Barrett is hurt. His nose is a ruin of blood and puffy flesh, yet he’s holding me in his lap, clutching me to his chest, as if nothing else in the world matters.

There are people everywhere. Men and women. I recognize most of the women from the Resort, but several of them—and all of the men—are strangers. They’re all staring down at us, and most of my friends hold spears. I don’t understand what’s happening.

“Mallory!” I turn at the sound of a familiar voice and find Lilli pushing her way through the crowd, and suddenly I remember seeing her blurry face a few minutes ago. She squats next to me and aims a nervous look at Barrett. But then she swallows thickly and focuses on me. “You shouldn’t be out here. You shouldn’t even be on your feet. You’re hurt, hon.”

Yes. My head is a symphony of pain playing at full volume. There’s a deep, dull throbbing in the middle of my head, radiating outward with an odd pressure. But above that, there’s the bright, sharp pain from the gash in my scalp, layered over a bruise in my skull that seems to throb with my pulse.

I hit the back of my head on the edge of the dresser. If I’d hit the corner, I might be dead right now.

Lilli reaches for me, and Barrett squeezes me tighter, scooting backward across the ground, away from her. “I’m not going to hurt her, you big psycho. She’s my friend. I’m trying to help her.”

Barrett growls at Lilli, and I twist in his arms, alarmed when vertigo threatens to knock me over. “She’s not a threat. I promise.” Then I turn back to Lilli. “And he’s not a psycho.” But most of the faces staring down at us don’t seem to believe that.

“He’s clearly not trying to hurt her,” a blonde woman says, and when I force my gaze to focus on her, I realize she’s one of the women I saw in the woods. Earlier, someone called her Audra. The other one, Sylvie, is standing next to her. “Why don’t we all go in and get cleaned up, and Barrett and Mallory can tell us exactly what’s going on here.”

Okay, Lilli probably told them my name, but how do they know Barrett’s?

“Ty?” Audra looks up expectantly at a huge man with dark hair, who has a thick scar running down one cheek. I remember him. He carried me here.

“Please,” I say as I stare up at him. “Barrett is…” I don’t know how to explain who Barrett is to me. “He won’t hurt anyone. Right?” I twist to look at him again, and he gives a reluctant grunt. “That’s his ‘yes’ grunt,” I assure them. “It’s actually pretty distinct from his ‘no’ grunt, once you get to know him.”

But no one seems very eager for that to happen. One of the men has a busted nose, like Barrett’s, and another his holding his own ribs. Vaguely, I remember Barrett practically tackling him in an attempt to get to me.

“Fine,” Ty finally concedes. “If they let Maci look through that bag. But this is temporary and conditional. If that fucker so much as raises his voice—er, his fist at anyone, he’s out on his ass.”

Barrett bristles beneath me.

“If he goes, I go,” I tell them. “We’re…together.” Barrett squeezes me tighter, and my heart beats almost painfully hard when I realize he’s agreeing with me.

He came here to find me. To protect me. I want nothing more in the world right now than to pull off all his clothes and curl up with him, skin to skin, because even though I’m still sitting in his lap, it feels like there’s too much space between us.

Ty nods. Then he backs off.

I twist in Barrett’s grip and pull my satchel off his shoulder, then I set it on the ground. I’m not sure what Maci needs with it, but if that’s the price of entry, so be it.

Maci takes the bag, and Barrett lifts me onto my feet. He stands next to me and pulls me close, one arm wrapped around my waist in a very clear demonstration of the fact that we’re together.

Something flutters in my stomach. There are lots of women here, and Barrett’s strong enough that he could have any of them, if he wanted. He could probably have several. But he’s not even looking at them. His gaze has hardly strayed from me, except to keep an eye on the men, whom he clearly considers threats.

Audra gives me a nervous smile. “I’m Audra, and this is Tyson,” she says, officially introducing herself and the big guy. “You’ll have to excuse him. He’s very protective of this place. But then, I guess we all are.”

“I can understand that.” Because they made this place. From what I can tell, all of my friends from the Resort are here, and they look healthy. And they’re together. If they’re paying these men for protection, they seem happy with the arrangement. And they have weapons. Just spears, but they’re armed. In their own defense.

Audra’s smile relaxes a little. “Come on in, and we’ll introduce you to everyone else.”

“She already knows most of us.” Lilli links her arm with mine, evidently unbothered by the way Barrett still has me pressed against his side as we walk.

“But Barrett doesn’t,” I remind her.

