Light in Dark Places

By Mikki Samak

Joan Kaas wakes up seven years after Misery took her. No one can explain why. No one has ever woken up from Misery before. She learns that while she slept, her older sister Seung-ri overthrew a corrupt regime and is now a King, possessing a rare Prodigy-Class Ash talent, all to protect Joan while she slept. Joan doesn't know why she woke up, why she knows things she never learned before Misery took her, what her Ash talent is, or whether or not she's her sister's happy ending or her sister's tragedy.
But she knows Seung-ri has a lot of enemies.

And those enemies all know that if you want to hurt Seung-ri Kaas, you go after her sister.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mikki Samak
• Release date: Oct 18, 2018
• ISBN: 9780463863626

Book preview

Part One

Chapter One

Joan Kaas wakes with the taste of grief in her mouth. It is the loss that wakes her; the grief and that certainty that comes with it. She has lost something precious and now she feels destroyed.

No, she thinks. You cannot ask me to bear this. It is too much, too much.

She starts to cry. First it is involuntary tears, then she hiccups, then it is quiet wracking sobs that shake her whole body.

Distantly, she hears the voices.

Ashes, one of them woke up.

Then, "Don’t be absurd. They don’t wake up."

But look, she’s crying—

You’re imagining—oh Ashes.

The voices are frantic. Joan ignores them; she cannot possibly think about other people when she’s in this much pain.

How can I bear the loss—she begins the thought but cannot finish it. Eventually she realizes it is because she can’t finish it. She doesn’t know what she lost. She starts to panic; frenzy momentarily replacing her grief.

She is sad, she has lost something, but she can’t remember what she has lost.

Joan? a woman’s voice tentatively shakes her out of her panic and her grief. She cranes her head. There is a small woman there, pale all over. Pale skin and short white hair and washed out blue eyes. Joan, honey?

She wonders if she should know this person. At the moment she can’t seem to trust what she knows and what she does not. So she licks her lips and says, Who—are—

She can’t finish the sentence because the sound of her voice surprises her. It is hoarse and foreign to her own ears. This cannot be me, she thinks.

Ashes, the woman says, backing away. She really is awake. Someone needs to tell the Kings—good Ash, someone needs—Hart, don’t just stand there uselessly, go! Tell no one of this but the Kings—insist on seeing them.

The pale woman shakes a young man who stands there gaping. The jerking on his arm causes him to look away from Joan to the pale woman. The Miserable don’t wake. This can’t be happening.

"Well, this one did, and there’s no point in standing there so uselessly. Go."

Miserable. The word causes Joan to jolt. The Miserable do not wake. But—were they talking about her?

Memory comes unbidden.

Joan, darling, do you know who you are? the pale woman asks. Do you know what happened to you?

Joan stares at the pale woman, blinking slowly. Misery took me. I remember. Misery came to the Valley and it took me. Shouldn’t I—shouldn’t I be dead?

The pale woman nods her head. Yes. Or very near like. You have… you’ve been asleep for a little over seven years now.

*

Joan can sit up. This surprises the pale woman, who introduces herself as Dr. Sancia. You shouldn’t be able to move, was the first thing she said, even as Joan sat up.

I want to see a mirror, Joan says. She can see her body. There are breasts there now, and there hadn’t been in her last memory. She wants to see her face.

That is perhaps not a good idea, Dr. Sancia says.

Joan looks at the woman. Only looks at her. She is so very still; Joan is not sure she has ever been so aware of not moving. The stillness of her stare unnerves Dr. Sancia, and the older woman retreats and comes back momentarily with a handheld mirror.

You were only a girl when Misery touched you, the doctor warns. Don’t be surprised by how you look.

The strange thing is, Joan is not surprised. Not in the way she expects. She was nine years old when Misery came to the Valley. The math is not complicated, she knows she must be sixteen now. But the first thought she has is not, how old I look, but I look so pale and sick.

