“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE?” Liam kept repeating the question, sounding as dazed as I felt. “What in the world are you doing here?”

I couldn’t speak. I held on to him tighter, my face pressed into his flannel jacket, like he was a mirage that could fade at any minute.

Liam suddenly tensed, turning to face the entrance to the barn. Roman’s gun was inches from his skull.

“Hey, Rambo,” Liam said through gritted teeth. “You want to take it down a notch?”

I stepped back out of his arms, and, at my nod, Roman lowered the gun.

“Sorry,” he murmured as he passed by us. “Old habits.”

“Yeah, I’ve got some of those, too,” Liam said, still eyeing him warily.

Roman stepped into the barn to scan its shadows and many hiding places.

“Hello…stranger Zu seems to like,” Priyanka said, leaning into the barn to take a look. Her whole face lit up. “Ooh! A horse!”

Priyanka ran right past us, heading straight for the nearby stall. A white horse watched the scene unfold, casually chewing on its food.

“That’s Snowflake,” Liam said. He did a double take as Max trailed in after her. “Careful, she…uh, she bites when she’s nervous.”

Then he looked down at me with a clear who-are-these-people? expression.

“Something we have in common, precious Snowflake,” Priyanka cooed, stroking the horse’s nose. “Also, it’s probably weird I know the horse’s name before I know yours…?”

“That’s Liam Stewart,” Roman said, circling back to us. “You are him, aren’t you?”

I could see why they might be confused. The only word to describe Liam’s current state was rough. His hair was overlong and shaggy, and he had a full beard. From what I could make out beneath the facial hair, his complexion looked almost ashen, which only served to deepen the dark grooves beneath his eyes. A whopper of a bruise covered his left temple, and the collar of his undershirt was torn.

“In the flesh. Most of it, anyway.” Liam grimaced. “Could you introduce your friends to me, Zuzu?”

Oh, right. “Snowflake’s new best friend is Priyanka, Roman is the only one who remembered to be careful about entering an unknown place, and Max is—” I looked around. “Where is Max?”

“Here,” he called from the back of the barn. He stood directly beneath a sunbeam shining through a crack in the roof. “It’s so beautiful. Like a golden ribbon.”

Priyanka angled her head toward him. “Okay, I think you need some sleep, Maximo.”

Liam let out a ghost of a laugh, shifting his weight. His movements were stiff, slow, almost like—

I grabbed his arm to keep him still. A small crimson stain was visible on his undershirt, just above his left hip. I pushed his jacket out of the way, revealing the splotch of dried blood and the jagged hole in the fabric. Panic jolted through me.

“Oh my God,” I said. “You were shot?”

“I’m all right,” he said, putting a hand over mine.

All this time we’d been looking for Ruby, he’d been hurt. He’d been shot.

“Zu,” he said, tightening his hold until I looked up. “I’m all right now. Sam and Lucas have been taking care of my sorry self the last few weeks. But I need to know that you are okay. I saw everything on the news, and you know I adore you, but you look like fresh hell.”

“I haven’t been shot,” I told him, fighting the temptation to shake him. Instead, I wound my arms around him again and felt him sag against me. “I also don’t smell like hay. Are they making you sleep out here? Where are Sam and Lucas anyway?”

Liam took in a deep, labored breath. “They’re out looking for Ruby.”

“Well, isn’t that just a crazy coincidence,” Priyanka said, all traces of humor gone. “So are we.”

Liam took us to the front door, shooing the rooster off his perch on the porch. He leaned heavily on the railing. Waving a hand over the old lock, we all heard the definitive click as he moved the dead bolt.

“Old-school,” Priyanka said approvingly. “I like it.”

The house was small, enveloping you like a warm hug the moment you stepped inside. I’d only met Sam and Lucas twice—back then, we were all orbiting Ruby—but as little as I knew about the two of them, I saw shades of them in their home. Sam’s boldness, reflected in the colors on the walls and the mismatched furniture that somehow worked together. Lucas’s quiet, sweet demeanor in the many Polaroid photos framed in the house. In the corner of the living room, there was an easel with an unfinished canvas. All I needed to see were the jagged slashes of crimson and black paint to know who had painted it.

