Continue reading to see the shocking turn the story takes.

The raft was small, plastic, and entirely inadequate for the open ocean, but it was my only tether to the world. I paddled through the dark, the rhythm of the waves a steady, hypnotic pulse. My thoughts were a mess—my father, the Syndicate, the research, the lies, the life I had thought I had with Daniel.

But as the horizon began to lighten, the black ocean turning into a deep, endless blue, I realized that none of it mattered anymore. The names, the titles, the assets—they were just concepts, constructs of a society that didn't know how to be free.

I saw a light in the distance. A cargo ship.

I stood up in the raft, waving my arms, but the ship was too far away to see me. I pulled out my flare gun, aimed it at the sky, and fired.

Pop.

A red light blossomed against the morning blue.

The ship slowed, its lights turning toward me. I felt a surge of hope—the first real, clean feeling I’d had in years.

I was going to be found.

But as the ship grew closer, I noticed the anchor symbol on the bow.

It was a Ghost Fleet ship.

They weren't here to rescue me. They were here to pick up their cargo—the girl who was the baseline for their tracking technology.

I didn't panic. I watched them draw closer, their searchlights cutting through the morning mist, their crew lining the rail, looking down at the small, pathetic raft in the middle of the vastness.

"There she is," a voice echoed across the water. It was Arthur.

I pulled out my sidearm, looked at the ship, and then at the water.

I couldn't let them take me. And I couldn't let them have the baseline.

I stood in the raft, my balance steady, and looked up at the towering steel hull.

"You think you own me?" I shouted, my voice cutting through the silence of the sea.

Arthur laughed. "We built you, Amy. You belong to the system."

"The system is broken," I said.

I didn't shoot at them. I shot the raft.

Bang.

The plastic skin tore, the air rushing out with a whistle, the raft collapsing under me. I fell into the freezing, deep water, the weight of my clothes dragging me down, the ocean swallowing me whole.

I didn't struggle. I swam down, away from the ship, away from the lights, away from the surface.

I went deep, into the silence, where they couldn't see me, couldn't track me, and couldn't find me.

I was a ghost in the abyss. And for the first time, I was completely, truly, free.

The water was dark, and cold, and perfect.