We have to be getting closer. I don't know if we actually are, but I will it to happen because any minute I'm going to pass out or blast Cal into oblivion. I press my head harder into the crook of his shoulder, wanting to scream, wanting to throw myself off the cycle, and Cal must sense something shift because his low voice in my ear tells me it's just a few more miles.

I feel myself start to give way as Cal slow down. It's first in my fingers and toes, so I loosen my grip on Cal to keep my appendages away from him and anything I could possible disrupt with the extra electricity. When it starts making its way up my limbs, I'm holding my breath and forcing it to stop, or at least stay low. "Cal," I warn loudly, drawing out his name with desperate whining.

"Almost there," he grunts back at me. He can start to feel the tiny shocks, too.

'Almost there' isn't close enough. "CAL!" Now I really shout. I can feel, literally feel, the tiny single thread of control I'm holding onto slip through my fingers. It's no longer any minute, but milliseconds. There are milliseconds separating myself and a human transformer box.

He slows down enough for me to pull my head to the side and see the Notch ahead, so I throw myself off onto the ground before Cal can stop me. He yells my name, but I've barely registered it before I cry out at the release of electricity from my body. I begin to retch, but remembering Cal is there, I swallow the bile back until I'm gagging on it mercilessly. I'm gasping against the dirt under me, coughing when I've inhaled its particles, and simultaneously crying from relief and agony. We made it. I don't know how, but we made it, and we're both alive. For now. I don't know how much more of this I can take. I try to get up on shaky hands and knees, but they give out and I hit the ground again. My collarbone and ribs are still smarting, but it's nothing, nothing compared to how taxing this device is. Cal's cycle shuts off not too far from me and he's instantly, albeit cautiously, at my side. I rock myself into a ball, make myself as small as possible, to keep from accidentally hurting him. When he leans in, I can see burn marks in his shirt from where I was too late.

I hear him call for Ada, and he urgently whispers for me to stay awake. In my head, I roll my eyes. Of course I'll stay awake. My body is howling with furious electricity that hurts every nerve in my body. It's not like I'm going to nap it out.

That's the last thought I have as darkness swirls in my vision and my mind goes blank.

Outside of my body, I can hear voices that feel like echoes in the distance. It's Cal's firm and commanding voice I recognize first.

"Ada, get Ada."

There's no response, so the next time I hear Cal speak, it's with scorching frustration. "Ada! Ada, Kilorn! Move quickly!"

Muffled noises approach. I want so badly to open my eyes and see faces, but I'm trapped in the darkness. Kilorn speaks next. "Shit, Cal. Is she alive? What happened? Did she go postal again?"

"Shut up, Kilorn!" I'm surprised to hear Ada's sharp scolding before Cal responds. "Mare?" she asks nervously. I swear I can feel Cal rolling his eyes behind her, knowing it's going to take more than a gentle prodding at my name to awaken me. If I'm asleep, that is. Am I dead? But I can't be, because my insides are sizzling and twitching relentlessly. I refuse to believe you carried pain with you in death. I'll have to ask dream-Shade whenever I see him again.

Cal speaks on my behalf. "She said Maven injected her with something. A device or implant. Something that's controlling her powers. Or accelerating them. I don't know, but we have to get it out of her. It's draining her." Draining is a kind word for it and Cal knows it. Killing is more like it.

"You made it here with her like…that?"Again, Kilorn asking dubious and unhelpful questions, but I don't begrudge him for it. He is quick on his feet, but not quick with his mouth unless he's annoying me.

"She controlled it, but it didn't last longer than the ride back, and even then, just barely."

I can't see Kilorn, but I hear him pacing behind me. He has a way of shuffling his feet, and he must be used to that from sliding on boats most his life. "So what do we do to get whatever it is out of her? Can we even get it out?"

Ada responds, "I could probably make an incision and get it—did she say where it was? But I can't…not with her like this. It would be impossible."

If they can't hep me, then Maven is right. Cal will never touch me again. No one will. Then I'll truly be alone, because if Maven can't have me, damned if he'll let anyone else, especially Cal.

Kilorn gets down close to me, I think. I hear him whisper so faintly, and I struggle to hear him through the cacophony of dead noise in my head. "Mare, can you hear me? Are you in there? Listen, remember when we were ten and I got that nasty splinter in my palm? Remember that? It was jammed way in there and I didn't say anything for a couple days because I was a dumb kid with no one to help. It hurt like hell and by the third day, it had turned black and red and blistered. I tried hiding it from you when we were playing ball, but then you saw it and decided you would cut it out, and you borrowed, okay technically you stole my master's knife and you cleaned it with your dad's whiskey that he only drinks when someone dies, and you cut a gash in my palm and dug it out. Then your mom was furious with you for a week afterward, but you did it. Probably saved my life. You took that splinter clean out. Well, Mare, now you have your own splinter and we're going to save your life. Just…just hang on in there while we figure it out. Don't give up on us."

The earnestness in Kilorn's voice hurts. It hurts because he's wrong. I can't fix this. Even if I could, I'm too tired. I am useless like this. Cal was better off leaving me in the forest away from everyone else. I start to feel cold again and shiver, but nothing can keep this kind of chill away.

It takes several tries before I can open my eyes completely, but when I do, I'm relieved to see Cal beside me. He's asleep; I can tell by the warm puffs of breath that escape his slightly parted lips, and the soft rumble in his nose from the snoring he swears he doesn't do. Instinctively I reach out to pull his hair out of his eyes, but I stop myself when my own hand comes into focus ahead of me. Still sparking like mad, with blue, white and purple webs around my fingers. I bite my lip against the cry of frustration so I don't wake Cal.