Liam’s whole body tensed as we walked through the house. I was surprised he hadn’t scratched up the walls by this point. He stopped in the tidy, old-fashioned kitchen, moved toward the counter beside the stove, and picked up a cell phone charging there.

“Water?” I asked.

“They pull from a well and have their own purifier,” Liam said. “Give me a second and I’ll grab you some glasses.”

“Who are you messaging?” Roman asked from the other room.

Priyanka had sprawled out on an old leather armchair. Max was asleep at one end of the couch, his face mashed against his palm. But Roman sat at the other end, ramrod straight, eyeing both of us where we stood in the kitchen.

“Their friend Vida,” Priyanka said around a yawn. “She wants to know if Zu had anything to do with the rumors she’s hearing about ‘an incident’ at Moore’s training facility. Apparently he’s already trying to spin it on the news.”

Liam almost dropped the phone. He shot me an uneasy look. “That is some guesswork.”

“Not guesswork,” I said. “My friends are different.”

He raised a brow. “We’re all different.”

“Differently different,” I clarified.

Liam started to type something in reply, watching Priyanka with narrowed eyes.

She looked over at him, bored. “Yes, I can read that.”

He swore under his breath, deleting the text. “I’m going to need an explanation in a minute, but first I need to let Sam and Lucas know to come back.”

“Is that their phone?” I asked.

“Sam’s,” Liam said. “I’ve been relaying messages between them and Vida as they’ve been searching. Seemed safer to have an intermediary, especially since Vi was only just able to shake the rest of the agents and head out alone.”

“Are those lines secure?” Roman asked, taking a position by one of the windows. I watched him, wondering why he seemed unable to relax, even for a second.

Liam looked up from the screen again, this time in disbelief. “I was sending secure messages while you were still eating your own boogers.”

I gave him a look as I filled the glasses. “He’s my age, old man.”

“Boys do develop slower than girls,” Priyanka pointed out.

“Why are we talking about my mucus?” Roman said.

The phone buzzed again.

“What do you want me to tell her about the facility?” Liam said. “Moore’s making it sound like you burned a sweet little red schoolhouse to the ground.”

Priyanka rolled her eyes. “We would have burned it down, but there was too much concrete.”

“Ask her if she or Chubs knew about it.” I needed to know. I needed to understand why.

Liam’s expression turned grim again as he quickly typed out the message. Finished, he reached out, running a gentle thumb over my black eye, examining the treasure map of cuts and bruises on my face.

I stepped away and took a long drink of water. “It’s been a busy few days.”

Liam’s smile was strained. “Attagirl. Let me get you some ice for that shiner.”

Gathering the rest of the glasses and jam up into my arms, I moved back into the living room. Liam trailed after me with the bread and a bag of frozen peas, which I took gratefully as I collapsed on the couch. When Roman glanced over from his position at the window, I motioned to the empty spot beside me.

Finally, he released some of that tension in his expression. I was aware of every place his leg touched mine as he sat down next to me.

“Vi says she’ll be here in an hour,” Liam said, looking between all of us. “She’s been following your trail since you left Haven, apparently.” He struggled to keep his face neutral. “Is it at all salvageable?”

That small bit of hope in his eyes almost did me in. I opened my mouth, but I couldn’t force any of the words out. Instead, all I kept seeing was his face as he’d given Chubs and me the tour of the house. The pride and happiness that radiated off him.

Even Priyanka fell silent, leaving the job to Roman.

“The structure can be saved, but the location has been thoroughly compromised. You cannot ever go back there.”

Liam gave him another long look. “Thanks for pulling that punch.”

Finally, the pressure building inside my chest broke wide open. “It was my fault. I can’t tell you…I can’t begin to express how sorry I am. If I’d had any idea that we were being followed—”

“You did exactly what we wanted you to do, and don’t you ever forget that,” Liam said. “I’m just mad as hell I wasn’t there to help protect the kids. Thank you for helping them get out.” He looked to the others. “Thank you. The kids are safe with Mom and Harry for now, and that’s all that really matters. It was always more of…Well, in any case, we’ll all rebuild it together.”