Lilli casts a suspicious glance at him, over my head. Then she lets me go to hold the door open. “We didn’t think we’d ever see you again. I was afraid they might have killed you.”

“They took me up to Station Alpha,” I tell her as we follow her through the door, into what was probably once a lobby. “And it was pretty much the same there as it was at the Resort.”

“Well, that’s all over now.” Maci squeezes past us into the room with my satchel over her shoulder. “Come sit down.”

“First, is there a restroom? I’d like to clean up a little, and I suspect Barrett would too.”

He gives a gruff nod of agreement.

“Yeah.” The fit brunette woman gestures toward a hallway off the lobby. “Only two of the bathrooms work, but I can show you to one. We’ll grab a couple of rags on the way. Okay?” she says.

“That’d be great. Thanks,” I tell her. And I can’t help noticing that Tyson gives one of the other men a pointed look and a nod in our direction.

“This way,” that man says, leading us down the hall with Sylvie. “I’m Graham, by the way,” he says. “Any chance you remember me?”

I study his face for a second, while Sylvie uses a magnet around her neck to open a storage closet. “Oh my god! Yes! I’m so sorry I got you caught.” Graham is one of the men who helped Maci break us out of the Resort. When I stopped running, terrified to go into zone three because of Varian, he went back for me, and we were both retaken. “But I’m so glad you made it here!”

He shrugs. “Well, I took a bit of a detour through the arena in zone one, but if I hadn’t, I never would have met Sylvie.”

“You’re a champion?”

Graham snorts. “No, but Sylvie is. She beat me in the season finale.”

I glance at her in awe, and Barrett makes an impressed sound at the back of his throat.

“That’s only because they gave me a gun.” Sylvie pulls the closet door open and takes two clean rags from a stack on the shelf. “They made me shoot Graham. But Kaya helped me get him out of the arena alive. We kind of…faked his death.”

“True story,” Graham says. “I woke up in a body dump, on top of a pile of corpses.”

“The whole thing’s rigged.” Sylvie closes the door and uses her magnet to lock it. Barrett looks interested in the mechanism. “I mean, you still have to fight, and you have to be damn good, but if they don’t want you to win, you won’t win.”

Barrett nods, and I look up at him. “So, they wanted you to win?” I ask, but he can only shrug.

“They must have, if he’s here.” Sylvie leads us farther down the hall with both rags in hand. “Kaya said you were the champion the season before us. You must have had one hell of a sympathetic background reel.”

Barrett shrugs again.

“What’s a background reel?” I ask her.

“It’s the footage they compile of you talking about yourself. About how you got the death penalty. I mean, all murderers get the death penalty, but talking about why you killed whoever you killed can make you sympathetic to the audience. Which the producers love.” Sylvie frowns with a glance at Barrett. “Though I guess that’d be pretty hard, if you can’t speak at all.”

He nods.

“I wish you could talk,” she says as she leads us through a dorm-style bedroom into a small, attached bathroom. “Because now I’m really curious.”

So am I. Barrett knows all about me, but I know nothing about him, other than that he would never hurt me. And that he would hurt others to protect me, as the men outside nursing broken noses and bruised ribs now know.

“We’ll wait out here,” Graham says.

I accept the rags Sylvie hands me as I tug Barrett toward the bathroom. “You don’t have to do that.”

“Oh, we do,” Graham insists with a kind smile. “We don’t leave men unattended in the Sorority until we trust them.” He looks right at Barrett. “No offense, man, but we don’t have any reason to trust you yet.”

Barrett gives him a solemn nod. Then he closes the bathroom door on both Sylvie and Graham, and I’m alone with him for the first time since last night.

“I’m so glad to see you!” I throw myself at him, and his thick arms wrap around me, holding me tight against him. For a minute we just stand like that, wallowing in relief. Then he tugs me toward the toilet, where he sits on the closed seat and looks up into my eyes, not like he’s trying to see into my soul, but like he’s assessing my concussion.

Barrett arches one brow at me and rubs the back of his head. Then he twirls one finger in the air, asking me to turn around, so he can examine my wound.

“Okay, but I’m really fine.” I turn and tilt my head back. He gently lifts a section of my hair, and I flinch at the pain even that small movement sends through my skull.

Barrett hisses, as if my wound hurts him too. I guess it looks every bit as bad as it feels. He turns me around and arches both brows at me this time, silently asking me to explain.

“Sylvie, Ty, and Graham came to rescue me from a couple of assholes, and I fell and hit my head on a broken dresser.” I shrug. “Could have been a lot worse.”

