Gidget cuts my hair the next day.

After sleeping without dreams for a night, I wake up fully rested and with a nearly healed body. Only a dull ache remains in my bones, thanks to the Fuse, but another injury to the same spot will not be as easy to fix. Everything that happens to me is just a reminder that I'm not invincible, yet it seems I have to be damn near close with everything that keeps happening to me.

I change into an outfit given to me by Gidget that strangely mirrors my style—a black strapped top and black pants with leather knees, and I barely have time to scarf down the eggs and honey-toast Gidget made me before she drags me away to the small bathroom with Zero close behind us. I've taken notice that where she goes, he goes, even if the bathroom isn't quite big enough for all three of us.

Gidget quickly grabs a stool from the other room and pushes me onto it, facing a mirror with one long crack stretching diagonally across the surface. The crack cuts right through my face and luckily the stool is short enough that I can't examine how fried and botched my hair is. The uneven edges scraping at my shoulders are enough to let me imagine its short length.

But even though I refuse to look at it, my heart still dances when the cool silver of Gidget's scissors touch the middle of my neck. The snip of her cut is like an explosion in my ears, but I don't watch the hair fall.

In the reflection of the mirror I glance at Zero, whose eyes are barely visible over the high metal countertop. "So what's the story with you two?" I ask.

"Who? Me and Zero?"

"Yeah," I answer. "You seem to know everything about me, but what about you? How did you two meet?"

Gidget stops cutting for a minute and glances at Zero. "I found him three years ago," she begins after a sigh. "He was howling in the streets, alone, and I took him in. I knew what would happen if the Court found him. They'd lock him away as one of their treasures to preserve for the return of the Dawn."

It's what they will do to me eventually.

"I was only sixteen then," Gidget continues. "I knew my place in my district, but my parents..." She trails off as if trying to find the best way to phrase her words. "My parents were in too deep with the elites and the techies, and this was an opportunity to climb farther up their slippery slope for more favors from the Court. They tried to sell him off, so I ran away with him."

"Wait," I say, nudging away her hand. I turn to look her straight in the eyes. "You have a family and a home in the Ivory District, the safest place in Voltyss, and you just walked away from it? Do you know what people would give up to be in your shoes? What I would've given up for a life like that?"

Gidget watches me closely as if calculating my response in that tech-savvy head of hers. "You don't get it," she says. She glances down at Zero and I swear he gives her a nod to continue. "Zero isn't just a wolf, Alyndra. He's a Lunarborn."

"You mean, he's a shifter?" I ask. I slide my eyes toward Zero and he cocks his head at me. "How do you know?"

"His eyes. One gold for the Sun Queen, one blue for the Moon King."

"And you've never seen his human form?" I ask, curious.

"No. Since he shifts with the moon, he's been stuck since the Fall of Night. He needs the sun to shift back. Now do you understand why I couldn't let them sell him?"

"I shouldn't have assumed," I say. "I'm sorry."

"No big deal." Gidget moves to the back of my hair, snipping away at the fried strands.

"So how old in human years do you think he is?" I ask curiously. Somehow I know she will have an answer.

"He hasn't turned twenty yet," she answers. "When a Lunarborn reaches the age of twenty, they have the choice to remain human or a shifter and their eyes both change to gold or blue. Since his are still mismatched, this means he hasn't made the choice yet. But I do wonder how close to twenty he is and if the Night will have any effect."

Her voice trails off and I glance at Zero who is watching Gidget intently, listening to every word. Interesting. Gidget moves to my other side and continues to cut my dead hair away. She moves so quickly, I worry what the end result will look like. Soon she steps back and brushes my shoulders off, pieces of hair drifting to the floor around us. Zero sneezes.

I catch Gidget's smile in the mirror.

"Doesn't look half-bad," she says, placing the scissors down on the metal counter. Zero yips in agreement. Gidget looks over me at the shifter. "I know, I should make this my side gig, huh?"