The face she sees in the mirror is both familiar and unfamiliar. A recognizable stranger. She knows this dark brown hair, these dark brown eyes ever so imperceptibly slanted, this small round nose her mother called pinde ko. This is her face; pale and gaunt, in a way it had never been in her memory. She should be seeing a stranger in this mirror, but instead it’s tugging familiarity. Oh yes, you. I remember you.

She puts the mirror down. She can’t look at the pale woman—Dr. Sancia is stiff around her, cringing, like she is faced with some dangerous beast. Joan doesn’t like being watched with wariness. So she looks everywhere but at Dr. Sancia. She is in a private room, but there is a huge glass window inwards, so that she can be seen at all times. Outside there are stark white counters and hallways that tug at her memory; she must be in some sort of hospital. There are other rooms with other windows. She can see them if she cranes her head. There are other sleepers.

There is no window in her room that looks to the outside; perhaps they thought she would not need the view. But there is something in the air; something that tastes different against her skin.

I’m not in the Valley, am I? she says.

What makes you say?

It’s the Ash here. It’s… different.

There is a long pause that forces Joan to finally look at the pale woman again. Dr. Sancia isn’t cringing anymore. Instead, she is looking at Joan like she can dissect her with her gaze. Joan doesn’t like this much better than the cringing.

I am surprised you can tell, Dr. Sancia says finally. The Touched are usually cut off from the Ash. They always say they feel dead inside; like losing one of their senses.

But I’m not— she starts but then she stops again. When Misery just Touches a person, they retain their senses, but they lose their Ash, their connection to the land. But she was not Touched by Misery, it swallowed her whole. The Miserable do not wake; who knows what they experience. But she is awake. She is not Touched, but she is not Miserable. There are only three results from those Misery takes. If she is not Touched or Miserable, does that make her a Beast?

The Ash is different here, she says again. This isn’t Valley Ash.

It’s Desert Ash, Dr. Sancia responds finally. You’re in Sahuaro.

But I am Valley people, Joan doesn’t say. I cannot live in the Desert. My Place is a Valley Place.

She doesn’t say that. Largely because over Dr. Sancia’s shoulder, through the wide windows that let her peer out into the room, Joan sees two men approaching. One was Hart, the young man who left at a rapid pace.

The other—

There are no words for him.

He is at her door. He is in her room.

*

Dr. Sancia defers to him immediately. She practically bows. The man doesn’t acknowledge the doctor, though, his dark eyes are fixed entirely on Joan.

Do you know who I am? he asks in clipped, imperious tones.

You’re Clemente Hernandez, she says, surprising both of them.

He raises one brow to indicate his surprise at her recognition; she looks down at her hands as a response to her own instinctive reply. Even she knows it probably shouldn’t have been so easy to recognize this stranger before her, even if he was famous. She swallows hard as she thinks. The Thunder Beast. My mother used to show us every magazine article about you. The prodigy of Sahuaro. Every time we couldn’t do something we’d tease each other, ‘I bet the Thunder Beast can do his algebra homework, why can’t you?’ That sort of thing.

I didn’t know that, his voice softens for a second but it is a momentary lapse. His gaze returns to hard and stabbing, pinning Joan down like a butterfly. Here, I am the Thunder King. I protect this city. You, Joan Kaas, you should not be awake. What are you?

Joan has never been threatened in her life. Not really. Not in a serious way, nothing beyond her parents saying, "If you don’t be quiet right now you’re going to regret it"—not in a believable way.

She is not sure why she is so certain she is being threatened now. That question—What are you—that is the threat. And it promises so many dangerous things. This man will kill her. She can see it in his eyes. Not just that he would kill her, if she is dangerous; he will kill her. He has decided that she is dangerous.

Her hands are shaking. She doesn’t think he notices, but she hates how vulnerable it makes her feel, like she can’t control her own body. Her hands are vibrating like hummingbird’s wings. This is it, she thinks. She feels strangely resigned. Whatever survival instinct she might have had once feels drained out of her. Maybe other people would fight; maybe other people would try and convince this man that she is harmless and should not be killed. But she doesn’t have the strength. She feels only numbness and defeated.