He shakes his head, clearly skeptical of my conclusion. Then he turns the water on in the sink and holds one of the clean rags beneath it. Barrett gestures for me to turn around again, so he can clean my wound, but I take the rag from him. “You first.”

He scowls, but reluctantly looks up at me, submitting to my request.

“You know, if you hadn’t tackled that guy, Ty probably wouldn’t have punched you.”

Barrett rolls his eyes at me, then flinches as I begin to carefully wipe blood from his nose, lips, and chin. There’s a trail of dark drops on his shirt, but laundry will have to wait.

He rests his hands on my hips while I clean him up, and the fact that he can’t resist touching me makes me feel all warm inside. I want to touch him too. I want nothing more than to climb into his lap and put my head down on his shoulder. But Sylvie and Graham won’t let us hide out in here forever.

When I’ve cleaned Barrett up and rinsed the rag, he stands, staring down at me with a new intensity. He takes my chin and tilts it up, then he leans down for a long kiss, careful not to bump his swollen, purple nose against mine.

“Your poor face,” I whisper when we finally come apart. “Can you breathe okay?”

He takes a dramatic breath in through his mouth, to demonstrate a technique he seems pretty familiar with. “This isn’t your first broken nose, is it?”

Barrett snorts. Then flinches.

“But it’s definitely broken?”

He nods. Then he stands and drops a kiss on my forehead on his way to the sink. I sit still on the closed toilet seat, facing backward, while he carefully cleans the wound on my head, but I can’t help flinching with nearly every touch of the rag. It fucking hurts. Even when he’s done with the wound and tries valiantly to clean blood out of long strands of my hair.

I’m going to have to sleep on my right side. Maybe he’ll let me use his shoulder as a pillow.

When he’s done, Barrett gently lays my hair over one shoulder, then bends to kiss the exposed side of my neck.

“Mmm…” I lean into his touch. As happy as I am to see my friends from the Resort, I wish we were back in our private shelter. Alone. “I guess we’re going to have to go out there, huh?” I twist to see him nodding, his brow furrowed. “Okay. But promise me you won’t hit anyone else.”

Barrett shrugs. He points to his own chest and shakes his head, then he points through the wall, presumably toward the lobby where everyone else seems to be gathered.

“Is that your way of saying they started it?” I ask, and he nods. “What are you, twelve?”

He rolls his eyes again and presses his groin against my leg, so I can feel how very grown up he is. And how very hard.

“Yeah, well, that thing’s going to have to wait until we’ve convinced everyone that you’re not dangerous.”

Barrett doesn’t reply, but I know what he’s thinking. He is dangerous. Whether he means to be or not.

When we come out of the bathroom, Maci and Audra have joined Sylvie and Graham in the adjoining bedroom. “Hey, man, why don’t you come with me and let the ladies talk for a minute?” Graham suggests.

Barrett crosses his arms over his chest and grunts.

Graham looks at me. “That’s his ‘no’ grunt, isn’t it?”

I laugh. “See? He’s really not that hard to understand.” At least when he’s refusing to do something. Which is fairly often. I turn to Barrett and lay one hand on his chest. “I’ll be fine. And I’ll only be a minute. Right?” I ask the ladies over his shoulder.

“A few minutes, maybe,” Maci says. “I have your bag for you. There was no tech inside, other than the holo-disk, and it doesn’t transmit a signal. So you can have your things back.” She looks up at Barrett as she hands me the bag. “We just need to talk to Mallory alone, real quick.”

“I’m afraid that’s non-negotiable,” Audra adds.

“It’s okay,” I tell him again, when he refuses to follow Graham toward the hall. “I’ll be right there. Please,” I add. And finally Barrett allows himself to be led from the room.

Graham closes the door on his way out.

“Is something wrong?” I ask, wishing there were someplace to sit in this room. But there’s no furniture. Not even an empty bed frame.

“No! Not on our end, anyway,” Audra says.

My heart beats too hard. “What does that mean?”

“Let’s sit and have a little chat, okay?” Maci lowers herself onto the concrete floor, cross-legged. Audra and Sylvie glance at her in amusement, then we all settle onto the floor with her, in a circle.

“Am I in trouble?”

“It’s nothing like that,” Sylvie assures me.

“We just wanted a chance to talk to you privately,” Audra says. “About Barrett.”

“What about him?”

“There’s no subtle way to ask this, so…” Audra shrugs. “Are you with him voluntarily?”

“Yes. God yes. He’s the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“Does he ask for anything from you in return for food or protection?”

“Never. In fact, he insists I don’t owe him anything.”

