AT THE END OF THE long, crude tunnel dug beneath Haven was a storm drain that opened into a trash-strewn field. We found the others there, sitting together in a tight cluster, the kids leaning against each other’s shoulders and backs, fighting to keep their eyes open.

Lisa and Miguel had gathered the late arrivals from the tree houses and were tending to cuts and bumps, plying them with water and tight hugs. The first-aid kits open in the wild grass already looked empty.

Roman climbed out of the sludge-filled pipe first. Ankle-deep in the sopping-wet mess, he took Sasha’s arm and steadied her as she took the big step down. Priyanka used his shoulder for balance as she followed the girl toward where Jacob and some of the others were sorting through a pile of soot-stained belongings. Someone must have gone back into the house to gather up a few things to take with them.

Finally, Roman turned back toward me, raising his hands as if to help me down the way he had Sasha. Instead, he hesitated, ghosting a touch over my forearm before I took his hand and stepped down. Roman stared at his own hand the whole time, as if he had to focus all his attention on this simple task.

“Are you all right?” I asked him.

Roman startled, glancing up at me through his mussed dark hair. “I’m not hurt.”

“I meant about Lana,” I said. “Priyanka explained to me a little of what happened. I wish you had just been honest with me.”

“I should have,” he said. “I’m sorry, Suzume.”

“Zu,” I corrected.

He met my eyes again. “Zu. I know it doesn’t matter, and I don’t expect forgiveness, but I wanted to tell you the truth a thousand times.”

“But you also wanted to protect your sister,” I said. From me.

“She’s been surrounded by danger from all sides since the day her powers manifested. There’s almost nothing I wouldn’t do to protect her. To reach her,” Roman said. Then he added, somewhat ruefully, “Lying to someone who was supposed to stay a stranger didn’t feel like that big of a sacrifice at the time.”

“Funny,” I said. “I was trying to keep you a stranger, too.” If there was one thing I was always going to understand, it was doing whatever it took to protect the people you loved. “I set up you and Priyanka to be captured when we got to Haven. Can we call it even?”

His face went slack as my words sank in and he replayed that moment in his mind. To my surprise, he laughed softly, pressing his hand to his head and tilting it back. My eyes fixed on the strong line of his jaw, where there was a small scar just below his right cheek. “Priyanka was right. I’m an idiot. You, on the other hand, are amazing.”

It was spoken as a simple, direct statement of fact. It made me want to believe him, to let that warmth permeate my whole self until it became reality. But all I needed to do was look around me to find the truth. “Yes, amazing at ruining lives.”

The humor left his expression. “That’s not true.”

“Isn’t it?” I said. “I shouldn’t have turned on the phone. I’m not stupid. I really do know better, but I did it anyway, and I brought hell down on these kids. I destroyed the one place they felt safe.”

I’d almost single-handedly killed this dream. The thought of facing Ruby and Liam now left my chest too tight to breathe.

“You did what any of us would have,” he said. “For all we know, they could have been tracking it even when it was off.”

“They would have caught up to us before we ever made it out of Nebraska,” I pointed out.

He gave me a stern look. “You’re interrupting my attempt to make you feel better.”

“You know what would make me feel a lot better?” I told him. “Another rousing rendition of ‘Cheer Up, Eileen.’”

“Well, all right.” Roman sucked in a deep breath.

I held up my hands, stopping him. “Kidding.”

Roman’s face turned more sober the longer he watched me. “I meant what I said before. If you hadn’t gotten the noise turned off, none of us would have made it out of there. Everyone pulls a bad card. What matters is how you ultimately play it. You didn’t run. You stayed and fought.”

“So did you.”

Roman ducked his head slightly, absorbing the gratitude in my words. “You had it handled.”

Behind him, Priyanka broke away from Jacob and the older teens and strode toward one of the clusters of kids. She swung the powered-down drone out in front of her.

“Hello, tiny Psilings!” she said, forcing brightness into her voice. “I’m your new friend Priyanka, and I’m going to show you how to disassemble a drone and steal its useful parts!”

Roman turned, watching as she knelt beside them. “She’s not hurt, either.”

I knew what he meant. “They were together?”

He nodded, his composure slipping just enough for bone-deep exhaustion to slip into his voice. “We’ve all been close since we were kids, but the two of them became something more. They were serious for about two years. From the time we were sixteen until just before we left her.”

“And when was that?”

“About six months ago.”

What felt recent to me was probably a lifetime to them.

