His parents lie on the ground, their clothes torn, their faces and bodies bloody.

But they're alive! They're still alive.

Connor grabs his mother and helps her to her feet. He reaches out to his father, who takes his hand and rises. The two of them look like refugees. Desperate. Alone against a force that outnumbers them. They look like AWOLs.

Around them the crowd still seethes, and the riot police are on the verge of attack. The powder keg is about to blow, and who knows how bad it will be once it does? Everything hinges on this moment.

Connor knows what he must do to defuse this. He knows what the crowd needs to see.

He throws his arms around both his mother and his father and holds them with all the strength he has. Lucas, pulled in by their gravity, joins them in this odd and awkward familial embrace, and for Connor it's as if the crowd and the police and the world have gone away. But he knows they haven't. They're all there, waiting to see how this hair-trigger reunion will end.

Connor's father, his lips close to Connor's ear, whispers, "Can you forgive us?"

And Connor realizes he doesn't have an answer. Right now the yes and the no of his own pie chart are overwhelmed by the part of him that's undecided.

"I'm doing this to save your lives," Connor tells him. But he knows it's more than that. It's as if his embrace can rewind them-not into the family they once were, but into the one they may still have a chance to be. Connor knows he can't forgive them today; they will have to fight for his forgiveness. They will have to earn it. But if they all survive today, there will be time for that.

His father now sobs uncontrollably into Connor's shoulder, and his mother holds his gaze as if looking at him gives her strength. The crowd watches. The crowd waits. And the moment of crisis passes.

It is then that Connor realizes that Aragon was absolutely right. Connor has won. Which means they've all won.

"Can we go home now?" Lucas asks.

"Soon," Connor tells him gently. "Very soon."

And so, as the mob backs away to give them space . . . and as the riot police holster their weapons, standing down, and as Risa takes the podium, calming the crowd with a voice as soothing as a sonata, Connor Lassiter holds his family like he'll never let them go.

Neal Shusterman, New York Times bestselling author, has written more than thirty award-winning books for children, teens, and adults, including the Unwind Dystology (Unwind, UnWholly, UnSouled, and UnDivided), the Skinjacker Trilogy (Everlost, Everwild, and Everfound), Full Tilt, Bruiser, and The Schwa Was Here, which won the Boston GlobeHorn Book Award for fiction. Several of his books are now in development as feature films. Neal lives in Southern California when he's not traveling the globe, and can be found online at storyman.com.

Simon & Schuster, New York.

Also by Neal Shusterman.

NOVELS.

Antsy Does Time.

Bruiser The Dark Side of Nowhere.

Dissidents Downsiders The Eyes of Kid Midas.

Full Tilt.

The Schwa Was Here.

The Shadow Club The Shadow Club Rising.

Speeding Bullet Tesla's Attic with Eric Elfman What Daddy Did.

THE UNWIND DYSTOLOGY.

Unwind.

UnWholly UnSouled.

UnStrung (an original novella).

THE SKINJACKER TRILOGY.

Everlost.

Everwild Everfound.

THE STAR SHARDS CHRONICLES.

Scorpion Shards.

Thief of Souls Shattered Sky.

THE DARK FUSION SERIES.

Dreadlocks.

Red Rider's Hood Duckling Ugly.

STORY COLLECTIONS.

Darkness Creeping.

Kid Heroes.

MindQuakes MindStorms.

end.