“Has he ever hurt you?” Maci asks.

I can’t figure out how to answer that. Audra, Sylvie, and Maci exchange a meaningful glance during my silence, and my heart sinks into my stomach.

Audra sighs. “Mallory, you don’t have to tell us anything you don’t want to. But we started the Sorority as a sanctuary for women in zone three, for strength in numbers. Maci and I came here from zone four, where women are essentially sold to men in exchange for food and protection, and that’s not the way we run things here. That’s why we don’t let men live here unless they come in with a woman and are committed to upholding our rules and to protecting the group. So I want you to know that you’re welcome here. And that if Barrett is hurting you or using you in any way, Ty and the guys will put him down.”

“They will put that fucker in the ground,” Maci clarifies, and the declaration sounds strange, coming from someone who looks so young and innocent. But I remember how she looked when she came to free us from the dormitory—like a pint-sized warrior. And I can see that strength shining in her eyes, even now. “We actually have a little bit of a graveyard started, out back.”

“Barrett’s not a…fucker.” I exhale, trying to process everything they’re telling me. “You…kill men?”

“Only the abusive assholes,” Sylvie assures me. “Men who hurt someone or try to take a woman out of here against her will. We’d do the same to any woman who tried that shit. There’s a no-tolerance policy on abuse, and if Barrett doesn’t follow the rules while he’s here, he’ll wind up buried out back. We think you should both know that up front.”

My pulse begins to swoosh in my ears. “So, Barrett’s getting the guy version of this speech somewhere?”

“Noooo…” Audra says. “We’re going to leave that up to you. We’ve found that most men don’t take that well, coming from another man. They seem to feel threatened.”

Thank goodness.

Maci takes my hand. “Mallory, is he hurting you? Do we need to have Sylvie and the guys take him out back?”

“No, he—” But I don’t know how to finish that.

“Your bruises don’t all come from the men we found you with this afternoon, do they?” Sylvie says. She’s looking at my neck.

I exhale again. Slowly. “It’s not what you think. Barrett would never hurt me on purpose. He has…nightmares. He’s been through something. I don’t know what, exactly, but he has a horrible scar on his head and he can’t talk. Whatever happened to him scarred him on the inside too, and sometimes he wakes up in the middle of all that, like it’s still happening. Only he’s not really awake.”

“Like he’s sleepwalking?” Maci asks.

“Yeah. He’s looking right at me, but I can tell he’s seeing someone else. It happened last night, and I got scared, so I left our shelter. I was going to go back in the morning, when I was sure he wasn’t going to fall back into that nightmare. But I overslept, and those two men found me in a field. They hurt me. Barrett’s not like that.”

“Not on purpose, anyway,” Audra says. “But what you’re saying is that while he’s here, he might wake up in the middle of a nightmare and accidentally hurt someone?”

“I…I mean, so far I’ve been able to wake him up, every time it’s happened. So I don’t think it would actually go that far.”

“But you can’t be sure?” Sylvie asks.

“No,” I admit. “But you don’t have to worry about that, because we won’t stay. I don’t think Barrett would want to anyway.”

“That’s your choice.” But they all three look uncomfortable with the thought of letting me leave with him. Audra reaches into her pocket and pulls out a familiar metal cylinder. “Do you know what this is?”

“Oh my god.” My skin crawls just looking at the injector. “Where did you get that?”

“It was in your bag,” Maci says. “The bag Barrett was carrying when he got here.” She watches me closely, and I realize what she’s getting at. What they’re worried about. “Do you know what it is?”

“Well, I can’t read the label, but the lady who owned that bag called it Nympho. And that shit is hers, not Barrett’s. I took that bag from her stuff when the blimp crashed. She and her husband…” I tuck my knees up to my chest and stare at the ground. “They rented me and used that on me. Two nights in a row.”

“But Barrett hasn’t used it on you?”

“No! He would never do that. You guys have the wrong idea about him.”

“I hope you’re right.” Sylvie brushes long, dark hair over one shoulder, and her super-toned arm ripples with the motion. “Kaya Johnston—the woman in the white blouse—she used to work for UA. In the arena, in zone one. That’s where Graham, my brother Sebastian, and I met her. That’s also where Barrett was until they released him into zone three, after he won the tournament during his season. Because of her former position, Kaya has some information about Barrett that we think you should know. Assuming you don’t already.”

“What do you know about him?” Audra asks.

