On Thursday they moved. The first part of the plan was simple: Eliza would need access to their computers and she could bring the planes down for good, then there would be no threat of retaliation and there would be no more sailboats flying above the innocent woods. Athena was a spy and knew Wrigley better than anyone; she'd get her in.

"You sure you can do this fast?" she asked at the end of the tunnel. From the light of their flashlight they could see a narrow ladder not unlike the bunker that would ascend into the basement of some unsuspecting basement. "It's not too late to go back."

"We're doing this," said Eliza. Ronan and Bianca were already in the city—their job was the difficult one.

"Then let's try not to get killed in the process," Athena muttered. She reached into her backpack and handed her a pistol. "Beth didn't want me to arm you but I don't particularly care for her orders. Can you shoot?"

"Decently," she shrugged. If things went well she wouldn't need to. She'd brought a knife regardless, there was no way in Hell she was going in unarmed.

The tunnel emerged into an apartment building, but where they were going was nearly a mile away. "It's down this way," Athena said. Her head was covered by a helmet that mirrored the guards stationed throughout the city. Covered faces worked to their advantage; the odds were too high that someone may recognize her. She'd only betrayed them a week ago. Eliza's was unveiled but that posed no danger—every soldier who'd seen her in the plane was dead.

She led her into a narrow hallway in a cinder-block building. The building itself didn't look like anything at all. That was smart, Eliza thought, to hide their most important weapon in plane sight. Nobody would ever look twice. They took the elevator down to the basement, it should have been safer than the stairs, but another masked soldier entered behind them.

Eliza held her breath as the door closed, hands drifting over her jacket pocket where she had the gun concealed. She hadn't been prepared to bring a holster.

"How's your day been?" the stranger asked. It was a man speaking, but he sounded young. Muffled by the helmet, but his voice was not gruff. She could almost imagine there was a face beneath it.

"Just fine," Athena shrugged. "The weather's great out, I'm feeling good."

"Right? It's been raining so much, it's great to see the sun." He turned to Eliza. "What're you down here for?"

Before she could speak, Athena jumped in. "There's a mechanical issue downstairs, she's the one they sent."

"You're old enough to fix it?"

"I had the same reaction," Athena said. "Turns out she's twenty-two." She was eighteen. Eighteen and surprised by how smooth Athena could speak. She must have been a damn good spy.

The elevator doors opened slowly, smoother than the walls in the camp but the metal reminded her of the stones. Everything was easier in the woods. Her stomach churned and twisted into knots and for a moment she almost wished she were underneath the trees and running from the monsters in the dark.

There were two guards stationed beside a door, the man from the elevator approaching as if it was time for him to relieve one of their shifts.

"Said this girl's fixing some mechanical issue," he said to the other guards, gesturing to the imposters.

"Who cleared you?" one of the soldiers asked, this one a woman.

"Kirkland," said Athena. "Computer 47 is down."

"Don't have any reports on that," she said. "We'll radio him, make sure you're cleared."

Athena sighed, "Yeah, that won't be happening." And before Eliza could grasp what was happening she was hearing the gunshots again, tearing through the silence and the dark and echoing through the hallway, waves rolling in and crashing metal and when her vision cleared she saw the image now and her hands were shaking.

Two of the guards were bleeding out on the ground and a third held his gun to Athena's head. There was a radio in his hand, but she hadn't heard him speak yet and she couldn't let that happen. His vest was bulletproof and she couldn't aim for his neck but she'd packed a knife in her boot and then she had it in her shaking hand and went charging towards him.

She made contact but it wasn't deep enough, he was still standing as his blood seeped out of the wound and onto her hand but he had not seen her coming and dropped his weapon on the ground. Another gunshot, and she turned to see Athena regripping hers, her helmet still secure on her head. The man fell to the ground, blood staining the wooden floors.

His blood was warm on her hand and it was shaking like never before, she crumbled to her knees, tears in her eyes and choking in her throat. The blood dug below her nails, into every crease of her palm. The gunshots had stopped but they replayed in her head so loud she wasn't sure if they were real or false and the world was spinning too, tipped off its axis and turning faster than it was ever meant to. The blood was red and warm and all she could see.

She felt Athena's hand rest gently on her shoulder. "We need to move, Eliza," she said. "We need to save your friend."

~*~*~*~*~*~

Wrigley was nothing like O'Hara and nothing like they expected. The streets were narrow and suffocated, dark in the shadows of the buildings that stretched out towards the sky. The world felt sick and quiet, the bitter taste of sadness in every alleyway. Bianca could recall images of Chicago—this wasn't where they were. The old city was never so close to the airport, she'd looked upon the maps before they left.

"How the hell are we supposed to find him?" Ronan whispered, but she could tell his voice was full of fake anger to hide his fear. "This city's huge, he could be anywhere."