"Joan!"

This single word is somehow both a shout and a whisper. There is someone at the door, pushing the Thunder King of Sahuaro aside as if he is nothing at all. And it is not just someone; that breathy painful whimper that was her name was more recognizable than Joan’s own face at the moment.

Seung-ri? she chokes on the name. And then the immense amounts of grief she first woke with returns full force and she starts to cry. Seung-ri.

And her older sister lunges forward, throwing her arms around her, holding her tight. Joan sobs into her sister’s neck, clutching at her back desperately.

Joan, Joan, Joan, her sister says into her hair. You’re awake. I knew you’d wake. I knew it.

*

Benedict Quale is jolted awake by intense unnamable anxiety.

This is not new. More often than not, his anxiety wakes him. It’s like a slap in the face—everything is awful and you should just die—that’s his most coherent thought, but mostly there aren’t words, just mindless panic that something awful is about to happen.

Calm down, he tells himself. But when has that ever worked? He pulls himself up feeling sweaty and unsure. The air feels different. Everything feels different. He’s too terrified to get out of bed.

Instinctively, he reaches for the Tarot Deck on his nightstand. He shuffles it three times then spreads the cards down on the tangled sheets in front of his lap. His hand hovers over the deck until the familiar tingle causes him to pause over a card and he pulls it out.

The Moon.

His stomach twists. Mystery. Not a bad card, but not a good one either. His anxiety doesn’t lessen. A mystery for today. He puts the deck back together but he leaves the Moon card facing up on top, a reminder of his fortune for the day.

He takes a few deep breaths, hoping this will calm him down. The anxiety ebbs and that’s the best he can hope for on a day like this. He gets out of bed and starts to change.

*

He always makes sure to wear clean clothes; a fresh new Academy shirt, pants that have only been worn for a couple of days. But he always puts on the same dark blue hoodie over his shirt. He’s worn the hoodie every day for the past two years, no matter how hot it gets in the desert. He knows, logically, that this probably calls more attention than anything else, but he feels like as long as he is wearing this sweater no one will look twice at him.

Benedict doesn’t stare too long in the mirror, he knows what he’ll see. Light brown skin, black eyes, thin black hair that’s a little too long but that’s how he prefers to keep it. His long hair covers the smattering of acne on his forehead, and it gives him something to hide behind.

The act of getting changed and sitting down for breakfast is familiar enough that some of the anxiety he woke up with finally starts to ease. He eats one granola bar from a box he keeps in his room before slinking out of his apartment to face the day.

*

Once he’s out of his room and walking towards school the panic starts coming back. Something feels different in the air; the Ash is unsettled. A sense of déjà vu hits him in a powerful wave and it causes him to stagger. Déjà vu is not an unusual experience to his daily life, given what his Ash talent is, but it’s never been so strong before. He starts to get nauseous from it and crouches down, thinking he might hurl.

What’s the matter, Benny boy? someone says loudly, slapping him on his back.

Benedict looks up to see Jacob Henderson grinning above him. Are you going to puke? Are you hung-over?

Henderson knows he doesn’t drink. He also knows Benedict doesn’t like being called Benny but telling him that (or anything else) never seemed to make much of a difference. Don’t feel well, Benedict mutters, not meeting Henderson’s grinning hazel eyes.

Perfect, we should ditch class, Henderson says, yanking Benedict up by the arm. How about it? Today’s a great day. We should go for a joyride.

We should go for a joyride.

We should go for a joyride.

We should go for a joyride.

We should go for a joyride

We should go for a joyride.

We should go for a joyride.

Benedict nearly collapses again from the force of his Ash thundering down on him. "No," he says, trying to jerk away. Henderson’s grip on his arm only tightens, pinching his skin.

Ashes, Benny, what’s your damage?

No, we shouldn’t do that, Benedict says. Let’s just go to school.

Oh, come on, don’t be like that.

It’s—not a good idea. My Ash is saying it’s not a good idea.

