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glimpse of it. Long and silver—it looks like a square flashlight. She positions her hand over a blinking light on the side of the Regenerator. The machine beeps five times before the glass panel flips open. My body shivers visibly as Coleman brushes back strands of my blond hair.
    “Are you sure you just don’t want to wait until—”
    “What I want is her functional within forty-eight hours,” I say in the strange voice. “And don’t shave her head this time. She looked hideous the last time you did that. And no new scars, either—she already has plenty.”
    Wake up. Please.
    I want to turn away as Dr. Coleman presses the square black tip of the tool to my scalp. But my thoughts and actions in my dreams are just the same as reality. Severed. The body inside the machine comes fully to life when the doctor holds down a button on the device. Screaming, thrashing against dozens of metal arms sketching over the rest of its injuries. Somehow, I’d failed to notice them before.
    Wake up!
    At last, I untangle myself from the nightmare.
    And the pain of the girl who is struggling inside the machine coffin with the broken body—now it’s all mine.

CHAPTER THREE
    “I hate when that happens.”
    My first words when life rushes back into my body are so nonchalant, they nearly knock the breath out of me all over again. A throbbing ache claws the left side of my face, pulsating from my jawbone to my temple and, finally, to the top of my head. I try to open my eyes. They are so sticky, and I’m so weak, I only manage to part them enough to see slivers of bright light and dark faceless figures moving about. My breath quickens as panic surfaces in the pit of my belly and digs its way into my chest.
    Where am I?
    “Welcome back,” Ethan says. I can detect a hint of a smile behind his voice. Just like three years ago when we’d first met, right after a flesh-eater had attacked me, taking a chunk of my right ear with him.
    “Welcome to The Aftermath,” Ethan had said before helping me up. Then he’d touched my bleeding ear and added, “We better get that fixed. Wouldn’t want you to bleed out the first day in.”
    Now I should feel more relief he’s alive. That I am with him and not fenced in by rotting flesh and half-dead emaciated captives in a flesh-eater’s den. But I can’t. My head is aching, and the sensation slinks through the rest of my body, leaving a bitter sting wherever it touches. Like poison.
    “Here,” Ethan says. A wet cloth covers my eyelids. “Better now?”
    No. Not even a little. How could it be better when my head feels as if it’s about to explode and I’ve no recollection of what happened to me? The only thing I remember after being hit by the boy with the dark gray eyes is a string of horrible nightmares.
    A vision of me stretched out and bruised in a machine, with tiny mechanical hands repairing my body, flashes through my mind. I swallow back a sour taste in my mouth.
    No, nothing is better. And I have a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that things will become much worse.
    “It’s perfect,” I say, my voice scratchy. Raw. Suddenly, I don’t want to open my eyes. I want to stay like this, curled into the fetal position with my head ablaze until I gather my bearings. Piece together my broken memories.
    My eyes open anyway.
    Ethan’s face hovers over mine. He is smiling widely, despite the open cut on his lip. But for the first time, his eyes startle me. They aren’t injured or anything like that, but they’re glassy, like hazel marbles. My hands suddenly feel clammy. In the three years I’ve known Ethan, I’ve never felt wary around him.
    Until today.
    “I’m glad,” he says. His fingers intertwine with mine, and I feel weightless as he helps me to my feet.
    We aren’t in the jail, I realize as he pulls me to him and into a suffocating embrace. There are no cell doors, no chipping blue paint or exposed piping or opaque windows. This place is open and well-lit, thanks to