The portal swallowed Aiko whole. At first, there was only weightlessness. Her body drifted as if she’d fallen into a pool with no bottom, the red glow wrapping her in its thick, syrupy light. She reached for something—anything—but her hands just sliced through the haze like mist.

  Then the voices started. Not words, not exactly. Whispers that slipped under Aiko’s skin and curled around her bones, like secrets she wasn’t meant to hear. Some of them sounded like her mother. Some like Hiroto. And some, the worst ones, sounded like her.

  You’re weak.

  You should have been there.

  You let them die.

  “No,” Aiko muttered, shaking her head.

  The sound of her voice didn’t travel, like her words were smothered before they could escape.

  The ground slammed into her suddenly, hard enough to rattle her teeth. She staggered to her feet and found herself standing in the Henderson farmhouse kitchen—but it wasn’t right. The walls pulsed, beating like a heart, and the windows bled red light. The table where Emma had done her homework was buried under rows of syringes, each filled with the same cloudy liquid Malcolm had forced into her veins.

  Aiko backed away, but her heel struck something soft. She turned. Liam sat on the floor, strapped into a chair that wasn’t really there, his body flickering in and out like static. His lips moved, but the sound was Malcolm’s:

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  “Run, and you’ll end up just like him.”

  Her stomach flipped. She grabbed the nearest object—the salt shaker from the table, though now it was made of glass bones—and hurled it at Liam’s not-face. It shattered, and the kitchen dissolved.

  She was in the detention yard now. Dozens of girls stared at her, their uniforms soaked in blood that seeped from nowhere. Ginger was among them, her blond hair burning with invisible fire.

  “It hurts, Aiko!” Ginger screamed, her voice warped. “Why didn’t you help me?”

  Aiko clamped her hands over her ears, but the sound cut through her, vibrating inside her chest.

  “This isn’t real,” she told herself. “This isn’t real!”

  Her light threads flickered to life, weaving through her arms. They pulsed weakly at first, but with every breath, they grew steadier, brighter. The bloody yard melted away.

  Aiko found herself before a huge mirror which seemed endless, showing dozens of versions of herself. In some, she wore the prison whites. In others, she was dressed like Malcolm’s puppet, her eyes black and empty. Only one reflection looked truly like her, and even that version seemed tired, scared, but still holding a faint glow of golden light.

  The other reflections whispered in unison:

  Pick. Choose. Decide who you are.

  Her hands shook, but she forced herself to meet the eyes of the girl who still looked like her—the real her. She lifted her chin, light sparking down her arms, and pressed her palm flat against the mirror.

  The glass rippled like water, and her reflection whispered back, Fight.

  Aiko gasped and staggered, ripped back through the red haze. She was still strapped to the chair in Malcolm’s cold lair, her skin prickling with sweat. The needle still burned in her vein. Liam sat slumped across from her, silent, unmoving.

  But now she knew—whatever this dreamscape was, it wasn’t just Malcolm’s trap. It was also her battleground. And if he thought he could twist her nightmares into weapons, she’d find a way to turn them against him.