I look around us to see we are outside, and either intentionally or subconsciously, Cal is putting out enough heat to keep me warm in the chilly autumn air. He's like a space heater. Mom and Dad had one very rickety one I'd stolen for them one particularly bad winter when we didn't have enough lec rations to power the heater overnight. They'd given us their blankets and had all of us sleep next to each other for warmth. After that first night, I went two towns over for wool blankets and came back with those and the heat contraption that would save us for years to come.

The sun is coming up on the far horizon, this one is softer in its pastel hazy glow. It feels promising, encouraging. I recognize what I need to do, and though I'm not sure it'll work or if I can even go through with it, I'll be damned if I don't try.

I focus all my energy on pulling back the lightning around my right arm. It's like pushing against the weight of a hundred men all punching against a door. Each spark is a blow demanding release, but I push back and hold steady until my arm clears up to my elbow. I tentatively reach out to Cal's waistband where I know his pocket knife is. My eyes dart between his face and my nimble fingers disappearing into his front pock; they touch the tip of the blade's smooth metal hilt. I look up triumphantly to see Cal still sleeping, but my smirk disappears the instant Cal's hand wraps around my wrist. It's then his eyes open, alert and without a trace of sleep in them. "Give a guy some warning before your fingers get that close to-"

I cut him off with a crimson blush and higher octave. "You were supposed to be sleeping."

He grins adorably and rolls onto his back, my wrist still in his hand. It's not nearly as difficult as it was to keep the electricity beneath the surface of my entire body last night, but I still must concentrate to keep my hold from slipping while my hand is in his. He takes my fingers reverently in his, staring at them like they're new. "So what were you doing down there?"

I turn my face away to hide my red cheeks. It occurs to me I can't engage in any of the innuendo banter with him, let alone flirt openly, if I'm zapping all over. That gives me the push to tell him my plan outright and hope he'll go along with it.

"I need your knife."

"Okay..." he draws out, confused. "Why?"

"I'm going to cut this thing out of me."

That jolts Cal up instantly. "Absolutely not. Mare, we'll figure out another way."

I shake my head and draw my hand back. "Cal, there is no other way. We're running out of time. We're wasting time. Every hour, every day with me incapacitated and you by my side is another moment Maven gets ahead. I'm not asking permission, Cal. If I went to Kilorn, he'd be all for it."

"Kilorn's a moron," he interrupts petulantly.

"What I'm getting at is that I will do it regardless. It needs to be done, and I can't risk hurting Ada, or anyone else for that matter. I can do this. Please, Cal."

With a long sigh, and a longer hard stare, he pulls the knife from his pocket and places it in my hand. He gives my fingers a squeeze and crosses his legs in a sitting positing next to me. I consider sitting up, but this will be easier if I don't have to worry about keeping myself upright. My shaky hands hover over my neck, and knife is trembling so badly in my hand that I almost drop it.

"Mare…" Cal whispers. I can hear the fear in his voice, but before his tone can get the better of my nerves, I stab the tip of the knife into the nape of my neck where I guesstimate the device to be, and I ruggedly drag it up in a jagged line at least two inches. Blood coats the inside of my mouth from the lip I've punctured between my teeth. I'm shaking so badly that my lightning intensifies, but I don't feel Cal move an inch beside me. I dig my fingers around the wound for it and finally grab hold of a tiny metal square with sharp edges. I clasp it tightly between my pointer finger and thumb, gasping and crying in relief when I've pulled it from my body and the electricity has stopped. Without it, I feel blood sliding in rivulets down the sides of my neck. Cal is on top of me before I can sit up. His knees are on either side of my hips and a one hand splayed across my throat, the other on the back of my neck, I feel something flat against my skin and realize it's the knife.

"Cal, wh—" I'm cut off by my own scream at the feeling of fire against my neck. I'm kicking and screaming against the grass, and Cal's hand quickly moves to my mouth to muffle my screams and begging for him to stop. What is he doing?! Tears pout out of my eyes and my heart thrums in panic, and as much as I kick and buck against Cal, he doesn't move. It's as though he's setting fire to that one spot. I hate him. Whatever he's doing, though I have no doubts in his intentions, I still hate him for doing it. I would suffer a thousand times the nonstop electricity pulling from my muscles than this torture.

When he's finished, he throws the now oddly-shaped knife to the side and collapses on top of me, my back to his front, mumbling apologies in my ear over and over. "I'm sorry, Mare. I had to close it. The wound was bleeding so much, we don't have stitches, and It was so deep. Shhh. I'm so sorry. Mare, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, my girl. I'm so sorry." I can feel his tears on my cheek, new extra-warm streaks that mix with my own. That helps soothe me, and I drag deep lungfuls of air into my chest to calm myself. I realize he closed the wound, using his knife and his heat. Dad's had a crude version of that done back when he was in the war. I'm not sure how that works, though by the feel of it, maybe it's too gruesome to find out. Cal's crying has long-stopped before mine does, but he never stops whispering his apology into my ear.

When I speak to him, my voice is hoarse and doesn't sound like my own. It sounds as broken and tired as I feel; there's not point in hiding it. "Take me to bed," is my soft request. I feel Cal nod against me. He slowly gets off me, and I roll over to get up on my own but fall miserably back to the ground.

"Hold on, I've got you," but before Cal reaches for me, he picks up the bloody device that's been plaguing me and holds it in his palm carefully. He looks at it, really looks at it, and at first I think he's going to melt it into nothingness. But his eyes grow wide and grave, and he looks at me with his mouth slightly ajar before turning to the now-defunct tiny square again.

"Cal, what is it? What's wrong?"

I watch Cal's hand close into a fist before my eyes find his sparking to life with amber and gold. His next words force me to my feet.

"This is a tracking device."