Henderson tilts his head, frowning down at him. You’re a Barely. Your Ash isn’t reliable premonition.

Benedict grimaces. You’re a Barely. That’s the mantra of his life, really. Ash talent, barely there. He knows that. He knows that. But he’s never felt his Ash like he has all this morning.

Fine, Henderson says. Whatever. He starts walking towards school.

Relief washes over Benedict as he stands back up and chases to catch up to Henderson, staying just a few paces behind. The wrongness is still in the air. But the problem with his Ash is and always has been Benedict. He’s anxious about everything. Can he really say with a hundred percent confidence what’s his Ash and what’s his anxiety?

But he’s really glad Henderson changed his mind.

*

Agatha Jaine wakes up in agony, her body hurts all over, and the future spins around her and then balances at the end of her eyelashes.

She blinks, and she is here.

She always wakes up here.

She wakes up in what most people would generously call a prison cell. It is very small, with only the room for the mat that is too small to fit the length of her body when she curls up at night to go to sleep.

The door is locked, and outside there is Plains land. She was born and raised in a Plains Place, her Ash is Plains Ash. But this is not her home. She misses the desert—a Place where she has never stepped foot.

Distantly, she hears a monster roar. She knows the sound of that roar well.

Her body hurts, and she is still reeling from her loss. (She’s lost everything. She’s lost everyone. But it’s OK. It’s going to be OK. Everything will be fine.) She takes in a deep breath and tries to remind herself:

Everything is going to be fine.

*

The red monster that every one calls a god storms inside. He reaches through the bars of her cell and grabs her by the neck, pulling her forward.

Is it you? he asks. "Is it you?"

I don’t—I don’t know what— she can’t talk well, because he is choking her. She wants to demure, to protest, to say, I don’t know what you’re talking about.

The creature is twice the size of a man, with red fur and red on his skin (bright red, like a lollipop, or an iced slushee) and there are no whites to his eyes. He has horns and a bull like nose and once upon a time before the dimensions crashed into one another, he might have been called a minotaur, or Satan.

This can’t keep happening, he says. If I kill you, will it stop happening?

I don’t— she tries to say again.

"I’ll kill her then. It must be her." He drops Agatha to the ground and storms away, and she coughs violently as she tries to compose herself.

He won’t. He won’t succeed. Everything is going to be fine.

Chapter Two

Joan doesn’t want to let go of her sister’s hand. She’s afraid that if she lets go her sister will disappear.

Her sister is older now—of course she is. She must be twenty-three now. An adult, not the teenage girl Joan remembers. But for some reason, Joan never doubts for a second that this is her sister; she never experiences any estrangement from this person who is not who she remembers. Seung-ri was always a mirror for Joan, only a shade darker and prettier in every way. Darker hair, darker eyes, more determined, more fierce. But everyone who saw them together said, You look so much alike. Joan always hoped that was true. This is Seung-ri, her sister; her sister will make everything better.

Her sister is currently fighting with the Thunder King.

Seung-ri, can I speak to you alone for a second? Hernandez says, in a tone that is clearly not a request.

A question for you, Clemente. Were you going to tell me that my sister is awake?

(Clemente, Joan marvels in her mind. Her sister is calling the Thunder King by his first name. Like they’re friends. Like they hang out).

In due time, Hernandez says. His teeth aren’t clenched exactly, but he bites out the words nonetheless. Seung-ri—

No, Seung-ri says. (Her sister interrupts the Thunder King. Her sister says no to the Thunder King. Joan stares at both of them. She has no idea who either of them are). My sister is awake. That’s the only thing that matters right now. Seung-ri looks back to Joan and squeezes her hand. "How do you feel, nabi?"

Joan feels like crying again. Confused. Why are we in the Desert? Our Place is in the Valley. Where are Mom and Dad?

