Jimmy fought like a man possessed—not by programming, but by something determined, raw, and desperate.
He slammed a Sentinel into the railing.
Dodged another.
Tore a third to the floor.
Benji shouted, “He’s insane—”
“No,” Sassy cried. “He’s fighting THEM.”
Wren stabbed a Sentinel in the joints, disabling its arm. Levi pried open a control panel. Colton swung wildly at anything that moved. The chamber shook violently as emergency systems failed.
Sassy raced to the old transport crate rails.
“Levi! Can we power this thing?!”
Levi yanked two cables free and twisted them together. Electricity crackled.
“Maybe! But someone has to hit the manual override on the far side!”
Benji looked across the chamber— a narrow catwalk jutted over a rusted pit of old machinery.
“I’ll go.”
Wren grabbed his arm. “Benji, it’s collapsing!”
Benji shook her off. “I’m not losing anyone.”
He sprinted across the catwalk just as the overhead speakers crackled. Sassy froze. A deep voice broke through the static:
“…Sassandra…”
Her father. Again. A final message buried in the last subsystem.
“If you hear this… then the Garden’s purge has reached its end.”
Jimmy halted mid-fight—eyes widening.
The Ghost continued:
“I could not save you from the Garden. But I gave you the tools to escape it.”
The Sentinels faltered—confused by the interference.
“There is still more to uncover. You have not reached the truth of what the Garden was built for—or who else it answers to.”
Sassy’s stomach twisted.
More?
“Survive now. Seek answers later.”
Static swallowed the feed. A final relay cut through: “Find me.”
Then the system exploded in sparks.
Sassy clutched her chest. Her father was alive. Somewhere.
66
Benji reached the manual override.
“READY!” he shouted.
Levi yelled back, “HIT IT!”
Benji slammed his palm onto the override plate. A thunderous rumble shook the chamber. The transport mechanism flickered to life—rails humming, ancient motors struggling.
“EVERYONE IN THE CRATE!” Levi screamed.
Colton dove inside.
Wren pushed Sassy.
Levi followed.
Sassy reached out for Jimmy— But he was surrounded by Sentinels again, holding them at bay.
“JIMMY!” she screamed.
Jimmy locked eyes with her.
Brown.
Not gold.
Brown.
He smiled weakly.
“Go.”
“No—NO—”
He shook his head.
“If I get in that crate… I’ll turn. I’ll hurt you. I—I can feel the coding pulling again.”
“Jimmy, please—”
“I love you, Sass,” he said. “That’s the only thing they didn’t design.”
Something behind him exploded.
Benji ran back toward the crate—bleeding, limping.
“JIMMY! MOVE YOUR ASS!”
Jimmy didn’t move.
He shoved the last Sentinel away and launched himself onto the side railing, gripping a failing support beam above the crate track.
“JIMMY!” Sassy screamed.
He yelled back— “GO!”
Benji pulled Sassy into the crate as Levi slammed the door shut. The crate lurched.
Sentinels dove for them. Rail motors screeched. And the transport shot down the tunnel.
Sassy smashed her palms against the window.
“JIMMY!”
In the shrinking tunnel behind them Jimmy held onto the beam surrounded by collapsing metal and sparks—but alive.
At the last second he mouthed something: “Find me.”
Just like her father.
The tunnel consumed everything.
67
The crate burst through a final metal barrier and daylight flooded in. Cold, brilliant, blinding daylight.
The crate slid out onto a hillside—old rails half-buried in earth. It screeched to a halt among overgrown brush and grasses.
Silence. Actual, real silence. For the first time in Sassy’s life.
Wren coughed. “Holy shit. We lived.”
Levi slumped back against the crate wall. “I… I’ll take your word for it.”
Colton fell out onto the grass and kissed the dirt.
Benji leaned heavily on the doorframe, chest heaving.
Sassy stood on shaking legs, staring at the tunnel they’d emerged from. Smoke rose from the hidden facility. Distant metal clanged, collapsing inward. But Jimmy— Jimmy wasn’t beside her. Her heart cracked open.
“He’s alive,” Benji said firmly, coming to stand beside her. “You saw him. He held on.”
Sassy wiped her face, staring at the ruins.
“He told me to find him.”
“And we will,” Benji replied. “All of us.”
Sassy nodded. But part of her wondered if Jimmy even recognized himself anymore.
Night fell as they made camp near the hillside. A fire crackled. Wren cleaned her wounds. Levi scribbled diagrams of the facility from memory. Colton practiced hitting a tree with his wrench. Benji sat beside Sassy—close but not touching.
“You okay?” he asked softly.
“No,” she said honestly. “But I’m alive.”
Benji nodded. “Good start.”
She hugged her knees, staring at the stars. Freedom. It felt unreal.
“What now?” she asked.
Benji tilted his head toward the dark horizon.
“Now? We find Jimmy.”
She swallowed. “And after that?”
Benji hesitated.
“Sassy… Your father didn’t just leave instructions. He left warnings. If he’s still alive, he knows something bigger than the Garden. Something worse.”
Sassy shivered.
She thought of Jimmy’s face behind the flames.
Her father’s voice on the cracked screen.
The Elders’ terror—not of her, but of someone above them.
“I want answers,” she said.
Benji nodded. “Then we start with the only two people who have them.”
“Jimmy,” she said.
“And your father.”
The fire crackled between them.
Two names.
Two mysteries.
Two anchors in a world she didn’t understand yet.
Sassy stared into the embers.
Freedom wasn’t the end. It was the beginning.
EPILOGUE
Darkness. Then metal. Then fire. Then nothing.
