I didn’t pass out, but it was a close call. As I lay on the bed and listened to Siro yell at the guards, I was simultaneously proud of her and desperate to tell her to not draw attention to herself. Her best defense was to be a meek prisoner, and she was blowing that up as I lay there, completely out of it.

But I couldn’t rally the energy to even sit up.

“Kal, Pele, Terra—take her out for some sun,” I heard Eli bark. “One hour. Then you come back here. Got it?”

I didn’t hear anything from them, so I assumed they must have nodded.

“And you, Adara.”

I opened my eyes briefly, the heavy weight of my lids trying to keep them closed. When I saw Eli’s frustrated face come into view above me, I wished I had kept them closed. Not a sight I particularly wanted to see. So I shut them again.

“You behave yourself. We still have our insurance right here. Don’t forget it.”

I resisted the urge to break his nose.

I could have. He was close enough and I was angry enough to summon the strength to do so. But he was right. They did have Siro. So I just lay there quiescently as I heard him move back.

I felt someone lean in close and knew from her scent that it was Siro. “I’ll be fine. Stay safe,” she whispered.

In the next moment, bald guy and ponytail guy hauled me to my feet. I was guessing their names were Kal and Pele—though which was which I had no idea.

“I’ll grab her. You get the car started, Kal.”

I opened my eyes and caught a brief glimpse of the guy with the ponytail. By process of deduction, I was guessing he must be Pele. In the end, I didn’t have much time—or frankly, the focus—to ponder that piece of information.

Pele hauled me up and over his shoulder in a fireman’s carry that was none too gentle. I gasped a little as the air whooshed out of my belly, the blood rushing to my head, but I didn’t have the energy to even complain.

Siro was definitely right about me needing sun. How much blood had they taken? Shouldn’t the doctor have known better?

I wasn’t fully tracking what was going on as Pele walked quickly. The next time I was fully aware, Pele was strapping me into a smaller car than the one we’d driven in before. It was probably much better suited for the traffic of the city dome.

Kal, the bald guard, was already in the driver’s seat, Terra beside him. Camille opened up the large sliding door to let us out onto the deserted street outside. I could hear the door start to close as soon as the back of the car cleared the door. I didn’t blame her. Even inside the warehouse didn’t feel fully safe from what was lurking outside.

We drove back through the city in a slightly different route that didn’t require quite so many alleyways. I tried to stay conscious even though I really wanted to pass out; I needed to pay attention to the route. I’d been watching on the way in, but it was easy to be distracted when there was so much to look at.

This time, I made sure to memorize turns. It would be helpful to know how to get to the exit of the dome. How to get to the various parts of the city, for that matter. I got most of it, when I wasn’t drifting in and out of focus.

I took a deep breath to try to clear my head. It helped only nominally as we continued through the busy streets, through the bad parts of the place that weren’t nearly as bad as the warehouse street, through the shopping places, rundown residential apartment blocks, and the fancy ones as well. It wasn’t quite as busy as when we first got here, so we must really have hit at rush hour on the way in.

Finally, we stopped in the line leading out. I watched the guard who watched the cars sharply. He didn’t look the kind of guy who’d take kindly to a bribe. Each driver submitted to a retinal scan.

As we drew closer, I was sure it was an unfamiliar guard. Not the one from last time.

He looked inside at us, his eyes taking everyone in. “Where is your sun protection?” he asked suspiciously.

“We have it stowed,” Kal explained smoothly. “The car is protection enough for now.”

The man grunted, not looking very convinced. “Retinal scan,” he said, still watching us, his eyes lingering on me. I must have looked as bad as I felt.

Kal leaned forward, allowing the guard to scan him. An identity popped up.

“Cameron Schwartz,” the guard read out loud.

I almost snorted at the name, but held it in. There was a moment where I wondered if the jig was up. Perhaps the guard was going to ring an alarm. I held my breath. That wouldn’t be good for any of us. I didn’t want to be at the humans’ mercy. They had no incentive to treat phoenix and dragon trespassers with kid gloves, despite the manufactured identities and corruption that allowed us to come in and out.

All of us held our breaths as the guard looked us over again.

“Roger!” The guard looked over his shoulder and nodded, distracted by his colleague.

Looking back at us, he straightened, though he didn’t look all that happy about it. “Proceed.”

I let out a silent breath. That was terrifying. How had Mia lived like this her entire life?

The stress alone would be wearying, even if everything went perfectly.

We went through the first gate, the wind buffering us. The outside gate opened as the one behind us closed once again. Then the desert spread out in front of us, the sun beating down in all its glory.

As we drove out, I felt as if I could breathe again. We were creatures of the sun, dragons and phoenixes alike. We needed it like we needed food and water. Living out from beneath its direct rays was a kind of slow torture, if you asked me.

Maybe I would feel differently if I had come to the city dome of my own volition, rather than as a prisoner.

We drove out to the same rocky outcropping we’d stopped at before. Parking the car out of sight of the city dome, Kal and Terra got out, their faced turned up to the sun. I hadn’t been the only one feeling the lack of the light.

Pele turned to me and started tugging at my t-shirt. I pushed his hands away.

He frowned at me. “You need more skin exposure,” he said. “We don’t have a lot of time out here.”

“Fine.” He was right. That didn’t mean I wanted his hands on me like that.

I struggled out of my t-shirt, shoes, and jeans, the small task taking longer than it should have, but I got it off.

Pele watched impatiently, but didn’t say anything until I was down to my underwear. Nodding, he grabbed me and dragged me out of the car. I let him. I didn’t have much steam left after even that small task. Swinging me up into his arms, he walked me over to a smaller, lower rock that was in direct sunlight and set me down on it carefully.

“No need to be so delicate,” Terra snapped at him, watching him at the task. “She’s a prisoner, not a guest.”

He shrugged, stepping back. “Sorry I didn’t toss her on the rocks,” he growled. “I’m sure Eli would be ecstatic to see her more banged up after he had us bring her out here to get her healthy again.”

That shut her up, though she still glared at him.

I leaned back against the larger rock behind me, soaking up the heat and the light, shutting out their bickering. I felt my strength start to come back slowly.

The sky above was a clear, tempting blue. Very tempting.

I could risk it. I might not make it, but logically, this could be my best bet at escape.

But I had to think of Siro. How was I going to get her out of this? Even if I could get her to the city dome exit, I didn’t have access to money to bribe a guard with, nor the least idea of how to even go about that. I didn’t know how to get an ID manufactured in the dome. An undertaking like that would be fraught with the risk of discovery, even apart from the risk of arrest for an illegal act like using a fake ID.

I sighed, tilting my head so I could better absorb the sunlight. I needed to find a way to get our captors to bring both of us out here for some sun at the same time. But I had no idea how to do that.

It wouldn’t make any sense for them to do that. Keeping us separate out here was much safer.

I had no idea how I was going to pull it off, but I had to figure something out. We were too vulnerable in their hands. Something was bound to go wrong.

I could feel our time running out.