“Zu! Are you all right?” Lisa called, waving me over. Several of the kids nearby watched Roman and me with big eyes. I had to look away from their ashen faces.

“One second!” I shouted back, then looked to him. “I have to tell you something. Ruby has been missing for about two weeks, and Liam’s in the wind. If you want to go after Lana, then this is where we’re going to have to split up. I need to find them.”

Roman looked deeply troubled by that information.

“What?” I asked.

“I don’t think we should split up,” he said. “Hear me out—I don’t think it’s a coincidence that your friend went missing just before someone tried to kidnap you.”

“I had the same thought, but Priya believes the kidnappers were after you,” I said. “That it might be the Psion Ring.”

He gave his head a sharp shake. “No, Lana is working with someone else and she’s trying to…force us into the fold, the way she was. Somehow, all of this is connected.”

“You think someone forced her to do this?” I asked, trying to subdue my disbelief. But even as I doubted that, Priyanka’s insistence that something was different about her kept rising back up in my mind.

“I think she’s been…programmed. What’s the word?”

“Brainwashed,” I supplied. “You really think so? I’ve seen Reds who have gone through conditioning, and they can barely function beyond taking orders.”

The thought made me look back across the field, searching for, and finding, Owen’s small form sitting away from the others.

“You don’t know her,” Roman insisted. “Lana changed. Someone has planted a seed of rage in her. They’ve done something to her. There’s no other explanation for why she’s like this.”

Lana did seem troubled, but not in the way the Reds who had undergone Project Jamboree were. That reconditioning had been like a disease of the mind, one that stomped out their spark of life. But Roman, obviously, would know how Lana had changed better than I would.

“If we found your friend Ruby together, could…could she help Lana?” he asked, the words shaking slightly, as if with barely restrained hope. “Get through to her?”

“Ruby’s problem is that she can’t not help, so yes, I think she would try,” I said, wondering at how that little bit of heaviness eased away from me at the word together. “I agree with you that, somehow, all of this—the kidnapping, the frame job, the attack—is connected. Ruby’s a piece of it I don’t understand. You see things more clearly than I do.”

“That’s not true,” he said, almost abashed. This was a thing with him, I realized. He’d always swat down my attempts to compliment him, but when it came to praising me or Priyanka, he refused to let us do the same. “You knew right away Priyanka and I were lying.”

“No offense, but neither of you actually are good liars,” I said. “And anyway, someone once reminded me that there are benefits to staying together.”

“Two more sets of eyes to keep watch,” he confirmed.

“Two more sets of hands to find food,” I finished.

I could do this alone. I knew that, and I could see in his faint trace of a smile that he did, too. When he looked at me, he didn’t see a little girl who needed to be carried and protected. He didn’t see someone who needed to be saved.

I could find Ruby—and catch up to Liam in the process—and I could figure out who was behind all of this by myself. I just didn’t want to if I didn’t have to.

A sharp snap of static bit both of us as I brushed past his shoulder. Roman let out another surprised, breathless laugh.

“Sorry,” I said. “Comes with the territory, as you know.”

“Yes,” he said, that small smile fading.

I accepted his offered arm for balance as we navigated through the mud and released it just as quickly. I was too conscious of everything. The warmth of his skin, the tight band of muscle over his bones, the bump of my hip against his as I straightened. I started toward Lisa, only to be caught again by his soft voice.

“I don’t want to be your stranger.”

I glanced back. “Then don’t be.”

Watercolors couldn’t have begun to capture the sky in that moment, just as it prepared to brighten for dawn. The cruelest truth about life is that it just goes on—the sun rises, gravity keeps your feet on the ground, flowers open their faces to greet the sky. Your world could be dissolving with grief or pain or anger, but the sky would still give you the most breathtaking sunrise of violet warming to shell pink.

Miguel and Lisa sent me twin looks of relief as I came toward them. Jacob stepped back, allowing me to join their circle.

“I’m sorry,” I said, my throat aching. “I should never have come back here.”

“Don’t say that,” Lisa said. “Ruby and Liam would have wanted you to come. You were exhausted and under incredible stress. One of us should have thought to check the phone.”

“But the house…” I closed my eyes, and all I could see were Ruby and Liam standing at the edge of the collapsed porch, their dream reduced to ash and cinders.

“I’m not going to pretend this doesn’t completely suck,” Jacob said. “They left us in charge, and while we got everyone out, it still hurts. But Haven is people, not a house. You could ask anyone here and they’d tell you that. As long as we can take care of each other, it doesn’t matter what roof is over our heads.”

I nodded, but the guilt didn’t ease.

