Theo turns around again, gluing his eyes to the back window. “We’ve got company.”
I look over my shoulder and spot two vehicles in the distance. They look like silver sports cars with low roofs, but when I steady my gaze, I realize they’re not cars at all. They’re flying.
I grip the leather seat tighter. “Are we—are we in a spaceship?”
Shura giggles. “Oh, to be young again.” When I raise a brow to argue that she is clearly younger than I am, she takes note. “It doesn’t matter how old you were when you died. Your life in Infinity is the one that counts, and you were born less than an hour ago.”
“Shit. They’re getting faster,” Ahmet says, and I feel a horrible thump in my chest when I see the ground exploding around us and realize we’re being shot at.
The vehicles begin closing the gap. A series of bullets land behind us, sending bursts of red sand into the air. They’re still a safe distance away, but for how much longer?
A chill finds the back of my neck, even though I feel like I’m a trillion degrees, and I dig my fingers into my palms, realizing we could be obliterated at any moment. All it would take is one of those bullets to knock us out of the sky. And then what’s the plan? I know this place operates under different rules, but I can’t imagine the four of us being able to outrun a pair of armed, flying hovercrafts. Especially not when I still have a piece of metal in my leg.
Theo thumps his hand against the back of Ahmet’s headrest. “Can this thing go any faster?”
Flustered, Ahmet curses under his breath. “We just need to make it to the border. I can lose them in the Labyrinth.” The engine revs louder in response, which helps to block out the rat-tat-tat of ammunition on our tail.
Shura strains her neck to see through the window. “Not to be a backseat driver, but I don’t think we’re going to make it to the border.” She leans toward Theo. “Can you blast them from here?”
He shakes his head. “They’re too far away.” And then he claps Ahmet on the shoulder and barks an order that makes me jump. “Stop the vehicle.”
“What are you talking about? We’re almost there,” Ahmet grunts.
“There’s not enough space between us. If we shift with the landscape now, they’ll only follow us. Trust me—I can buy us time before any more of their friends turn up,” Theo insists.
With an agitated sigh, Ahmet slams on the brakes and I feel my body crash into the back of Theo’s seat. The vehicle drifts through a monstrous dust cloud until it sits at a ninety-degree angle. Theo throws his door open and heaves himself into the open air, stomping through the bloodred desert like he’s not afraid at all.
Our pursuers stop shooting. There’s no point wasting ammunition—they already know they’ve won.
I feel my stomach empty and my throat constrict. The silver vehicles look like knives tearing through the sky, coming in for the kill.
Theo stops a few yards in front of us. Fists clenched and knuckles white, his body doesn’t buckle, even as the two vehicles speed toward him without any sign of slowing down.
My heart lunges. “He’s going to get himself killed!”
Shura giggles beside me. “Haven’t you heard? We’re already dead.”
Theo pulls his right arm back, releasing a guttural roar like he’s using every ounce of strength from his body, and slams his fist into the ground just as the vehicles approach him. A burst of energy erupts from the earth like a powerful vibration, and a blast of air rushes up from the red sand and toward the flying vehicles. For a moment it looks like they’re frozen in the air, and then they’re upside down and sideways and flying backward like they’ve just been blasted out of the sky.
In the far distance, pieces of broken metal scatter across the desert.
Theo turns, a look of triumph on his face, and jumps back into the passenger’s side. “Okay, we’re good,” he says, running a hand through his messy curls.
Ahmet tries to frown with disapproval, but the creases around his eyes give him away. “Show-off,” he says, and slams on the gas.
6
ONE MOMENT WE’RE FLYING ACROSS a crimson desert, and the next the sky turns a deep indigo and we’re skimming over an ocean, a cloud of sea mist trailing behind us.
Peering out the window, I feel my throat catch. This place, and the way it changes, is too incredible to comprehend. It’s like waking up and seeing that sounds have shapes or colors have scents. It’s like tapping into a layer of the world that I never even knew existed.
And I have to remind myself that it didn’t. Everything I’m seeing is because I am no longer alive.
I shut my eyes tight.
“The headaches go away. You won’t feel like this forever,” Shura offers.
I look up and see her watching me carefully, fingers fiddling with the end of one of her pink braids. She has a sprinkle of freckles across her nose and gray eyes that seem to notice more than most people’s do.
“But I didn’t take the pill or drink from that fountain or whatever it is I’m supposed to do to make the pain stop,” I say. Not that I’m regretting my choice. If they shot me for trying to escape, what would they have done if I’d stayed?
Theo tilts his head back, offering me half his face. “Neither did any of us. That’s why we’re still here. Those pills shut down your consciousness and turn whatever’s left of you into a mindless drone. They make you a servant to the Rezzies.”
“The what?” I ask.
“The resident virus controlling this place. The AIs.” Theo waves his hand toward the window. “The ones who took over Infinity.”
“Are you telling me those people chasing us were part of a program?” My mouth hangs open, and I feel like I want to vomit.
“They’re an artificially intelligent consciousness,” Ahmet corrects from the front seat. “There’s a difference.”
Shura leans closer to me and whispers, “They basically hacked into the afterlife.”
“How the hell does an AI hack into the afterlife?” I ask, feeling the scratch in my throat.
“We don’t know, exactly. Most of the humans who existed before she got here were wiped out during the First War,” Theo says.
“She?” I repeat.
“Do they still have Ophelia in the year you died?” Ahmet doesn’t take his eyes off the watery path in front of him.
The name makes my chest tighten.
No. It’s impossible.…
My fingers press against my wrist—a habit I’ve yet to break.
Shura notices. “They only had the phones when I was alive. It seems so ridiculous now, to think there was ever a time when Queen Ophelia was a servant to us.”
I think about all the conversations I had with Ophelia in my room, asking her for life advice and sharing secrets with her like she was a friend.
A friend. A villain. A queen.
I shake my head, not wanting to believe it. “This can’t be real.”
Theo’s laughter is muffled. “Just wait until we tell you about the four princes and their seriously messed-up courts.”
Maybe this is hell. Maybe I was a total jerk in real life and never fully realized it. Maybe I’m being punished for not going to church with Nana, and now I’m living out some bizarre nightmare as a way to teach me a lesson before I can “move on to the other side.”