Audra takes Orrick, Tali, Hayl, and Ryke to the temporary housing, but Luk and Elz refuse to leave until both Ila and I are safe in Domus's medical center. After Laird was killed, Elz took Ila under her wing and the two have become inseparable. Elz thrives when caring for others, and all of her sorrow from losing Laird has manifested in care for Ila. I've been so worried about myself and Domus and Luk that I've hardly stopped to think about my best friend and what's going on inside of her.

Audra returns for me, Luk, Elz, and Ila a few minutes later. I still sit in the room where we met Father Paul, questions buzzing through my mind, but I'm so exhausted I can hardly process them. What stands out from the conversation with Father Paul is the tension between him and Luk. I knew Luk had some sort of fight with the leader of Domus, but I had no idea it was so personal. And what did Paul mean when he talked about Luk's friends outside? What is it with Domus's obsession with family and disowning and everything else? I know one thing for sure--Luk has been hiding more from me than I ever imagined. I mean, I knew he had secrets; we only had stolen conversations in stairwells and elevators, so there was never time to delve into everything in our pasts. Still, I never expected this. I want to pepper him with questions, but I can't, not with the Domus guard standing over us.

I look over at Luk, trying to gauge the effect of Father Paul's astringent words, but his face is blank and guarded like it was when he first came to the Civilization. I just wish he wasn't so guarded from me.

"Alright, ready to go?" Audra says, appearing at the door with her irritatingly chipper smile.

We nod and Luk helps me to stand as we plod after her. Fatigue from the day weighs me down, and I can hardly lift my feet off the sidewalk. My adrenaline rush from entering Domus has faded and I barely lift my head to look around as Audra leads us to the medical dome, chattering all the way while a pair of guards follow us.

"You're Renna, right?" she asks me, not stopping for an affirmation. "I heard you were shot in the leg trying to save all the kids. You're a hero."

"That's not quite what--"

"I think all of you are heroes for what you've done," she continues, cutting me off. "I don't think I would have had the guts to do something like that. I've never even touched a gun."

Heroes. The word makes me want to hurl. I'm certainly not a hero, and based on the expressions on Luk's and Elz's faces, they agree with me. We all made mistakes and sacrificed too much to make it here, and given the way I wanted to use the Domus children as a pawn in my own self-preservation, I have nothing to be proud of.

"This is the medical dome," she continues, oblivious to us. She gestures to a smaller geodesic dome with whitewashed buildings inside. "All of our medical care takes place in here though we don't have many bullet wounds or memory loss, so you two are kind of unique."

"Where are all the kids kept? The ones who..." I can't finish the sentence.

Audra blinks once. "The memory-less? They've turned one of the children's domes into a medical center for them. This medical dome is now for adults and children who still have their memories in tact."

"How many undamaged children are left?" I ask, wincing as my right foot strikes the sidewalk.

Audra's eyes shift nervously. "Um, I'm not really sure. Maybe half of them? One dome is for the kids who survived, the other is for the memory-less."

Half. Only half of the kids still have their memories in tact.

"My daughter, she can stay near Renna?" Luk asks.

"Yes, Father Paul gave permission for them to be near each other. Mother Greer said that her treatment may need to be different anyways because of the experimentation that took place."

Elz freezes in the middle of the sidewalk at the words. For a second, I wish Mizpah would have just killed me to save Elz and Hayl the guilt. But she knew I wouldn't be able to live with myself after the pain I caused. Even in her death, Mizpah is destroying me.

"What?" Luk asks, stopping as well. "She can't be cured?" His voice trembles as he speaks, and I wonder if this will finally break him. Elz and Hayl had to experiment on Ila with various attempts at destroying her memories before they finally succeeded; I never considered just how serious the results of that experimentation could be even if we do create an antidote.

Audra pales at the fury in Luk's eyes. "I--I don't know. You'll have to talk to Mother Greer; she's in charge of neurology here. I shouldn't have said anything."

"If you know something, you'd better tell me," Luk says, and if he weren't holding me upright, he would be looming over Audra.

"Luk," I murmur, squeezing his tight shoulder. "She doesn't know anything. We'll figure it out."

He doesn't relax, just presses his lips together and follows Audra as she hurries down the sidewalk in front of us. But I don't know if we'll figure this out; I have no idea. Audra talks to the gray-clad guard at the door of the dome and it opens to admit us. Just like when we entered the main dome, there is a purification center for those leaving the dome. I can only imagine how paranoid they are about safety and cleanliness after the plague nearly decimated them, killing Luk's wife and hundreds or thousands of others.

A doctor appears, wearing a muted cream color that dominates the medical dome. He leads us on a sidewalk beside short grass to one of the buildings.

"I'll wait for you here," Audra says, staying by the door and glancing once at Elz and Luk. I try not to think about Luk leaving me here with his daughter, the girl I've maimed.

Audra leads us to a building that is completely white besides a few steel gadgets; the building is completely open and separated by a bunch of white curtains, showing people in beds hooked up to IVs with medical staff rushing around them. Elz's Medical eyes take everything in with the first spark of curiosity I've seen in her for days, but I can hardly summon the courage to look around.

The doctor, as taciturn as Audra is talkative, nods to two empty curtained rooms. "You'll be here. Someone will hook up both patients to fluids and monitor them until they're recovered."

A few women appear, wearing cream hats on their heads, and usher Ila into one curtained room and me into another. The curtained area has a bed covered in a white cloth, and Luk helps me to lie down while one of the women inserts a needle into my arm and attaches it to a bag of fluids.