“—and this is the standard prop,” Priyanka said, from somewhere behind me. “It pulls the quadcopter-style drone through the air, while the pusher prop at the back does what the name implies and pushes it forward. This is the memory card, which I will be taking with me. Ooh, and do you know what this is?” She paused for effect. “A motor mount. You should always check to make sure it isn’t cracked and the screws aren’t loose.”

I looked back, just in time to see several small heads nod, riveted. My eyes found Roman, whether they meant to or not. Sasha had waved him over and sat him down in the center of a circle of younger kids. Judging by her big hand gestures and the way stoic Roman’s cheeks were going pink, she was clearly regaling them with the story of her escape. Another one of the girls stood up and helpfully smoothed down his mussed hair for him.

“—emergency plan is already in play,” Jacob was saying, pulling my attention back to him.

“Are those the supply bags?” I asked, nodding to the large camping backpacks interspersed among the kids. Liam had mentioned them to me in passing during my last trip; they were outfitted with just about everything you could need for living rough for a while. The black trash bags they’d been wrapped in were currently being used by the kids as blankets to cover the ground.

“They are,” Lisa said. “There’s food, water, first-aid kits, and just about anything else you could want. It’ll tide us over until Liam’s dad and his friends get here.”

At my surprised look, Miguel held up a flip phone. “Sent the distress-code word as soon as I was through the tunnel. He’s checking the backup shelter for squatters and any monitoring, but he should be here fairly soon.”

A backup shelter. I took in a deep breath, eyes closing for a moment. That was a small relief, even though I’d never doubted that Liam and Ruby would have some kind of emergency plan in place if the house was exposed.

“And then what?” I asked.

“We’ll find a new house, or build one,” Lisa said. “And the littles will come to love that place, too.”

I glanced over to where Owen was sitting, alone. A few of the kids tentatively tried to approach him, to lay careful, hesitant hands on his shoulder, but he didn’t react to any of their touches. He stared straight ahead, toward the sunrise. I knew, without seeing them, how empty those big dark eyes would be.

“What are your plans, Zu?” Miguel asked. “There’s room for you here with us.”

“I’m going to go find them,” I said.

“I thought you would say that,” Lisa admitted. “I’d rather have you safe here with us.”

“People are looking for me,” I reminded her. “As much as I want to stay, you guys will never be fully safe if I’m with you. Not until I fix this mess.”

“With them?” Jacob clarified, tilting his head in their direction.

I glanced back at them—Priyanka, still showing the kids various parts of the drones, letting one of the Yellows zap what I assumed was a tracking device in it, and Roman, dropping a daisy chain he’d made onto Sasha’s head like a crown. She beamed up at him, the white flowers like stars in her dark hair.

“Yeah,” I said. “I think I can handle them.”

“Figured as much,” Miguel said. “You’d better take the getaway car.”

“Getaway car?”

“Liam stashed a Toyota sedan in the woods, about a hundred yards past that line of trees,” Lisa said, pointing across the field. “Bring one of the packs with you. It’ll have everything you need, including a burner and a charger for it.”

I shook my head. I’d already taken far too much from them. “I can’t—”

“You can,” Lisa assured me. “We won’t need it.”

That’s what it came down to in the end. Need. If nothing else, we needed the burner, both to communicate and for Priyanka to create another device to make the cameras blink. Need made us do things, take things, we never would have otherwise.

“Please,” Miguel said. “Just try to check in with us. If you get any information, to let us know you’re okay…”

“I’ll try,” I promised.

“Wait,” Lisa said suddenly, turning back toward the pile of items salvaged from the house. Digging under some of the drawings, she pulled out a singed photograph and handed it to me. “I thought you might want this. I grabbed it from their room.”

It was a picture from five years ago, taken by Vida, of me, Chubs, Ruby, and Liam standing in front of Betty the van, out in the middle of the forest near Lake Prince in Virginia.

At the time, Liam had wanted to go looking for Betty so he could bring her in and fix her up. But by the time we found the old van, nature had done its worst to her engine and undercarriage. It would have been a nightmare to try to get a tow truck in there to haul her out. So we left Betty behind, as a kind of monument to what we had done together—who we had been together.

Liam had taken one of the hubcaps, though; he tucked it under one arm and Ruby under the other.

I looked so young in the photo, dressed in bright pink, face beaming. My hair was in a long pixie cut and the way I was smiling so wide made me seem almost impish. Chubs had glanced up at the sky, clearly exasperated by something that Vida had said the instant before she took the picture. Liam was looking over my head, smiling in Ruby’s direction. She was still in a walking cast after what happened at Thurmond, and was leaning back against Betty’s passenger door for balance. Her smile was small, but…peaceful.