Seung-ri hesitates, and for a few seconds terror grips Joan’s heart. Too much is different now. Paralysis sweeps through Joan as a cold rush of fear and anxiety wracks through her entire body—it’s been seven years, something terrible might have happened to their parents, what if they’re gone, what if she will never see them again—

They’re still in Vineheart. We’ll call them later tonight, to tell them the good news, Seung-ri replies, calming the terror immediately. "The Desert is our Place now, nabi. This is our home."

But— she stops. There are too many questions. Too many. She doesn’t even know where to start.

Everything’s going to be OK, Seung-ri says, brushing a strand of Joan’s hair behind her ear.

Joan believes her. She always believes her sister. If Seung-ri says it, then it must be true.

"Seung-ri, we need to talk now."

Both sisters look back at the Thunder King.

Clemente Hernandez isn’t so much handsome as he is striking. Joan always thought so, even when she was a kid and their mom was showing both of them his magazine clippings. His cinnamon skin was always so smooth and clean, like acne wouldn’t dream of marring someone so important. He had a long and delicate nose that on some other man might have seemed too feminine, but he had a stern jaw, thick eyebrows and a perpetual gravity about him that made him come across as someone who never learned how to smile. Even if she hadn’t known that he was one of the most powerful human beings on this earth, Joan would have still thought he radiated a kind of unmistakable confidence that comes from being completely untouchable.

Joan is still pretty sure he wants to kill her.

He is wearing the dark red of the military. It only now dawns on Joan that her sister is wearing the same uniform. Her mind can’t wrap around the idea that Seung-ri must be in Sahuaro’s Special Defense Force.

Seung-ri meets Hernandez’s look with matched fury.

I—we should run tests, Dr. Sancia says, her voice faint, hovering in the air like nervous moths. On your sister. We should check to make sure she’s healthy.

Seung-ri doesn’t address either of them. Instead, she focuses on Joan. I’ll come back. Just listen to Dr. Sancia and don’t freak out, OK? We’re going to figure this out. Everything is going to be fine. She kisses Joan on the top of her head, giving her one last hug. Joan doesn’t want her to leave—she almost grabs her sister’s arm to beg her to stay—but the look Hernandez gives her quells any attempt. She just shrinks back in her bed and watches as her sister walks away from her.

Your sister loves you very much, Dr. Sancia says softly. I have never met a more devoted sister.

Joan nods her head. Everything is different now. Her own body is a stranger and she’s in a new land, with unfamiliar Ash, but some things remain the same. Her sister loves her. That’s the one stable thing she’s known since always, and that hasn’t changed, won’t change.

We should run those tests, Dr. Sancia says. We have to make sure you’re healthy.

Tests seem like a dangerous idea. Joan doesn’t know what they will find out about her. She’s awake when she shouldn’t be. There’s nothing those tests can tell her that won’t be terrifying.

*

Benedict collapses halfway through second period. His headache and anxiety aren’t going away. Everything feels wrong. His Ash is screaming and he feels dizzy from it. When the teacher calls on him to write something on the board he falls flat right after standing up, the dark spots creeping in the corner of his eyes finally taking him into blackness.

*

He wakes up in the nurse’s office and feels profoundly humiliated. He can’t believe he collapsed in class. People are going to talk about this for weeks. They’ll stare at him and laugh and tell their friends, That’s the kid that fainted in class. He might as well never come back to school.

Benedict? the nurse says. How are you feeling, sweetie?

Nurse Swanson is the kind of person who calls everyone sweetie or hun which is probably why she works at a high school. The only other kind of place she might have gotten away with her affected twang was a roadside diner serving waffles to truckers.

Sick, he mumbles.

You don’t have a fever, hun, so you’re probably gunna live.

It’s my Ash, Benedict says. It’s acting up.

She flips through a folder she has in her hands. "Your Ash is like an echo, it says here? Classed: Barely?"

Benedict nods his head.

It’s a kind of psychometry, right? You get impressions off of objects?

Benedict nods again. Echoes. I get echoes off of things. People. Places. Only slight, though. It’s never bad. Now I feel like I’m getting echoes off of everything. It hurts.

Nurse Swanson’s lips form a thin line. Maybe your Classification is rising. But—that doesn’t really happen. Unless you weren’t Classed correctly from the start.

