The first thing I did when I got back upstairs to my apartment was snap a picture of my kitchen. I expected I’d be sending it to Grace within the hour, once I was well on the road. Fulfilling that promise was the least I could do after I’d jerked her around so much.

I swallowed the jab of pain that came with that thought and got busy. Laptop into the computer bag. Enough food for a couple days into a backpack. I tossed those by the apartment door and strode to the bedroom to grab my quick-escape suitcases from the closet. At the same time, I was dialing my parents’ number on my burner phone.

The video only had a few hundred views so far. Maybe no one who mattered had seen it. But I couldn’t count on it staying that way. And if it went full-out viral?

Shit, shit, shit. There wasn’t anything else I could call this situation but total shit.

“Jeremy!” Dad said in his usual dry but jovial voice when he picked up the phone. “It’s good to hear from you.”

“It’s going to be a lot less good when I tell you why I’m calling, Dad,” I said. “I screwed up.”

“Hmm.” Dad never sounded all that worried even when circumstances were at their most dire. I guessed surviving seven years as a lab rat in a secret experimental facility put a lot of things in perspective. “What kind of screw-up are we talking about exactly? We’ll figure it out. We always have so far.”

“I don’t think there’s anything to figure out. I’ve just got to move again. Maybe out of the country, at least for a while.” Where could I head? I wanted to be somewhere with a decent airport nearby in case I needed to fly quickly to anyone else’s aid. London was out with Nick already there.

“Hold on a minute,” Dad said. “Start from the beginning and tell me what’s going on.”

No time to give him any details. “There was a woman—I saw a truck about to hit her—I jumped in to get her out of the way, and I used my ability to push the truck. I thought no one had noticed, but a video just went up. Someone caught the crash on their phone.”

“Let me take a look. Can you send me the link?”

I checked my regular phone and texted the web address to Dad. He was silent as I hauled my suitcases over to the door with the rest of my things. I’d go down the street to a different apartment building, call for a taxi from there, and get them to take me to the rental car place. I already had a fresh ID in the back of my wallet for when they asked to see my driver’s license. From there I could drive to LAX. And then I could go anywhere.

I knew Dad was watching the video on his computer, because the tire skid carried faintly over the phone. He dragged in a breath.

“Okay. That’s not good. But it’s not an emergency yet.”

“Are you kidding me? It couldn’t be more obvious that I did something no human being should be able to. If the Alpha Project people are keeping an eye out for people like us even a little bit—”

“We don’t know if they are,” Dad cut in. He sighed. “Look, Jeremy, I know you’re worried about the rest of us. But the fact is, we haven’t seen any definite indication that Alpha Project is still running and still ‘recruiting’ since the first few years after your mother and I got out of there. We’ve been so careful. We always move before there’s any chance of them sniffing around, so there’s no way we could know whether they would.”

“And it’s safest that way,” I said.

“Well, your mother and I have been thinking maybe it’s time we found out exactly what we’re still up against. If we’re up against anything at all.”

“What are you talking about?” I said. All our lives, Mom and Dad had drilled into us to be wary. To watch out for anyone who might be associated with the experimental lab they’d escaped from all those years ago. Why was now any different? “Even if Alpha Project isn’t around anymore, there might be other people who’d want to exploit our abilities. Isn’t that what you’ve always said?”

“It is,” Dad said. “I know it might be hard to take a different perspective... But we’ve spent so long running. We’ve spent so long watching the five of you constantly running from one place to another. Never being able to set down roots. If there’s a way that you kids could have an actual life...”

He paused. “You’ve always been the fastest to react, Jeremy. I know if you see any sign that you’re actually in danger, you can get out of there quickly. I can’t help thinking it’d be useful to find out if anyone will come looking.”

My free hand dropped to my side. I looked blankly at my suitcases. “So you want me to stay?”

“Just until you see if the video has drawn any attention. They won’t rush in guns blazing. For all they know, it’s a prank, someone messing with special effects. They’ll poke around, asking questions. You’ll know they’re looking for you before they know you’re what they’re looking for. If someone shows up, you can get a brief idea of what we’re up against—and then get out of there before they track you down.”

“And if we know what we’re up against, we’ll have a better idea how to keep ahead of them from here on. Or whether we even have to.” When he laid it out, I had to admit the plan made sense. All this time we might as well have been running from ghosts. Knowing how diligently people were looking for our kind of talents—knowing whether they were at all—would only help us in the long run.

And I did trust myself to get out when the getting was good. If anyone was going to act as bait, it should be me.