Gidget pulls me to my feet excitedly and my eyes fall to my hair. It's shorter than I expected it would be, cutting at my neck, not quite long enough to reach my shoulders. The edges are clean and soft and tickle the skin at my neck. I can't believe it, but I like it and the way it frames my face. I stare into my own pale eyes for a moment, tucking one side of my hair behind my pointed ear, before I look away.

"Thank you," I say, turning to face Gidget. "Not just for helping me with my hair, but for finding me, helping me when there was no one else. How can I ever repay you?"

Gidget's dark eyes sparkle as she smiles. "You don't need to repay me for anything. Taking care of others is just what I do." Then her smile turns more mischievous. "But now that you mention it, Zero and I were talking last night and—"

"Can you actually talk to him in his wolf form?" I interrupt, asking the same question Macon had asked the day before.

"It isn't really talking," she replies vaguely. "I just know his soul." She doesn't explain any further and carries on with her idea instead. "So, what I was thinking—I don't know if you're up for it. But hear me out before you say no, okay?"

I nod and she continues, her voice accelerating the more she talks.

"How many shinies do you have in your account right now?" she asks.

"Well, that's not a way to get me on your side—"

"Forget that. Even what you do have, you can't use in case the House of Horns are still trying to find you. Am I right or am I right?"

Shit, she is right.

"And do you know how much the prize is for first place in the Race for Light?"

"Half-a-million shinies," I answer.

"The price on your head is a hundred thousand."

"Jojin put a hit out on me?" My voice echoes in the bathroom, my heart leaping.

Gidget nods grimly. "It came through my Net watch last night. It's quiet for now, kept only to the underground servers. But if the Bounties or the Court sniff wind of it, then we both know what happens."

I would be a treasure to be preserved. The Last Elf of Voltyss and the Fallen Terrascape Kingdoms.

I can see it now, the animated plaque below my name in their treasury, their zoo. I have to get my name off that list before they find out. I'd rather face off with the Bounties after they hunted me down than be trapped in a room and be gawked at like an animal in a cage.

"Winning the Race for Light could change your life for the better," Gidget says. "It could buy you safety."

I remember my promise to myself in the littered alley. My broken body, but my fierce determination to keep going. I made the promise not knowing if I would live to see it through and once again, fear creeps back inside my head, a familiar tormenter to my fickle mind.

The idea of entering the race was just a dream. I can't actually pull it off. I'll only put myself in more danger. Hiding is the safest bet and if I'm found, running is what I do best.

"Gidget, I can't..." I start. I'm beyond disappointed with myself. My heart is heavy, my mind screaming at me to stop being such a coward, to do something worth the struggle, even if the risk is great.

"You can," Gidget says. "You know why? Because I believe in you."

I scoff at her words.

"I know it's cheesy, but I'm telling you—there's a reason you're the last elf here. You didn't run away from the Night like the rest of them."

I don't tell her that I tried to. "I was just a kid when they fled. I'm only here because I was left behind."

"So what are you going to do then? Sit around and wait for them to return? Or are you going to take back your life?"

My own words drift back to me—strong thoughts when I was weak.

I'm not running anymore.

This is not going to be my life.

"And it wouldn't just be for you," Gidget continues, her gaze silently pleading. "It would be for me, for Zero, for all the others stuck in this shithole with pretty lights. I saw you drive and I know elves are quick and have reflexes that can match Clarx Bolton's advanced cyborg protocols. No one else in the city ever has a chance against him. The Court has fixed it that way so they can dump their shinies back in their own accounts."

"Gidget, I—"

"I can build you a zoomer. We can gather resources from the four districts. We can give this city something they lost a long time ago—hope."

Her words strike away the lingering fear, making me free of its binding chains.

"You can build me a zoomer?"

Gidget grins wider than I've seen from her. "I can build you a really fast zoomer."

I take a deep breath, diving in head first to a future that hangs in the balance.

I'm not running anymore.

This is not going to be my life.

"Where do I sign up?"