He wants to go back, I realized. He still didn’t want any part of the wider problem.

“What happened to you?” I asked. “All Miguel, Lisa, and Jacob said was that you’d been in touch, but they hadn’t been able to follow up with you about Ruby’s last known location. How did that”—I gestured to the gunshot wound—“happen?”

Liam blew out another long, deep breath as he lowered himself into the worn leather armchair. “I got a tip through the usual network we use to find endangered Psi. There was nothing to make me suspect it wasn’t a typical pickup, even when my phone started to flip out on me nearby—you know how unreliable the cell networks can be. Even the address for the abandoned apartment building in Kennett, just over in Missouri, wasn’t anything alarming. Lots of kids will squat in places like that thinking it’s safe.”

“But it wasn’t,” I said.

“It wasn’t. I walk in, and I’m met with no kid, just four guys armed to the teeth. I managed to fight my way out, but got this souvenir as a parting gift.” He gestured to his wound. “I don’t think they were there to kill me, though. In true Liam Stewart luck, I caught a ricochet. Actually, I don’t even think they were there for me at all. I heard one of them say Ruby’s name.”

“God,” I said. Each little detail was slowly weaving together.

“I drove like hell as far as I could, trying to message Ruby. She’d left a few days before me, and I hadn’t heard anything—” He seemed to catch himself. His eyes darted toward me. “I was losing consciousness, but I knew I was at least heading toward Kansas. I sent Sam my location and pulled off into a ditch to destroy the phone, in case those guys had followed me. I feel rotten knowing everyone’s been worried sick this whole time.”

I didn’t want to deepen his guilt by confirming it.

“Sam and Lucas somehow managed to find me, and brought me back here. They patched me up with the help of a sympathetic neighbor, then headed out to look for Ruby. I’ve been stuck on the farm ever since. Sam and Lucas took the only car. At one point, I even thought about riding Snowflake, but she really does bite when she’s nervous, which seems to be with all people of the male persuasion.”

“Don’t blame her,” Priyanka muttered.

“Then everything happened to you, and they started tearing you down like you had even a shred of ill will in you.” The bitterness in Liam’s tone was so unfamiliar to me. “Dammit—what the hell is going on? Do you know?”

I looked to Roman, wondering where to start. “I think we’re finally putting this together. Do you know anything about Blue Star?”

“Son of a bitch,” Liam said, running his hands back through his hair.

“You do know about Blue Star, then,” Priyanka said. “Because that just about covers it.”

Max finally jerked awake. I handed him a glass of water from the coffee table.

“Do you have any juice?” he asked, still sounding drunk with sleep.

Roman answered my questioning look. “He needs to get his blood sugar levels up to do a reading. Way up.”

“A reading?” Liam asked.

“Differently different Max has a way of locating Ruby,” Priyanka explained, standing and heading toward the kitchen. Liam’s expression lit up, until she added, “But he needs a little more R-and-R, otherwise the reading won’t be as accurate, or it might melt his brain.”

Liam leaned back in his seat, frowning. I caught him stealing a few glances at Max, even as I brought us back to the topic at hand.

“I’m guessing you also know that Ruby was visiting with Clancy,” I said.

Liam’s lips tightened into a hard line. “Yes. His mother asked that she come by twice a year to make sure that his memory loss wasn’t fading. I knew something was going on, that he was remembering his old life. There was no other reason why he started to wave all that information beneath her nose.”

Priyanka, Roman, and I all sat forward.

“Go on,” Priyanka said.

“You know how Lillian got their financial accounts unfrozen?” Liam asked. “Before he vanished, Gray got reacquainted with his paternal side and left some prime blackmail material with them. Seems like junior learned most of his tricks from his father. Even though Lillian kept it hidden, Clancy somehow managed to find it and started sharing pieces of it with Ruby. I could see what he was trying to do by dangling little bits of awful in front of her to see what she responded to.”

“Damn,” I said.

He nodded. “Even though he never gave her a reason to suspect it, I had a feeling he knew that she was the one who had repressed his memory. She started going back more frequently, trying to get information out of him. He told her about some server that was down and only needed to be switched back on. I fought her on it. She told me she agreed, that it was bait and she’d give Lillian a warning and stop going.”