“I know that he saved me from another man within a minute of meeting me. Killed him right there in the woods, because that guy tried to…you know. Not that that would have been much different from the Resort. Or my life before Devil’s Eye. And I know that Barrett’s in pain. That something terrible happened to him.”

“That’s true for most of us,” Sylvie says. “But the arena is a death row zone. Everyone sent there was found guilty of murder. Some men, like Barrett, were convicted of multiple murders.”

Barrett’s a murderer.

I knew that. I mean, he was a gladiator, so obviously he’s killed people. And I saw him kill his friend, the day I met him, but that was to protect me. That wasn’t cold blooded murder. And in the arena, they made him kill. Right?

“Wait, you killed Stewart, like, an hour ago. And I assume you guys killed Matt as well. And you, Graham, and Sebastian were all on death row.” I pin Sylvie with direct eye contact. “So, you’re all murderers too?”

She nods slowly. “Here, I kill in defense of myself and other people. Before Devil’s Eye, I killed the man who murdered my sister. Sebastian killed a man in defense of me. And Graham killed the men who slaughtered his entire family.”

“You already know I killed a customer at the Resort, in self-defense,” Maci adds. “That’s why they released me into the hunting enclosure with Callum.”

“You’re saying those murders were justifiable, but whatever Barrett did to get here wasn’t?” How is that fair?

They exchange another uncomfortable look. “It’s more complicated than that,” Sylvie finally says.

“Callum went to prison for killing three people.” Maci sighs. “They weren’t exactly innocent victims, but that doesn’t justify what he did. So I know that people can change. But you have the right to know why the man you’ve trusted your safety to is here, even if he can’t tell you himself.”

She’s right. But I really don’t want to hear anything that would make me think less of Barrett.

Yet in the next breath, I realize that’s not even possible. I don’t care what he was before. I know what he is now. I know what he is for me. And that’s all that matters.

“So, will you listen to what Kaya has to say?” Audra asks.

“Of course. But nothing she tells me will change my mind about Barrett. He’s a good man.”

“I can see that he cares about you,” Audra concedes as she stands. She offers me a hand up, and I take it. “Let’s let you say hi to the other ladies, then when you’re ready, Kaya can fill you in on what she knows.”

I follow Audra, Maci, and Sylvie back into the lobby, and when I see all the eager faces staring at me, something in me just…breaks. Tears pool in my eyes, and my hands fly up to temple over my mouth and nose. “I’m so glad to see you all!”

And they’re all here. All my friends from the Resort.

Lilli hops up from a big cushion she’s sharing with Penny. She pulls me into a hug, and though I can practically feel Barrett stiffen, from where he’s watching me on the other side of the room, this time he doesn’t try to intercede.

More women come forward, and I accept at least a dozen hugs. Penny was my bunkmate. Danna was one of the first friends Lilli and I made, when we got to the Resort. Sahra used to sing harmony with me right before bed sometimes, to help me relax so I could sleep. She taught me several songs from her native planet—beautiful, eerie melodies that made me feel oddly nostalgic for a homeworld that killed nearly my entire family.

“Where were you?”

“Are you okay?”

“What happened to your head?”

“How long have you been here?”

They throw questions at me, and I’m overwhelmed, trying to answer them all.

“Why don’t we let Mallory breathe for a minute?” Audra suggests in a firm voice, and immediately the women quiet down. In fact, they settle onto chairs and homemade cushions like children waiting for story time.

That happened sometimes in the dorm, back at the Resort. If one of the ladies had a particularly bad night with a customer, Bryony would start telling a story to distract her, and more often than not, half the women would gather around to listen.

When you have nothing—truly nothing—friends and a way to pass the time mean everything.

That’s what this feels like, only this time Bryony is sitting on one of the cushions, frizzy red curls tied back with a string, watching me. Waiting for my story. But like the others, her gaze keeps sliding toward Barrett as well, in some combination of curiosity and caution. They don’t trust him yet.

Most of the other men sit against the wall, paired off with their significant others. Ty and Audra. Sylvie and Graham. Kaya and Sylvie’s brother, Sebastian. And tiny little Maci, with a man I haven’t heard speak yet. I wonder if he’s also somehow non-verbal, until Graham leans toward him and says something to him in a language I don’t understand.

“Callum doesn’t speak the common language,” Maci explains.

He huffs. “I learn, hellkitten.”

She smiles at him. “Yes, you’re learning my language much faster than I’m learning yours, that’s for sure. But I don’t think we’re quite ready to give up our translators, just yet.”

When everyone has settled in, I take a deep breath. Then I begin to talk, and once I start, it’s like I just can’t stop.