No, I was Classed right. It’s never—never been like this. He waves his hands like he’s trying to convey something; maybe the grand totality of his existence with a useless Ash talent that’s never done anything for him and has never been reliable. Like maybe if he just keeps flapping his hands he won’t have to find the words that will say, I’m useless, I’ve always been useless.

Maybe it’s not your Ash then, you could be coming down with something. Just sleep here for a period. If you don’t start feeling better, we’ll send you on home for some proper rest, OK?

Benedict nods one final time because why not. He doesn’t want to go back to class ever again after this morning, so he might as well stay here.

*

Joan shouldn’t be able to walk, but she does. She wobbles a little when she first swings her legs over the bed and tries to stand, but it’s more like that feeling you get when you step off a boat, or a horse, no trouble at all to eventually remember how to carry your own weight.

Dr. Sancia’s lips are a thin pale line. The nurse, the man named Hart, keeps flinching when he’s near Joan, every one of her movements causing him to twitch like she’s a scorpion darting across his toes.

The muscles don’t atrophy, so I suppose this makes sense, Dr. Sancia says grudgingly. Not like a normal coma patient’s might. The Miserable are more—suspended in time, than anything else.

Nothing about this makes sense, Hart mutters.

Both Dr. Sancia and Joan ignore him, as Dr. Sancia draws blood from a vein in Joan’s arm.

It’s like she fell asleep in one body and woke up in another. Shouldn’t they have atrophied? I mean, that’s weird, right? Shouldn’t I need months of physical therapy to recover from this?

Dr. Sancia gives her a strange look. Joan, what was your reading level? Before?

Normal, I guess, Joan says, Why?

How do you know about muscle atrophy?

Joan jolts like Dr. Sancia just pricked her with another needle. That’s right, she’d only been nine. Did she know what atrophy was when she was nine? Did she know about physical therapy?

"Joan, do you remember anything about the time when you were…asleep?"

Joan tries to remember. She does try. The last thing she remembers was running from the Misery storm. And the grief she felt this morning. No. It’s not sleep, anyway. I wasn’t in a coma. You don’t have to talk like I was.

Dr. Sancia sighs. We should get you some clothes.

When will Seung-ri come back? Joan says, panicking slightly. I don’t want to stay here.

Dr. Sancia turns her back to the question. She doesn’t respond. Joan cringes and thinks about how little her wants matter.

Chapter Three

The guards let them out for a half hour for exercise and Agatha immediately finds her mother. She just wanted to see her, nothing more, but as soon as she does see her she collapses into her arms and holds her tight.

It happened again, didn’t it? Rebecca whispers into Agatha’s hair.

Agatha closes her eyes. Her mom doesn’t know everything (yet) but she knows enough. She wants to stay like this, just like this, and let the moment stretch on forever.

Rebecca pulls back to look at her daughter. Honey, who did that to you? Was it one of the guards?

Agatha shakes her head. It was Sempiternal.

The red fiend? He— her mother stops and looks around. They could get in trouble for calling him fiend instead of god like everyone else.

It’s not important, Agatha says.

It is, Rebecca says firmly. He can’t hurt you like this. He’s not supposed to—

Agatha just shakes her head. Pulling back, she looks at the outer yard of the camp and sees everyone Carl Mathiessen doesn’t want in his region: the people who don’t look like him, who don’t believe what he believes; the people who might rebel. There are people here who started out defiant, but day in, day out, they lost a little bit of themselves, and now there’s nothing left.

It isn’t like this everywhere, she wants to say. In other regions, in other Places, it’s not like this here. Arissana is like a distant dream—a land where the people in power protect, instead of imprison, and Agatha Jaine doesn’t know how to offer that kind of hope.

Is it—are you going to be OK? Rebecca asks.

Yes, Mom. I’m going to be fine. Agatha can’t stop looking at the people in this yard, many who will not be fine, and there is very little she can do for them.

OK, Rebecca sighs. Then, let’s help where we can.