"Athena said the kitchen's underground but the entrance is publicly visible," she shrugged. That was the part they hadn't thought through; it was too hard to create a plan when the most important piece could not respond. Xavier was as in the dark as the cracked sidewalks starved from the sun.

"And then what?" He could feel the people's eyes staring them down. They knew they were imposters, that they did not belong. They could see right through their skin. "We can't just waltz in and hand him a gun."

The alley opened up into an open square, the sun finally emerging and the air crisp and clean. The old cement was replaced by cobblestones and the walls were painted in reds and yellows and browns and the people who busied their way around could breathe and not one even saw the strangers by the side. Stands were set up in the center of the space, carts filled with fruits and artisan pieces filled with more color than she could have ever imagined. The bunker was dark and the woods were green but this—this was what it may have been before. Bianca's heart was light; the sky had turned blue and empty of clouds.

On the opposite side of the market, Ronan could have sworn he saw a face he knew. She was far away with a wisp of blonde hair and could have been anyone but he had to blink twice to make sure he was right and even then he wasn't sure. Her name was Quinn Saturn and she'd lived next door to him all his life and she was one of their own, the Saviors as they'd been called when they fell asleep. She was one of the four who disappeared. He'd known her far longer than he'd known Marko; he was almost ashamed he'd forgotten her name.

But she was here, it had to be her. He grabbed Bianca's wrist and started walking fast, fast enough that they would receive no glances but Quinn was moving away and he couldn't risk losing his shot. Bianca's brows furrowed in confusion but she didn't ask what he was doing. She knew that he knew where his feet were taking them.

"Quinn!" He called, just as the girl turned a corner and almost ducked out of sight. She whipped around quickly, and it was then that she saw them and that Bianca knew just where they stood.

The girl's eyes were puzzled, but she swallowed down her questions and removed her hand from tucked deep in a sweatshirt pocket. "Ronan, right?" she said, then turned to Bianca. "Sorry, I forgot your name, it's been—"

"Bianca," she said quickly. "And it's no problem."

"Heard you all made it to a different city." There was more skepticism in her tone than anything else, as though she didn't quite trust their presence. "Why are you here?"

"Did Xavier tell you that?" asked Ronan. She nodded and he released a deep sigh. They'd found him. That was the hardest part. "Are all four of you okay? You and Marko and the others?" Sawyer and Sammy, he thought were their names but he couldn't quite remember who they were. He didn't know them well in training or on the ground; his memories came up dry. He'd almost forgotten that Quinn didn't have any of hers.

"It's just me and Marko," she said. "Us and your friend, I mean. Sam and Sawyer escaped, they make it to your city?"

"Not that I've heard," he shook his head and saw the way the a faint light faded in her eyes. Time would not wait. Eliza and Athena would nearly be in the city by now. He reached into his bag and unfolded a piece of fabric, revealing a pistol. "Get this to Xavier, tell him tonight when the sirens blare."

Her eyes widened. "I can't smuggle that in," she snapped.

"Then take this," Bianca said. She reached into her own bag, unveiling what she had stolen from Xavier's. This wasn't part of the plan. Ronan frowned; he wasn't going to be happy they'd hidden it all this time. She passed over a small parcel, a scrap of fabric tied together with twine. "He'll know what to do." Quinn simply nodded, tucking it into her pocket.

"Is there a back entrance to the kitchen?" Ronan asked.

"Corner of Eden and Grove," she said, but her eyes were drifting elsewhere. She'd been gone for awhile. They'd begin to notice soon.

"Good," he smiled. "When the sirens blare, you three get there as soon as you can. We've got a way out."

"I'll get back then," she said. Her hands were shoved back in her pockets as she began to walk away, paying little attention to them still standing in the alleyway. She wasn't the Quinn in his memories. That girl was brash and full of fire; the one he saw bit her tongue before she spoke. And she couldn't remember. She did not know just who she was before.

"What did you give her?" Ronan asked only after she was out of earshot.

"Poison." She said it quickly, the word sharp as a needle.

He sighed, recognizing the parcel as the sort he'd constructed in their first days on the ground. "You kept the nightshade, didn't you?"

Bianca didn't respond, but her silence gave him the answer he needed. She expected him to turn on her, turn like he did after the very first beast and a remnant of an old memory she used to keep slipped from her lips. He would turn on her like she was the beast herself, like she was the one they needed saving from.

But he didn't turn at all and smiled instead. "Had a feeling you two were hiding something," he said, something almost like laughter lining his lips. "This is the first time you've used it, right?"

"Yeah," she said. "Emergencies only, we both understood that."

"Well this looks like an emergency to me." His eyes were trained towards the sky. The sun was starting its journey towards the horizon—they still had time but it was counting down. "Let's go, we need to be ready when it's done."