"This has fluids and electrolytes," she explained. "It'll help you gain some of the weight you lost and give you energy. This is to fight infection."

She inserts a needle into my upper arm and I wince at the sting, but it's over soon and she leaves as quietly as she came. I lean back onto the bed and for the first time since the outpost, I let my body relax. Luk paces beside me in the curtained room. I study him from the bed as he paces and notice that the agitation hasn't left him yet.

"What's wrong?" I ask, wondering which of his secrets haunts him now.

"We shouldn't have come here," he says, running a hand through his hair which has grown out a little in the past few weeks. "This was a mistake."

"Ila needs medical care, and in case you forgot, I took a bullet to the leg."

Luk doesn't stop pacing, but shakes his head. "No, Ren, you don't get it. I...I shouldn't have come back here."

I sit up, leaning on one elbow. "What are you talking about?" I hiss.

Luk turns toward me, his face pale and his eyes wider than normal. "It's Father Paul. He's not just the Father of Domus. He's my father."

Shock silences me as my exhausted brain tries to process Luk's words. Despite Domus's emphasis on family, I never thought about Luk's family besides Addi and Ila. Of course he had to have parents, but I never considered--I never even imagined his father might be the leader of the entire society. My empathy for Luk increases when I realize that his own father disowned him and kicked him and his granddaughter out of Domus.

"Your...your dad?" I sputter.

Luk shakes his head, looking at the ground. "I know I should have told you, Ren. It's just--there's so much about Domus you don't know, and there wasn't time."

"So you left out the most important information? That your dad is the strafing leader of the entire place?" I say, my voice growing louder.

"Be quiet!" Luk whispers, glancing around. "It's not exactly public knowledge."

I squeeze my eyes shut, trying to understand. Luk's father. This revelation explains their tense conversation earlier and the layers of hurt and anger behind the exchange. As much as I know I should empathize with Luk, however, I'm just angry.

"What else aren't you telling me?" I whisper, sitting up slowly so I can face him. "Luk, you can't hide this stuff from me. It's--"

"I didn't want to come here, Ren! You don't know what this place is like."

"That's because you never told me!" I hiss back at him.

"I didn't know how."

His excuse is so empty it makes me laugh, and I lean my head back as the vacant sound rattles out of my throat.

"Besides," he continues, "Mizpah had to tell me about you and Ila."

My laugh seizes in my throat and I glare at him. Yes, I didn't tell Luk right away about the chance I had to save Ila, but we were also in the middle of an escape from the crumbling Civilization and I'd been shot in the leg. We didn't exactly have time to sit and chat. Still, I did withhold it from him; I didn't want him to know what I'd done. I didn't want him to look at me the way he is right now.

"Luk, that's not fair."

Luk rolls his shoulders and sighs. "Look, Renna." I cringe when he uses my full name. "I didn't tell you because I didn't think I was coming back. I didn't think it--he--mattered."

"You had plenty of time to tell me while we were in the outpost."

Luk balls his fists and glares at me, half anger and half desperation. "While you were recovering from nearly dying and we were all together! Do you think I want the others knowing about him?"

The curtain pulls back to reveal Elz with her pale skin and light eyes. "Is everything okay?" she asks though it clearly isn't.

"I'm going to see Ila," Luk says, shoving the curtain out of the way. He glanced back at me for a brief moment. "We'll talk about this later."

Elz entered behind him, glancing back once. "What's going on?" she whispered, sitting on the edge of my bed.

I shake my head. I can't betray Luk's secret, even to Elz. "It's...I don't want to talk about it."

"You two are fighting?" Elz asks.

I release another humorless laugh. "How'd you guess?"

"Is everything okay?"

I don't want to talk about it. I don't even want to think about Luk because when I do, all I can think about is everything we had and everything we don't. I miss him and what we were, but now he's miles away even when he's right next to me.
"No," I say with a sigh. "But how are you? We never talked about everything...about Laird."

Elz brittles at his name, and tears shine in her eyes as she looks straight ahead. "Laird." She whispers her name like it's a holy relic that can't be forgotten.

"I'm sorry," I say, taking her hand and squeezing it.

She shakes her head. "It's...I can't bring him back. I just miss him, Ren. I miss him all the time. I...I can't forget that bullet, and him falling, and..." She stops to wipe tears from her cheeks.

"I'm sorry, Elz. I wish I hadn't pulled him into this. It was my fault--"

"No, it wasn't. We both know that. He made a choice, and he died a hero. It's what he would have wanted."

I nod and think about the dream I had before waking up in the Domus outpost. "I saw him in a dream."

She turns towards me, hungry. "You did?"

I nod, swallowing a knot in my throat. "I saw everyone who...who died because of me. Uner and Betta and...and then Laird. I thought he was real."

"I never see him in my dreams," Elz whispers. "I dream about him every night, but he's always covered in darkness and I can hear his voice, but I can't see his face. I run after him, but I can't find him. Ever."

Elz inhales sharply, a sob choked in her throat, and I pull her toward me. Her head rests on my shoulder; we are two broken people trying to be whole together.

"I loved him," she murmurs. "I...I wasn't sure so I never told him, but I did, Renna. I know it. I wouldn't feel like this if I didn't."

"I'm sorry," I whisper.

"I just want him back. I miss him."

I think about Luk and how much I miss our once inseparable intimacy. I miss Luk, but at least I still have a chance to bridge the distance between us. Whatever I feel for Luk, whatever I'm capable of feeling, is still there. There's still a chance for us, but Elz and Laird lost their chance. No one can bridge the gap between life and death.