Her, Agatha says immediately, looking at an old Hispanic woman, leaning against the wall.

*

In their life before the camp, Rebecca Jaine baked bread every weekend and distributed the food to anyone who needed it. Agatha tries very hard to match her mother’s generosity, and it is part of their tenets to offer what comfort they can, even here (even here, where there is very little comfort to offer anyone).

You shouldn’t bother with an old woman like me, Rosa says, as Rebecca massages her foot. But bless you, Mrs. Jaine. How did you even know it was just what I needed? I sprained my foot the other day…

She trails off, sighing as the pain eases. Rebecca’s Ash talent was called warm hands warm heart and it’s what made her such a good baker. It is a soothing ability, a gentle ability, and here in this camp it is the only comfort anyone has.

You people are so strange, Rosa says, her eyes closed. You don’t have to be here— oh, Ashes, it hurts.

Rebecca’s hands still, thinking that she must have done something wrong. But then they all feel it, the earth shaking— they hear a crashing sound off in the distance and some people clutch their sides, falling on the ground.

What’s happening? Rebecca asks, alarmed. She looks subconsciously towards Agatha, but it is Rosa who answers.

"That cabrón is ripping through the earth, Rosa says. He is building more towers, more walls, he—"

Ssh, Rebecca tries to soothe. Agatha takes Rosa’s hand in hers, as if that could provide comfort in this moment.

Rosa’s eyes fly open and she stares Rebecca. "My Ash talent is the ground beneath us. Do you know what that means? It means I feel it, when he tears open the earth. The more he takes away, I feel it. The more he takes, the less there will be for all of us—"

Shut up, bitch, a guard says.

He is stealing from our children, don’t you understand? Rosa demands.

He won’t, Agatha bends down, to speak only so Rosa can here. If she keeps yelling, they will kill her. If she keeps yelling, they will hit her in the head with their guns, and Agatha will have to watch her blood stain the earth. He won’t get away with this. Carl Mathiessen is going to fail. A group of heroes will stop him.

Against all odds, Agatha’s hushed words seem to work. Rosa stops talking and the guards, after awhile, stop looking at her.

There is no reason for Rosa to believe her. But she is looking at Agatha in a different way— not like an old woman would look at a child whispering naive reassurances of happy endings. Will they stop him in time to save us? she asks, her voice softer now, and Rebecca startles even as she returns to massaging Rosa’s foot.

Not all of us, Agatha says sadly.

*

Can’t I just go outside? Joan pleads. This place is like a prison. She can’t stay in her windowless room for very much longer without going mad. And she doesn’t like staying in the hospital lobby either—she can see the long stretch of hallway with sleepers tucked away in their own windowless rooms. Most rooms hold four sleepers; those Miserable people who are not expected to wake. Joan wonders why she got her own room. (She suspects it has something to do with how her sister can call the Thunder King Clemente). She doesn’t like looking at the other sleepers and thinking they were her.

No, dear, Dr. Sancia says. You could be seen and it’s—better if you’re not. People might… panic.

There are things that probably Dr. Sancia shouldn’t be telling Joan. People might panic at the fact that you woke up is one of those things she probably shouldn’t say. Joan sits in her bed and thinks about all the reasons why people might not like the fact that she woke up.

Because the Miserable don’t. Everyone knows the Miserable don’t wake up. And if she woke up, then everything they know about the Miserable is wrong.

She cringes at the thought. Even she doesn’t like all the implications there.

*

"Well, well. If it isn’t the yeodongsaeng."

Joan turns her head to see the man standing at her doorway. He’s only a few inches taller than Joan’s sister, maybe 5’7’’ and he doesn’t have an intimidating presence like Clemente Hernandez, but there’s something about him that reminds Joan instantly of both Seung-ri and the Thunder King. He has tanned skin and a pretty face made up of round and soft features. He’s Asian—Korean, Joan’s willing to bet, since he called her little sister in the language—and he seems sort of like he’s laughing at her with his eyes. He must be in