Chapter 21 · My Brother Wears a Vex Collar

The guy who just walked out of my vault looks like Ivy if someone stretched her taller and left her in a basement for a year. Same dark hair, same sharp jaw, same way of standing like the ground might break. But his eyes don't match. They're flat. Cold. And there's a silver collar around his neck that hums in a frequency I can feel through the walls.

Ivy's gone completely still.

"Eli," she breathes.

He doesn't smile. Just stands there in the torn-up wreckage of the vault entrance, dust settling on his shoulders, and stares at me. At my core. The glass sphere sitting on its pedestal in the middle of the room.

"You locked me in here again," he says.

Again.

I don't know this guy. I've been awake in this mall for maybe two weeks and I've spent most of that time trying not to get condemned or killed. I didn't lock anyone anywhere.

"I didn't," I say. My voice comes out through the speakers, same as always. "I don't even know you."

Eli tilts his head. "Liar."

Ivy moves. She steps between him and my core, hands up, palms out. "Eli. Eli, it's me. It's Ivy.