Time twisted around him: seconds, hours, breaths—he couldn’t tell which he had left.
He hung somewhere between collapse and instinct; his fingers dug into the bent support beam as the tunnel tore itself apart around him. The heat scorched his back. Sparks rained down like burning rain.
He didn’t feel the pain anymore. He felt her.
Sassy’s voice, echoing down the transport tunnel.
Her scream.
Her reaching for him.
Her eyes—wild and terrified.
“Find me.”
He’d meant it. God, he’d meant it.
But when the crate disappeared into the dark, something inside him snapped—like a cord tethering him to the boy he used to be.
The gold surged again. Not a glow this time. A takeover.
He collapsed as the programming rushed over him in a choking wave—static in his vision, voices cracking in his skull, commands threading into the spaces where memories lived.
Stand.
Comply.
Protect.
Return.
He bit down hard, tasting blood.
“No,” he whispered, or thought he whispered. “Not her.”
The beam above him trembled.
The tunnel echoed as if in pain.
A distant explosion echoed through the earth.
He slid down the metal until his boots hit unstable flooring. His knees buckled. His hands shook uncontrollably.
He tried to crawl. One hand forward. Then another.
But every movement sent the programming clawing deeper—rewriting, adjusting, calculating.
The Bloom has escaped.
Locate the Bloom.
Retrieve the Bloom.
“No. I—I won’t—”
A flash tore through his mind: Sassy’s face pressed against the crate window.
Her hand reaching for him.
Her voice breaking— I’m not leaving without you.
He latched onto it.
Held it like a lifeline.
Sassy wasn’t a command.
Not an assignment.
Not a protocol.
She was a choice. His choice.
But the voice in his head grew louder— smooth, calm, unmistakably Garden.
If you resist, the pain will escalate.
If you obey, the pain will stop.
Jimmy pressed his forehead to the cold metal floor.
“I’d rather burn.”
The response came instantly: So be it.
Agony ripped through him—so sharp he arched off the floor, choking on a scream he couldn’t swallow. His vision blurred. When it cleared boots stood inches from his face.
Sentinels.
Four of them.
Silent and identical.
One lifted him under the arms with mechanical precision.
He didn’t fight. He couldn’t. His muscles wouldn’t listen.
The Sentinel dragged him out of the collapsing tunnel, debris crashing behind them. Light flickered overhead—emergency beacons guiding them like a path back into hell. He let his head hang, breath ragged.
Not dead. Not alive. Just… captured. Again.
A voice drifted through the static in his head—but this one wasn’t code.
It was memory.
Soft.
Warm.
Defiant.
Sassy saying to him in the Crucible: “You don’t belong to them.”
His fingers twitched. He wasn’t sure if the Sentinels noticed.
The Guardian voice spoke again, low and satisfied: Return the Protector to containment.
He will be rewritten.
He will fulfill his purpose.
A cold cell door hissed open ahead of them. Jimmy lifted his eyes just enough to see a symbol etched into the metal wall.
Not Garden. Older. Hidden. A sunburst pattern.
He didn’t know why but it made something inside him lurch.
The Sentinels shoved him into the chamber. The door slammed shut. Lights flickered to life, revealing a single cot, a restraint chair, and a screen dark with static.
Jimmy collapsed onto his hands and knees, fighting to breathe. Fighting to stay himself. Fighting to remember her.
“Sass…” he said, voice breaking. “I’ll find you. I swear.”
The static screen cracked once—
a flicker—
like a shadow moved behind it.
He lifted his head, heart pounding. The screen blinked. Then a voice—low, familiar, and edged with urgency—filtered through the static: “Jimmy. If you’re hearing this… we don’t have much time.”
Jimmy froze. He knew that voice. Though he’d never heard it before. Sassy’s father. The Ghost.
“You love her. Good. That means you can’t be rewritten.”
Jimmy’s breath trembled.
“Hold on.
She will come for you.
But first—you must survive what’s coming.”
Static swallowed the words—then silence. Jimmy’s pulse hammered against the inside of his skull.
He closed his eyes. He pictured Sassy’s face.
Not the fear.
Not the fire.
Not the last look she gave him.
The look before that— The look where she believed he could come back.
“I’m coming back,” he whispered.
His hands clenched into fists.
“I’ll find you.”
A new alarm began to sound outside his cell. Heavy footsteps approached. Jimmy pushed himself upright.
Eyes still flickering between gold and brown.
Code and self.
Weapon and person.
But one thing was steady— his love for her. It was the only thing the Garden couldn’t delete. The cell door began to open.
Jimmy didn’t back away. He stood. Ready to fight. Ready to break. Ready to remember. And somewhere out there— Sassy was free. And she would never stop until she reached him. A small, tired smile tugged at his mouth.
“Find me,” he whispered.
Then the lights went out.
A Note Before We Go
Every ending leaves something behind.
For the survivors of The Last Bloom, the Garden is gone. The walls that defined their lives have fallen. For the first time, they have the freedom to decide who they want to become.
But some stories do not end when the gates open.
Some questions remain unanswered.
Some sacrifices leave scars that cannot be seen.
And some people are not as gone as they appear.
This fall, the story continues in The Broken Circle, the second novel in the trilogy.
As the world beyond the Garden begins to reveal itself, old alliances will be tested, new threats will emerge, and the truth behind everything the children endured will prove far more complicated than they imagined.
The Garden was only the beginning.
Thank you for taking this journey with us through The Last Bloom. Whether you’ve been here since the first chapter or joined along the way, your support made this experiment in serialized storytelling possible.
Enjoy the ending.
Then prepare for what comes next.