“I didn’t sleep a fucking wink all night.”

I growled my discomfort just as the shrill wake-up alarm rang out. Nothing about this was pleasant, and it was even worse when I couldn’t move. Having my body trapped in a straitjacket and pinned against a metal slab that heated up like hell whenever I struggled was one thing, but having my head restrained was unbearable. How was I supposed to see Break like this? How could I make sure he was all right without touching him or looking at him?

“Detention chambers aren’t designed for a good night’s sleep,” he said calmly.

And since I couldn’t see him, his voice soothed me. He was all right. I tugged at my straitjacket as though I might somehow manage to escape, but it was useless. Behind me, the heat of the metal rose slightly. I immediately calmed down at Break’s long exhale. If it heated up for me, it did the same for him. We shared the same chamber. Our little outburst hadn’t gone down well at all. Going after Jill hadn’t been my brightest idea, I had to admit, and Break had ended up dragged into the mess with me.

“It’s been four days. I’m starving.”

“They should come for us soon,” Break reassured me.

He was right. Luckily, Jill had been lenient. And he’d damn well better have been! I’d barely scratched him. It was the least he deserved for what he was putting us through. Just thinking about it made me so fucking furious… Dani… Where was Dani? We were here, powerless, while Dani was somewhere else without us. What the hell were we doing? Okay, he wasn’t helpless, but who could he rely on besides us? Was he all right? Had he—

“You’re thinking too loudly. Breathe. We’ll get our answers eventually.”

Break was calmer—or at least, he was better at pretending to be. Either way, all I could do was listen to him. Losing my temper four days ago hadn’t achieved anything except landing us in straitjackets and a detention chamber.

“Prisoner Br-11332. Prisoner Iv-99193.”

Speak of the devil… that fucking guard had finally decided to show his face.

“Your four-day detention for assaulting a guard ends today. You will be returned to your cell. Any further offences will double the duration of your stay in the detention chamber.”

“Okay, yeah, and are you going to answer our questions, or do you want me to rearrange your face one last time?”

Jill let out a long sigh. That bastard had the nerve to look annoyed? The door opened without a sound, and suddenly his damned face was right in front of mine. If there was one face I didn’t want anywhere near mine, it was his! Still, I supposed that was the sacrifice I had to make to get some answers.

“We won’t do anything. We’ll behave, but we need to know what happened to Dani—what you did with him. Where is he? Is he all right?”

The bastard gave nothing away. Which was why I was surprised when he actually answered us. I mean… I had left a wound on his cheek, and not a pretty one either.

“Dante is fine. He was released.”

I frowned. What? Released? The air suddenly drained from my chest at the news. Dani had been released?

“Released?” Break repeated, every bit as shocked as I was.

Jill stepped forward and moved a finger across the electronic device in his hand, releasing us. If the thought of doing something stupid again had crossed our minds, it would have been pointless. Guards were waiting outside the chamber, and the room itself probably would have been enough to neutralize us. I’d seen equipment like this before—built into walls, ready to fire at the slightest resistance. Not here. Not in prison, but outside.

Like everyone else, I had forgotten plenty of things. I remembered who I was, what I had done, and how SOTA worked, but it was like billions of images that made no sense, unable to come together and build anything coherent or logical. Dani, though… he had none of that. He had grown up here. How could they just leave him to fend for himself? Why had he been released?

“Why now? Why, after twenty-one years, did you decide to release him?”

Break had taken the words right out of my mouth.

“Dante came of age a few days ago. It’s the beginning of the month: the newcomers arrive, and those due for release are freed. Dante is different. He grew up here. In his case, the crimes he committed within the prison were pardoned.”

Jill didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, but I urged him on with a tilt of my head.

“His actions were recognized as self-defence. Children born in prison remain there until they are old enough to face what awaits them—adulthood, and with it, freedom.”

“He doesn’t know anything about the outside. Dani grew up here, as you so rightly pointed out. Does he at least get help reintegrating into society?” I asked.

And I had no hope. None. I remembered a surface where only the strongest had any chance of surviving and everyone else could simply die. Jill glanced behind him, more specifically at the guards, and after making sure they couldn’t hear him, he spoke.

“Dani is with friends of mine. I didn’t throw him to the wolves.”

Yeah, but… I didn’t trust him. Maybe Dani and Jill had started spending time together when they were young; maybe they had grown up together in a way, but I had a bad feeling about Jill. I didn’t like him. So friends of his? What a fucking disaster. To prove his point, he pulled a small metal card from his pocket. A purple rabbit was carved into its surface. A rabbit… no. That symbol stirred something in my memory, and as usual, Break got there before me.

“The Hares.”

I frowned. Yes… yes… that meant something to me.

“Those finger-ripping lunatics,” I remembered. “Yeah, I remember now. Ah, I knew there was something unbearably irritating about you!”

“You sent Dani to the Hares?”

“You have a good memory,” Jill praised falsely. “They’re his best chance of survival.”