“All right,” I said. “I’ll hang tight and keep an eye out. If anything happens, I’ll let you know. You stay safe, okay? And Mom too.”

“Always,” Dad said. “We couldn’t be more proud of you, Jeremy. Don’t forget that.”

The words made something in my chest twist. My hand dropped to my pocket, my thumb tracing over the outline of that worn shard of glass. There were a lot of things I didn’t want to forget.

“Yeah,” I said, my voice thickening.

I hung up, carried my suitcases back to the bedroom, and sank down on the bed to think. If I were a sadistic researcher trying to track down the guy in that video, how would I do it?

My face hadn’t been visible. My clothes had been generic, a plain T-shirt and jeans. There was no way anyone could ID me from that.

But a car crash—police involvement was a given. If someone got into those records, they’d only get the fake ID I’d shown the cops, which had a different name from the one on my phone contract and the lease for this apartment. It wouldn’t lead them to me. They’d nose around, asking about that name.

And they’d go after the other person involved in the accident, the one who’d been right there when I’d used my power. Grace didn’t have the protection of a fake name.

My jaw tightened. I couldn’t see her again. I’d already potentially put her in the line of fire. If they got confirmation that she knew me beyond that brief incident...

I had other things to do to get prepared for what—or who—might be coming. I pushed myself off the bed and headed out, making for the car rental place first. It’d be best to have a vehicle right on hand in case I really needed to dash for it.

I picked out a non-descript compact Ford. Once it was parked in the apartment building’s underground lot, I stashed my suitcases and some other essentials in the trunk.

There, now I had a getaway vehicle, fully stocked.

But the thought of one of the assholes who’d once tortured Mom and Dad now targeting Grace kept niggling in the back of my mind. She wouldn’t realize how careful she needed to be. If she let it slip that she knew something about me, and her interrogators got aggressive, how far would they go to find out what else she knew?

A prickle ran down my back. I wavered and then grabbed a hoodie out of my closet. A quick glance through the internet directory gave me an address for A. Trevell—the only one in the city. Out in the same neighborhood as that cemetery. It had to be her. The phone must still be registered to her grandmother’s name.

I wouldn’t make any contact. Nothing obvious. I’d just confirm she was still okay.

* * *

When I got to Grace’s street, it was completely dark out. That worked for me. I kept my hood low and ambled down the street as if I were on my way home. It was a nice residential area, not anywhere people would be all that wary of random pedestrians passing by.

Grace’s house was halfway down the street. A quaint little bungalow in peach-painted stucco. It looked like a grandmother kind of house. The lights in the windows were on. I didn’t get close enough to try to peer inside, which seemed too risky and too creepy. But the warmth of their glow reassured me.

A house a few down from hers had a garage protruding out from its face. I ducked into the shadows beside it and stood there to watch.

Now that I was out here, I felt kind of ridiculous. The smell from the garbage bin leaning up against the garage near me made me grimace. What did I expect to see hanging around here for a few minutes? It wasn’t as if I could risk spending the whole night standing guard.

I stayed there, rocking a little on the balls of my feet. Debating with myself whether to wait longer or just go. Give it a few more minutes, I thought. Just to get the lay of the land.

It had been more like half an hour, and I still hadn’t convinced myself to leave, when a black sedan purred along the road past me.

I watched it, the hairs on the back of my neck rising. I couldn’t have said there was anything definitely wrong about it, but it set my nerves on edge all the same. The tinted windows. Its slow cruise down the street.

It slowed, just for a moment, outside Grace’s house. My pulse lurched. Then it drove on.

I raised my phone and snapped a picture of its retreating back end. My body had gone cold. It might not be anything. The driver might not even have slowed on purpose, or not because of Grace. But I wasn’t leaving that to chance.

I waited long enough to feel sure the car wasn’t coming back, at least not any time soon. If the people in it only wanted to question her, intruding late at night wouldn’t be the smartest strategy—and from what my parents had said, these guys were as methodical as they were cruel. Then I hurried off in the opposite direction. When I’d put several blocks between me and Grace’s street, I retrieved my burner phone from my back pocket and dialed up my youngest brother.

“Hey, Liam,” I said when he picked up. “Do you still have that line into the DMV?” Liam had made a hobby out of computers. In particular, how to use them to get into all sorts of places he wasn’t supposed to.

I could hear his smirk over the phone. “Of course I do. What do you need, Jer?”

I pulled up the photo of the car on my other phone. “I’ve got a license plate I need you to run for me.”