Carl: Are we doing this now? Elle, you ready?

Elle: Might as well get it over with. I’m ready.

Carl: You sure you don’t want to do all the talking? It’s not too late. Donut? You’re the one who figured this out.

Donut: IT WASN’T ME. IT WAS THE PRINCESS POSSE MESSAGE BOARD.

Elle: Look, Carl. You’re the one that’s going to be leading all of us to our deaths. You’ve been the face of all this. Can’t change that now. I’ll pipe up when it’s time.

Carl: Okay. Here we go.

I turned to the crowd. Only a few had teacups. Most held bottled beers.

“Crawlers,” I called, my voice deep and booming.

The quiet chatter all calmed down, and hundreds of eyes turned to me. “Those of you, attempting this escape, I salute you,” I called out, raising my cup. “Those of you staying but planning to take a deal after the next heat, I salute you. Those of you who are hoping to make it to the parade, I salute you.”

My friends started to spread out into the crowd and turned to face me, raising their cups.

Donut jumped to the table, where Bautista poured her a bowl.

I lowered the tea and cupped it in my hand. I was comforted by the warmth.

“Man, this floor,” I said, shaking my head. “They keep trying to kill us, trying to make us turn on one another. And it worked for a while. We stopped doing it naturally, so now they’re forcing situations where we have to do it if we want to survive. We aren’t perfect. We fight. We do hurt each other sometimes. This last heat, heat seven, it will be three teams and only one survives. And for some of us, there’s no avoiding the inevitable. Some of us will fall. But you know what? I am proud of how far we’ve all come. We are doing our best with the hand we’ve been dealt. Nothing about this is easy or clean. But everyone here—each and every one of you, no matter what happens next—I consider you my brothers and sisters. My family. And I just wanted to get that out. I am proud to have survived alongside all of you.”

I turned and looked at the shining, tired, weary eyes of the survivors. My people.

“Before we say goodbye, before some of you go off to try to escape and some of you go off on your final race before you take a deal, we have one last piece of business as a group, as a family. We need to send out a message to the universe. Elle.”

Elle flitted up next to me. “Hi, guys. I’m not much for speeches. But I wanted to say a little bit about my late husband, Barry. His name was Bartholomew Eli McGibbons, and for forty-three years, he was my husband.” She reached up to finger the wedding ring she wore hanging by a chain around her neck. “This was his favorite song. I think it’s appropriate for this moment.”

Louis reached over and hit “play” on the boom box.

Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” started to play.

She spoke over the music. “He wasn’t the smartest man I ever met. Or the most handsome. But he was mine, and I was his, and I loved him more than life itself.” She shook her head. “He wouldn’t have survived five minutes in this place, and every time I think that, it just makes me miss him more.”

She paused. Everyone here knew what this was about. They knew because we’d briefed them all.

“He died a long time ago. It’s been thirty-five years. That’s a long time to be alone.” She shook her head.

“The reason I’m telling you this now is because I have a family again. And not only a family but a fan club. Who would’ve thought little ol’ me would have so many perverts lusting after her again? I mean, don’t get me wrong. Every one of those degenerates in Elle’s Snow Cones really needs their heads checked. But those guys, the Snow Cones, they formed a community of their own. They are very tight-knit.” She turned to Linus, and she started floating toward him. “So tight-knit, in fact, that they knew an impostor the moment he stepped into the dungeon.”

A look of panic washed over Linus. “What’re you talking about?”

Elle gave a bitter laugh. “You guys keep trying to come in here and kill us. But you just don’t understand. This is our house now.”

“Wait,” Linus said, stepping back. His barely corporeal form backed into me. I put my hand on his shoulder, careful not to squeeze too tight.

“The real Linus, before this floor started,” Elle continued, “posted an essay on a private server he shared with some close friends. Those same friends just posted it on the Princess Posse server. I’m guessing you haven’t seen it. But this is a quote from it. He wrote, ‘I don’t think I ever really thought of them as real people until I understood how much they loved each other. It was like a lightning bolt right to the receptors. What are we doing? They’re just like us. It makes me realize how much I miss my own family. Especially my big brother. I miss him so much.’”

Donut: THE FULL QUOTE FROM THE REAL LINUS ALSO HAD A WHOLE PARAGRAPH OF FAN FICTION ABOUT HOW HE WISHED ELLE WOULD IMPREGNATE HIM WITH HUMAN-HEADED ALIEN BABIES. HE DREW A PICTURE.

