both of you just stop! This is my fault, and I've got to fix it!"

"Mali," Oliver shoves to his feet, reaching for me. "This isn't your fault."

"It is." I step away. "It is."

"Glad we can agree on something." Mark scoffs and Oliver's cheeks burn red.

Oliver spits onto the ground beside the ditch. "She's taken you out once before, does she need to do it again?"

Mark smiles at the jab. "Would be even easier now, wouldn't it? Neither of you seem to have missed any meals. Tell me, Malikah, how easy would it be for you to snap my arms now?"

"Stop it." I whisper. "Please, I want to help you. Tell me how to help."

"Just leave." He says. "You're good at that."

One hot tear stings down my cheek. "You're right." I nod. "I'll leave."

"Come on," Oliver nods.

I shake my head though. "I'll leave, to go find Tawny...and Mags. I'll find them and I'll..."

"Find them?" Mark asks, all menace drained from his voice. "They're gone. How would you find them?"

"You said they took them to Utopia, right?"

He nods. "Yeah, but no one has ever made it back on their own. The mud pits are impossible-."

"I can do it." I tell him. "I will go to Utopia and get them. I'll save them. I'll do one thing right."

Oliver's face goes pale. "Malikah, we can't-."

"We have to."

"You don't understand, we can't interfere. We aren't even supposed to be here, remember? We can't just stage a rescue mission on our own. They aren't one of us, and-."

"I don't care if they are one of us or not!" I snap. "I'm going."

"Mali-."

"I'm going with or without your help." I tell him. Without him, I know I'll die trying to cross the pits. The thick sticky mud will pull me down and inch into my lungs and suffocate or drown me in my efforts, but at least it would be a death doing the right thing. I won't run again. "I have to save them."

"You don't even know if they're alive!" Oliver points out, gripping his hair with both hands. "You could die for nothing."

"No, I'd die for something."

"Mali..."

"Oliver, please." I beg, reaching for his hands. "Please, you can help me, we can do this, together. I need you. I'll do it without you, but please...please help me. It's my fault that they're in this mess. I have to do whatever I can to save them."

"They're already-." Mark tries to cut in but I shout over him.

"-You don't know that!"

Oliver's throat looks tight as he swallows hard. His Adam's apple bobbing. His tongue darts out to wet his bottom lip before he bites into it, walking backwards away from me. One hand raises to brush through his shiny auburn hair, but behind his blue eyes I can see he's battling. He wants to help, but he also doesn't. Two sides to him and one side is going to win out. He's either going to take me to Utopia to find my friends, or he's going to leave me here and try to forget this all ever happened. If he did leave, I tell myself I'd understand. This isn't his fight or his family or his home. He could cut ties with me and protect himself.

"This is too dangerous, Malikah." He says and I feel a little piece inside of me chipping away. He's not going to help. I'll have to go at this alone. I'll be dead by the next moon cycle. "It's so dangerous."

"I know." I nod, trying to make it easier on him. I shouldn't guilt him into making a decision that could very well be the end of his life. "You can go." I tell him and I do mean it. I need him, but I won't force him. "Let people think I snuck out and got lost or killed or something. You don't have to go down with me."

His eyes catch mine and for a half second he looks like someone entirely different. His face relaxed and eyes wide, he looks so...I can't put a finger on it. The corners of his eyes crinkle and his expression pinches for a moment before he smooths it back out, looking at me fiercely. "No." He whispers.

"What?" I'm not sure I heard him right. I couldn't have.

"I won't let you do it alone." He says quickly. "I helped get you and them into this mess, and I'll help you back out of it."

"It's so dangerous." I echo his words back at him.

He smiles once, tight. "I know. I know what we're walking into."

"You're both insane." Mark throws up his hands.

I turn to him and look him dead in the eyes. "I'm sorry." I whisper. "For everything. I'm going to try my best to fix this."

"How?" He gapes at Oliver and me. "What can the two of you do?"

"Maybe nothing, but we've got to try." I tell him.

Oliver steps in, putting a hand on my shoulder.

"I can't make any promises." He whispers to me and I nod, putting my hands over the tops of his. "They may not even be there anymore."

"I know." I close my eyes. "I'm ready when you are."

I take a deep breath, picturing Tawny's beautiful face in my mind as the feel of the swift push comes. I'm ready for it this time, but what I'm not ready for is the sudden zap of electricity that shoots through my hands and up my forearms. Without meaning to, or thinking about it, I let go.

I release my grip on Oliver's hands and he shouts at me as we both hit the ground hard.

I land awkwardly, the breath knocking out of me and I choke on the smoky air around me as I try uselessly to drag a good breath into my lungs.

"No." Oliver's one ominous whisper forces my eyes open.

This is not Utopia.

This is not the Ring.

This is not Earth.

One look around us, and the look of pure terror on Oliver's face tells me exactly where we are.

Hell.

"What happened?" I push up onto my knees, scooting closer to Oliver. "Why are we here?"

His head jerks from side to side and then he grabs me by the upper arms and pulls me up to stand with him. "This is bad."

"No kidding." I slap at his hand on me.

"Malikah, do you know where we are?"

I don't want to say it out loud. I don't even want to think it. But yes, I know where this must be. I nod slowly. "Why are we here?"

"I don't know." His simple statement spikes another jolt of fear through me.

I'm scared to, but it's impossible not to let my eyes wander away from his face.

