Somehow the words made me feel a little better. They made me feel good about not giving Dunbar the lie he wanted to hear. He had the “overwhelming might of the enemy,” that was for sure. He could beat me up as much as he wanted and there wasn’t anything I could do to stop him. But the truth-the truth belonged to me. It was mine, and I hadn’t let him take it from me.

Lying on the floor in my own blood, I closed my hand. It was funny: I would almost swear I felt another hand in mine.

I’m not alone, Dunbar, I thought. I’m never alone.

I found the strength to rise.

Groaning, I got to my knees. I took hold of the edge of my cot. I pulled myself up and climbed slowly to my feet. I hobbled slowly to the steel sink in the corner and washed my face, watching the blood swirl down the drain. When I raised my eyes to the small square of mirror on the wall, the sight wasn’t pretty. My face was purple and swollen and cut, but at least the bleeding had stopped.

I went back to my cot and dropped down onto the thin mattress. I stretched out on my back and lay staring up at the white concrete ceiling. The faces of the people I loved and missed rose up before me again and then…

Then, with a sort of flash, there was something else.

A dark night. A torrential rain. A flash of lightning.

I blinked, shaking my head. This was more like a vision than a memory. For one flashing second, that rainy night had seemed real; it had seemed to surround me.

I breathed deeply, slowly, hoping that would be all there was. I didn’t think I was strong enough to go through a memory attack right now. But then…

Then there it was again. Another flash. The dark night on every side of me. The rain lanced down at the windows. They were the grated windows of a bus. A prison bus. It was rumbling and shuddering around me.

I understood what this was. Of course. I had been in prison once before. I had been convicted of murdering my friend Alex Hauser. I’d been convicted of plunging a knife into his chest after we had an argument over Beth. It was a frame-up, a false accusation, all part of Waterman’s plan to get me into the Homelanders, to convince them that I was ready to join their terrorist crew. After my arrest…