So that was what they had been fighting about.

“Now he’s vanished,” Liam said bitterly. “They’re keeping it off the news, but Vida said he was ‘abducted’ as he was being driven to classes one morning. Clearly it was an inside job. I’m guessing by the looks on your faces that you might have already known that, though.”

“Yeah,” I said, letting out a breath. “A little.”

“Do you…?” He fought to keep his voice steady. “Can you tell me what you know? Because I’ve got this fear, and I’m not sure I can go another minute without knowing if I’m right.”

“Of course,” I began. But the words were drowned out by the crunch of wheels on dirt and loose rocks.

“That can’t be Vida—it’s too soon,” Liam said, struggling to push himself up. I helped steady him, letting him use my shoulder as a crutch. Before either of us could make it to the door, Roman was already at the window again, nudging the curtain back.

Liam glanced down at me, mouthing, Where did you find this kid?

I bristled. We were lucky one of us was at least trying to stay on guard. I was not going to entertain mocking Roman for being ready to do the necessary thing—the thing that inwardly ate away at him.

Liam looked between us, and my face warmed under his close scrutiny.

“Don’t,” I warned, just as he raised a brow and said, “Reaaally?”

For a second, under all the strain and scruff, Liam actually looked like his old self.

“It’s safe,” Roman said, stepping back and holding the curtain aside for us to see for ourselves.

I only needed one look at the dark figure that stepped out of the car and cast an anxious look up at the front of the house. I slipped out from under Liam’s arm and ran for the door, throwing it open hard enough to startle Chubs.

“Good God!” he said, clutching at his chest as I flew toward him. “As if I haven’t spent the last few days in enough terror for you, you’re the one who almost does me in—”

I all but tackled him. “Are you okay? Where have you been?”

“Where have I been?” he said, hugging me so hard that he lifted me off my feet.

“They said you disappeared on the news—I thought they took you in for questioning, or you were being punished because of me—”

“It didn’t even come to that,” he promised, finally setting me back down. His hands landed on my shoulders, giving them a reassuring squeeze. I reached up to straighten the glasses I’d knocked askew on his nose. “Cate smuggled me out of the city in her trunk before they announced the dissolution of the Psi Council. A good thing, too. After what happened last night, they would have put all of us in a hole and left us there.”

Horror flooded through me. “You mean what happened at Moore’s facility?”

“His facility—?” Chubs shook his head. “I hadn’t even heard about that. No, someone tried to blow up Joseph Moore’s motorcade through Chicago, and then someone else succeeded in killing a UN envoy that was headed there to investigate.”

I released a heavy breath, closing my eyes. “Let me take a wild guess about who they pinned it on….”

He gripped my hand.

“Someone at the FBI falsely leaked to the independent media that it was the Psion Ring,” he said. “The other Council members are trying to regroup with a few former Children’s League members to try to come up with a plan, but when I finally got a hold of Lucas, he said to just come straight here. Now I see why.”

My heart gave an anxious thump as the front door creaked open.

“Well, I don’t think I was the only reason,” I said, stepping to the side.

Liam limped forward to the edge of the porch, gripping the railing. He struggled to guard his expression, even as his jaw worked back and forth. Chubs straightened, smoothing his hands down his neat sweater and slacks.

I took another step back, worried that I might have to knock both of their heads together.

But then Chubs turned his palms up at his sides and lifted his arms out in front of him.

“Come on,” he said softly, “don’t fight the twirl.”

A small smile worked its way over Liam’s lips. “Only if you promise not to drop me this time.”

“Only if you promise we can stop talking in stupid euphemisms,” Chubs said, “and you let me look at whatever horrific injury you managed to give yourself.”

“All right, all right,” Liam said. “Come on in. I’ll let you fuss over me for a few minutes.”

Chubs made his way up the porch steps, walking toward Liam’s outstretched arm and slinging it over his shoulder under the guise of supporting him. “Honestly, if you’d just be a little more careful…”

“And,” I whispered, trailing behind them, “they’re back.”