I thought Chubs had had the only copy of it. He’d shredded it an hour before he testified in front of Cruz, UN representatives, and interim members of Congress that he no longer considered them friends, and that he had no idea where on earth they’d gone.

I took the scrap of memory, tucking it into my back pocket for safekeeping.

“Are Lee and Ruby going to meet us there?” I heard a boy ask Lisa. He twisted his hands together, turning his fingers into anxious knots. “Are they going to be able to find us?”

They are, I thought, because I’m going to bring them back to you.

But before I went looking, there was one last person I needed to talk to.

Roman looked up as I walked by him and headed for the lone figure sitting a few dozen feet away.

Owen had scrubbed the soot from his face, but the attack had left its mark on him. His expression was vacant as he held a blanket to his chest despite the heat. It was obvious that even his small stature and quiet, almost doe-like nature wasn’t enough to fully counteract the fear others felt at learning he was a Red.

“Hey, Owen,” I said, kneeling down beside him. “We didn’t really have a chance to meet before. I’m Zu.”

Nothing. No movement. Not a word.

“Thank you again for what you did,” I continued. “I can’t say it enough. Thank you. None of us would be here now, safe and together, without you.”

His only response was a slight nod as he tucked his chin against the blanket.

“Are you all right?” I asked him. Even at dawn, the humidity was setting in, and the blanket looked like it was made of wool. “Are you cold?”

He could be in shock, I thought. Owen, however, didn’t make any move to wrap the blanket around himself. He didn’t move at all.

“I have to ask you a question, if that’s okay,” I said, taking his silence in stride. “It’s about Ruby.”

Another nod. Progress.

The others had said Ruby was working with him one-on-one, trying to help him break Project Jamboree’s hold on his mind. This might be a long shot, but if she had mentioned anything to him about her trips, even in passing, it could be useful.

“Do you remember what the two of you talked about when she last spent time with you?” I asked. “She’s misplaced her phone, and we’re trying to track down where she might have gone.”

This wasn’t my first encounter with a Red who had been part of the ill-fated Project Jamboree, but it didn’t make it any easier. President Gray’s brainwashing program had been designed to turn them into weapons of mass destruction, but ultimately had only broken their minds and wills.

Ruby had worked with a number of them, until the world had tried to break her, too.

The longer I sat there, the longer that silence went on, the tighter my throat became. “It’s all right,” I told Owen. “You don’t have to say anything. But you should know that your voice is necessary, and you deserve to be heard.”

He looked up again, brow creasing, and I realized I’d had it wrong. It wasn’t that his gaze was empty; Owen’s eyes were like the deepest part of the sea, the darkness disguising every feeling, every fear, forcing them all deep below the surface.

“Well, no problem,” I said, tamping down the frustration I felt. “I’m really glad I got to meet you, Owen. If you think of anything, let Jacob or Lisa know. They can pass it on to me.”

I had just started to stand when a small voice said, “It’s for Ruby.”

“What is?” I asked, freezing in place. I turned to see him let the blanket fall into his lap. “The blanket?”

Owen nodded, not meeting my gaze. His thumbs ran along the edge of the blanket. “She’s so cold.”

It was only when those words ran through my mind a second time that I understood what he’d said. “You mean she was cold the last time you saw her?”

“She’s cold,” Owen said. “She’s so cold.”

“I’m not sure I understand,” I said. “Did she say something to you before she left?”

His dark gaze lifted from his blanket again. “Just good-bye.”

My pulse was already thrumming hard in my veins before I turned—before I heard Miguel’s “Oh, shit!” from across the field.

He, Lisa, and Jacob were huddled over one of the burner phones, each of their faces looking more horrified than the next. A short distance away, the burner phone they’d given us began to blare in Priyanka’s hand. Roman was already there beside her, and even from my distance, I could see the color drain from his cheeks.

The static was growling loudly in my ears again as I made my way over to Priyanka and Roman. They both glanced up, not saying a word as they passed the phone over to me.

At first I didn’t understand what I was seeing. There was a live-streaming video of an airplane burning, its broken pieces strewn across a runway. The camera shifted over to the sight of a motorcade roaring away from it, police lights flashing.

The words scrolled across the bottom of the video, their truth blistering.

“What is happening to this world?” I heard Lisa say.

“I don’t understand,” Jacob said. “Why would anyone do this?”