The eerie darkness is cut up only by holes in the ground that blow fire up into the air three times Oliver's height. Smoke plumes waft in the stale hot air and as far as my eyes can see there is nothing but flat black rock, interrupted every few miles by tiny caves that shine brightly from inside with fire. The sky is nothing. No stars, not moons, nothing but darkness and ominous wafting clouds that seem to whisper things to me. Things that make my heart race with fear even though I can't focus in on what they're actually saying to me.

I feel like I'm going mad, trying to hear the whispers from the darkness.

"Mali, focus on me." Oliver shakes my shoulders and I snap my attention back to him. "Keep your head down and guard yourself."

"How?" I gaps, choking on the thick smoky air again. It makes my eyes burn and water, sweat pours from my body, drenching me. It should cool me, but it's just so hot, the air so heavy that it feels like the sweat is boiling against my exposed flesh and burning me down to my bones.

"Your mind." Oliver puts a finger to my forehead. "Don't let anything in except for what you're trying to do. Don't let yourself become distracted."

"What happens if I can't?" I gasp, clenching my throat with both hands. "I can't breathe, Oliver."

"You can." He says evenly. "Look into my eyes and take deep breaths. It's almost over."

I can't focus on his words, only the intense stare. I hone in on it. Latching my being to his stare. Nothing exists but him and me in this moment and as long as I keep my eyes on his, everything will be ok.

As the first slow breath soothes my aching lungs I will my mind to calm itself.

"We have to get out of here." I say as calmly as possible. "How did we end up here?"

Oliver takes a deep breath. "I don't know, Mali." He says, causing a bit of the panic to pick back up in the back of my mind. "I did everything the same way as usual. This has never happened to me before. Did you feel the shock too?"

"Yes." I nod quickly. "What was that?"

He's quiet for a second, too long because the hiss of another fire spire closer to us makes me jump so hard I nearly fall to the hot black stony ground. "Stay close to me." He whispers, pulling me under one of his arms and placing me firmly against his body. "We're going to be ok."

"You promise?"

His body goes still. "I already told you no promises." He sighs. "But we'll try our best. We've got to get somewhere to hide." He whispers down to me.

I try to pull away but he won't let me. "I don't want to hide, I want to go home. Take me home, now!"

He turns me to face him, putting his hands on tops of my shoulders. "Malikah, I don't know what happened, but...the shock...the ring is destroyed."

"D-d-destroyed?" I can't even swallow.

He nods once. "What if...the gods could have noticed us or have been watching. What if they stopped us from meddling anymore by sending us here?"

I blanch. "Are you saying we are stuck here?"

He swallows back hard too, looking around. "I'm saying, I don't know what to do right now, and I don't think standing out in the open is our best option."

"Why not?" I whisper, his words seeping into my scattered brain. He has no way to get us home. Now way to let anyone know where we are because we snuck out in the first place. We're stuck here...in hell. Where the-.

I don't even get to finish the thought. Coming from all around us at every angle are loud moans and screams. They sound so tortured, so pained, that my own body hurt and my own heart cracks with the weight of their cries.

"Mali, no!" Oliver shakes me. "don't listen."

He looks all around and then breaks out into a run.

I can't stop hearing them though, and then I can see them. Shadowy figures like floating ink shakes and moves like ghosts, walking directly through the fires. Their strange bodies unaffected by the flames, their cries only get louder as they move in faster.

"Ignore it!" Oliver says, looking back over his shoulder to where he drags me behind him, my own legs moving numbly beneath me.

Run...a twisted voice echoes in my mind.

Dead. You're dead. Another whispers.

I want to cover my ears, but the sounds are coming from inside me, not outside.

"Malikah!" Oliver shouts, shoving me away from him so fast I hardly register what's happening before a flaming spire shoots up from the ground I'd just been on. My senses reawakened I scramble back to my feet and follow Oliver. "In there!" He points to the closest little cave. "They can't follow you in, they have to stay in the dark."

I pump my feet faster, the ground burning the flesh but I continue to move.

Oliver dashes into the cave before me but I stall at the short opening. The heat radiating from inside is enough to make me feel like the hair on my head and the clothes on my body may combust and it's so bright it hurts my eyes. One look behind me though and I see the lines of them, all quivering and shaking like liquid shadows watching me from a few yards back.

Inside is death. A whisper wraps around my brain again, but forced between the choice of out here with them, or inside the heat with Oliver, I chose Oliver.

I step in and Oliver pulls me to the far back corner.

If I'd thought it was hot out there, in here was death. Nothing should be able to breathe in here, yet I kind of was. "What...now..." I pant.

The cave isn't much bigger than my dorm room back at the Hub, but one whole side of the cave is a lake that's on fire.

"It's lava." Oliver says, staring over me at it too.

It bubbles, boiling hot and angry. I nervously inch closer to Oliver to get away from the ledge. "I'm scared." I whisper. "I never should have left."

Oliver grabs my shoulders and pulls me into his chest, brushing my wet hair away. "I'm so sorry, Malikah. I really am, you have no idea." His body shivers and I hug him back. "I'm sorry. Forever I am."

I pull back to tell him this isn't his fault, but his hand jerks between us, grabbing the large blue stone of my necklace he rips the chain from around my neck and throws my necklace behind me, landing it in the middle of the pond of lava.

I'm shocked and stunned as I watch it sink beneath the surface.

I turn back to Oliver, my heart stopping in my chest.

"I'm sorry." He whispers again, just before he shoves me with all of his strength right into the pit of lava.