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beyond that. There’s no way out. It looks just like an island, and the guards look just like people, and the mile-long bridge doesn’t need guns or barricades, because it lifts—it ceases to be a bridge unless a bridge is needed. This is a prison, and I am its captive. The air above is restricted airspace. And below the water, there’s a cage. Steel netting, hooked into the floor, and it rises up out of the water, attached to steel posts. Everyone knows this. Algae and seaweed make it look natural. Beautiful, even. But this is a prison. There’s no way through it. I’d have to climb up over the top, and everyone would see. Then again, I’d have to be able to swim there in the first place.
    â€œTrust me,” she says as she zips up the dress and backs away.
    â€œYou’re not coming with me?” I ask.
    I cover my face as another round of smoke drops over us. Over the whole island. Cameron darts out of the clearing. “Let’s go,” he says to her, not even looking at me.
    â€œWe jump somewhere else,” she says. “With your tracker.”
    And then I understand. She will be running through the smoke with another person, dressed like me, carrying my tracker. She is the diversion.
    â€œI can’t,” I say. I grip on to her, like she’d been doing to me.
    â€œYou have to,” Cameron says. “You can’t see him, but Dom’s there. He’s outside the cove. Under the surface. He’s waiting for you.”
    â€œOkay?” Casey says, but I shake my head. Not okay. There must be another way. I’ve been training. I am strong, but I’m seized with the fear of water in my lungs. With the fear of never resurfacing, of drowning, of dying, of becoming nothing. I can’t will myself to jump—to trust that I can reach the surface, to trust that someone is waiting for me.
    â€œWe’re behind schedule,” Cameron mumbles. He turns me around, facing the water, and I realize what he’s about to do the second before he does it.
    â€œI can’t swim!” I scream, but it’s too late. His hands are already on my back, and his weight is already behind it, and I’m leaning over the edge—my feet kick up dirt, and I feel Cameron’s fingers grasping at my shirt. He’s too late. I’m too far. I feel air, and my feet clamber for nothing. My hands, for nothing.
    But then I feel him still, his fingers tightening on thefabric, and then his arm around my waist, but I’m still falling. No.
We
are falling.
    We hit the water, and it’s colder than I imagined it would be. And it slams into my side—or my side slams into it—at the same moment my head collides with Cameron’s. Either way, it feels nothing like freedom.

Chapter 4
    The shock of cold wears off, and my head throbs, and my eyes burn, but the cut on my rib burns far more. I feel Cameron pulling me by the waist, his legs moving below, and I keep mine still, against instinct, so I don’t make things worse. We break through the surface, and I suck in air. Except the water crests up at the same moment, and I take in salty water, burning a path to my lungs.
    Cameron lets go of me as he turns his face to the top of the cliff, and I start to slip under. I reach up and throw my arms over his shoulders in a panic, taking him down with me.
    He pushes me off under the water, then comes up coughing, holding me by my arm. I follow his gaze to the top of the cliff and see Casey leaning over the edge. He waves vigorously for her to go, and she disappears.
    â€œ
Shit
,” he says. “Shit, shit, shit.” Then to me: “Float. Can’t you even do that?”
    My face burns. My stomach burns. I didn’t expecteverything about the ocean to burn. It seems like it should do the opposite.
    I try to do as Cameron says. I lie back, but my hips dip first, and then the rest of me, like my body mass is off. Over the last year, I’ve