Carl: Not right now, Donut.

“Fuck,” Linus said, sagging under my grip. It was over, and he knew it. “Did he really write that?”

“He did,” Elle said.

“Fuck,” Linus said again. “Fuck. He never wrote me.”

Donut gasped. “So you are the brother! That was the big theory, but nobody knew for sure. Some people thought you were actually a Valtay agent, but WriggleInDew2023, who is the vice president of the team Mongo Mommies Valtay chapter and a street team member of the Snow Cones, said there was no way. She’ll be very happy to learn she was correct. What happened to your brother? His friends are really concerned.”

Linus just lowered his head, and he started to sob.

Donut gasped again. “You killed him? You killed your own brother to get to Elle!”

“It wasn’t me,” Linus said. “They just brought me in after he was already dead.”

“He did write you,” Elle said. “At least he said he did. He posted the letter in the chat, had his friends offer him tips. Your mom sounds like a real peach.”

“How did you not know how your own brother acted?” Donut demanded. “If I was in Carl’s body, nobody would ever know. It’s not hard. I would just act all broody and punch everything. You screwed this up so bad, half the alien internet figured it out five minutes after you arrived. You leaned too hard into the sex stuff, I think. You should know internet perverts rarely say that stuff out loud. His friends were all appalled. And then one noticed your tattoo was wrong. My goodness, you could’ve at least taken acting lessons first. You’re worse than Prepotente. No offense. And to make matters worse, you don’t even know the first thing about how the dungeon works. Honestly, it’s quite insulting.”

“My acting is top-notch!” Prepotente objected. He turned to Louis. “It’s good, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” Louis said.

Linus sagged even further. “I never really watched the show. Just the news about it. There wasn’t time to prepare. Can you . . . can you send the letter he wrote to me?”

Elle patted him on the opposite shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. From what we hear, it’s all over the tunnels. Up until this moment, the only person in the galaxy who didn’t know you were outed as a spy is you. Also, just so you know, you pretending to accidentally drop the poison in the tea wouldn’t have worked anyway. You don’t understand how our healers work. Everyone who drank your tea has an immunity. For most of us, those teapots are flashing red.” She shook her head. “Goddamned amateur.”

I let out a laugh. “That’s how we know you’re not talking to anybody on the outside. I imagine your commanding officer has been going crazy watching you make mistake after mistake. We’ve been waiting for you to make a move for a few days now.”

“Who was your target? Carl? Donut?” Imani demanded.

Linus laughed bitterly. His mannerisms were completely different now. Despite what Donut said, he really had been a fantastic actor. I had been fooled, at least.

The soother looked up, eyes wet. “Carl? Are you kidding? I may not have watched the show, but even I know he’s the last person they want taken out. He’s the best chance we got to survive this because he’s the one most likely to get everyone killed. They thought losing the cat would make him too volatile, too unpredictable, and probably get him killed too fast, so she wasn’t the target, either. No, Imani, the target was you. And my secondary target was pork chop over there.” He thumbed over his shoulder at Louis.

“Me?” Louis asked, incredulous. “What did I do?”

I squeezed my hand a little tighter, and I felt the softness. If he ran, he’d physically slip through my fingers.

“You can’t hurt me,” Linus, or whatever his real name was, said, his voice quavering. “I was just following orders.”

“No,” I agreed, leaning in. “I can’t hurt you. But I think you might’ve missed the point of what Elle was trying to say. What we’ve been saying this whole time. You keep trying to divide us. Don’t you realize what you’ve created? We have been tempered in the fires of hell, and we are now past the point of being broken. Your downfall has already been written on the stars. You may hurt us. You may kill us all. But it’s not going to matter. Don’t you realize? Don’t you realize?”

My hand squeezed so tight, it popped through the illusion of his skin. It didn’t hurt him, but it now appeared as if my fist was inside his neck.

I leaned in close to his ear. “Don’t you realize what you’ve done? What you’ve made? You and everyone who put us here has already lost. All that’s left is for the wreckage to settle in place.”

The alien, shivering, swallowed. He didn’t respond. He knew what was about to happen next.

He knew he was about to leave the dungeon. He knew he would go back to his small, defenseless spaceship. The same spaceship that was currently trapped in orbit over Earth. He knew a few friends of ours would be waiting for him upon exit.

Elle sighed, wiping her eyes. “My Barry really did love that song.”