Then he turned his back on us. I still had… We still had questions. I took a step forward, hoping to force him to continue the conversation, but Break stopped me by wrapping a hand around my wrist. He was right. There was no point getting ourselves into more trouble with Jill. Once again, all I had were disconnected images, but I remembered the Hares. Before I had been locked up here… they had been recognized as the law. They had a vicious reputation.

We followed Jill and the other guards without saying a word. If Dani really was in the hands of the Hares… he needed us. Or maybe Break and I were the ones who needed him. Probably. Break kept hold of my wrist, the contact comforting, but we both knew something was missing. Or rather, someone. Dani’s presence was… rooted in our veins, in our senses, and no longer being able to feel him had become physically painful.

After a long walk, we found ourselves in the common area where everyone ate. The guards let us rejoin the others and, true to form, remained silent and refused to look at us. Jill most of all. The prisoners we usually spent time with welcomed us with delighted shouts, but Break quickly led me away to a table. Sitting there together, neither of us spoke for a long while. And even after four days without food, hunger was ultimately the least of our concerns.

“We have to join him.”

I looked up at Break. His long grey strands covered his face. I tucked them behind his ear and leaned closer, making sure no one could overhear us.

“Hey, I want to find Dani just as much as you do, but do you hear yourself? How are we supposed to join him? Escape from here? This place is a fucking fortress. We don’t even know the way out. No one has ever left here alive without being released.”

When Break raised his head toward me, when his pale eyes locked onto mine, I immediately knew what he was going to say. I shook my head, anticipating him for the first time in years.

“Someone has escaped.”

“No, no. Someone claims he escaped, and look—the guy is still in prison. We never believed him before, so why the hell would we start now?”

“For Dani, Ivan.”

It pissed me off, but… he was right. Even so!

"Old Tram is out of his mind. He tells anyone who’ll listen that he’s already escaped from here, but you, me, and everyone else know he’s full of shit."

Break refused to look away from me. The sorrow in his eyes only made his gaunt features seem more pronounced, and I gave in with a sigh.

"Fine, but we’re only going to listen to him for now."

He didn’t need telling twice. He stood, and I followed him. Finding Old Tram wasn’t difficult. He always ate at the same table, in the same seat, with no one beside him. Over the years, everyone had grown tired of his stories, and now here we were, returning to his table to hear them from a different perspective. Break was desperate, and so was I. I couldn’t imagine refusing that tall, slender figure anything.

"Hey, Old Tram. Got room for us?" Break slipped in.

The old man lifted his head toward us and, with a toothless smile, invited us to sit. We settled across from him, and I cast an exasperated glance at my cellmate. I knew he was asking me to make an effort, and I intended to, but Old Tram interrupted me.

"Word is little Dani’s been released. Poor kid. Who knows what’s waiting for him out there? He doesn’t know anything about this world—not even colors."

The statement sent a chill down my spine.

"Colors?"

"Look around you, boys. Do you see even a trace of color? The guards’ badges and the blood you spill—that’s all Dani has ever known."

Yellow and blue… Was it really possible that he couldn’t recognize colors? No… Dani had been born here. Unlike us, he had never seen anything else.

"Tram, you’ve been here a long time. We know all your stories, but right now… we need your help. You said you’d already escaped from here. How?"

The old man laughed. What the hell was so funny? After all those years of laughing in his face, here we were asking for his help.

"I watched Dani grow up. A lot of us raised him. Some died, others were released, and the rest are still here, like me. But when you two arrived, something changed inside Dani."

I glanced around us. This moment wouldn’t last forever. The break would end soon. We had already taken too long to get here.

"We took care of him after Alice was released. Alice never wanted to leave his little boy behind, but they told him the child had to stay. Dani knew us. He trusted us. But every newcomer who arrived… he treated them with the same distrust Alice had, knowing that any one of them could hurt him."

He had caught my attention, though. I turned back to him. Alice… no one ever spoke about that. Dani hadn’t simply fallen through the window one day. Alice had given birth to him, and they had been torn apart at an age when Dani was old enough to understand that he would never see the person he loved most again. Alice was a forbidden subject for him. Too precious to touch; too painful to mention.

"But when the two of you arrived, Dani opened himself up to you. So… I’m going to tell you how to get out of here, because I think the kid will need you, whether it’s today or tomorrow… He trusts you."

Warmth spread through my chest. Through Break’s too—I could feel it.

"Look around you, boys. SOTA Prison is the most heavily guarded prison in the Ariode planetary system. They dug through the planet all the way to its core to build this fortress, and the three things connecting the prison to the surface are almost entirely beyond your reach."

I frowned as his trembling finger rose toward the sky.

"The first is the window, which gives us the right to glimpse SOTA’s elder brother, the sun Ariode. But unless you learn how to fly, that one’s a lost cause."

He pushed his plate aside and rested his arms on the table, his toothless smile still visible.

"The second is freedom. If you’re released, you’ll end up where most of those freed before you went—and where Dani is now. Unfortunately, neither of your sentences will ever allow that."

"That leaves death," I muttered. "We can’t exactly die, so what then?"

"Can’t you?" he chuckled. "All we need is for everyone else to believe you’re dead. Your pretty corpses are what will be taken up to the surface."