It doesn’t take long to fall into the routine of ranch living; before long, I’m going through the motions of each day, just like I did in the outside world. I’m able to complete my daily chores on autopilot, more or less, while keeping my mind disengaged. Which is a good thing, because my mind has plenty of work to do that doesn’t involve swinging an axe or sanding the lumber that will be converted into new furniture.

As hard as it is to admit, I’m simply not making any progress on my mission. I haven’t uncovered any evidence at all against Xavier since I arrived at the ranch.

Somewhere close by, I know my superiors are getting frustrated with me. But I don’t know what I can do about it. Tammy was right when she said I wouldn’t be able to get a meeting with Xavier; I’ve asked around, put feelers out to people in different areas in the commune to try and figure out how such a thing might be done, and everyone has just laughed me off. “You can’t see Xavier,” they say. “He’s far too busy.”

I’ve seen him a few times, passing through, making the occasional comment to someone, but that someone is never me. Xavier and I haven’t exchanged words since the day I arrived at Pyrite. If I’d known then how rare an audience with him was, I would have made more of the opportunity.

I step outside my dorm. The day is gray and overcast, the perfect complement to my mood. It isn’t raining, but the sky feels as if it’s straining to rain. Resentment at my situation bubbles up from the pit of my stomach. This whole operation is pointless. Xavier is never going to talk to me. I’m never going to learn anything useful. We should have just sent in a strike force from the beginning. At least they’d be able to make some progress.

I’m about to head up the hill to meet Tammy for yoga when a voice calls, “Hey, Connor!”

I turn. It’s Brian, who works next to me in the construction barn. Brian’s in his thirties, with a neatly trimmed beard, and it was he who took the time to show me the ropes on my first day in the barn. If I was in the market for friends here, Brian would probably be someone I’d choose. I stop and he jogs across the lawn to meet me.

“What’s up?” I ask. Brian doesn’t usually attend the yoga practice.

“There’s a dorm going up today,” he says, sounding excited. “A new one. For the women. I guess they’ve outgrown their space. Anyway, construction is volunteer only, but do you want to come help? You’ve never been involved in a dorm raising.”

He looks so excited, like he’s offering me a rare treat. And, if I’m being honest, the idea does appeal to me. I’ve never seen a building put up.

“Why isn’t everyone helping?” I ask. “That’s what Tammy told me happens when there’s a new building.”

“Sometimes it does,” Brian agrees. “Sometimes Xavier likes to keep the other areas of the ranch operational.” He pauses, eyeing me. “You and Tammy have gotten pretty close, haven’t you?”

“I mean…” I trail off, unsure of what to say.

What exactly is he accusing me of? There’s no way Brian could know the thoughts—fantasies, really—that have been chasing each other through my head. There’s no way he could know that I’ve been wondering what it would be like to kiss Tammy, what her body feels like, almost since the moment I met her. God, I bet her skin is soft. I bet her lips are soft. But when she’s excited…in my head, she becomes wild, desperate. I imagine her ripping my clothes off, gripping me tightly, pulling me as close as possible…

Brian is still watching me.

“We’re friends,” I say, my voice cracking slightly. I hope my face doesn’t show any hint of what I was just thinking. “She was the first person I met when I came to the ranch, and she’s sort of taken an interest in me, I guess.”

“And have you taken an interest in her?”

“What do you mean?”

“She’s the right age for marriage,” Brian says. “My brother, Paul, and I have been expecting her wedding for about a year now, but she rejects any man who approaches her. We were starting to wonder if the right one would ever come along…and then you arrived on the ranch.”

“Hang on, marriage?” I shake my head, jolted suddenly out of my fantasies. “We’ve only known each other a few weeks.”

Brian laughs. “I forget sometimes how new you are to ranch life. You fit in so well with us, I guess it’s easy to ignore the fact that you just got here. But marriage happens very quickly here at Pyrite, Connor. With such a small pool of potential partners, people tend to figure out their best match pretty quickly. Tammy has had plenty of time to consider every other young man on the ranch, and she dismissed all of them. But she seems to like you. I’m sure if you asked her, she’d say yes.”

How on earth did we end up talking about whether Tammy and I were going to get married? I feel like I’ve fallen into an alternate reality.

I like Tammy. I like her a lot. I want to get to know her better. And someday in the future, when we’ve had plenty of time to think about it and discuss it, I could see marriage potentially being on the table. But Brian sounds like he wants me to ask her today.

I do the only thing I can think of—change the subject.

“I’d love to help with that new dorm.”

Brian laughs. I get the feeling he knows exactly what I just did and why.

“Great. Come with me.”

I follow him across the lawn to a cluster of people standing around several four-by-fours laid out in the grass. If nothing else, this unusual task will give me a few hours away from Tammy’s intoxicating presence and help me to clear my head.

The dorm raising is being supervised by an older man named Wes, who I know only peripherally. He works in the kitchen with his wife, Madeleine, and I guess he’s not a strong cook because I usually see him serving. More than once, as he’s placed a salad or a bowl of potatoes in front of me, he’s stopped to rest a hand on my shoulder and ask me how I’m settling in.

Now, Wes directs us to various teams. I’m assigned to a group of four that includes Tammy’s friends Rachel and James, newly back from their honeymoon, and a woman in her fifties named Nancy. Nancy takes charge of our team, telling me, James and Rachel what to attach where, and the three of us work in companionable silence, bracing boards, pounding in nails, and, in my case, hoping Nancy knows what she’s doing.

Before long, though, the building starts to take shape under our hands. I can see what we’re making now. It’s the short side of the dorm. The peaked part at the top is the roof, of course, and this is the wall. Nancy has even left a doorway. This isn’t her first dorm raising, I imagine.

Before the walls go up, we break for lunch. A few of the young kids come running out of the kitchen with bag lunches and pass them among us. I unpack oven-baked potato chips, a roast beef sandwich, an apple, and two oatmeal raisin cookies.

“I got honey orange,” James says, beside me. “Swap one?”

I hand him one of my cookies and he passes over one of his in exchange. It’s an interaction that reminds me of grade school days and makes me feel young and nostalgic. I could almost forget, in a day peppered with moments like this, that I’m here to blow the whistle on a dangerous cult.

“How long have you been on the ranch?” I ask James, biting into my sandwich.

“About ten years,” he says. “My parents moved us here when I was a teenager, after they both lost their jobs.”

“Wow. What was that like?” I ask. “Coming to a commune as a teenager, I mean. That must have been…intense.”

I’m eager to get this new perspective on ranch life. What does Pyrite do to indoctrinate its teen members? There must be something, some different experience James will be able to report that Tammy doesn’t have. Maybe he’ll be able to point me in the direction of the evidence I’m looking for.

“Well, it was dramatic at first,” James laughs. “Of course, I hated my parents for doing it. I fantasized every night about running away. I had friends on the outside, you know, normal high school friends. I liked to play video games. I had a girlfriend, and we were physical with each other.”

I glance over at Rachel. She doesn’t seem bothered by this piece of information, so I guess it isn’t news.

“What changed things for you?” I ask. “I mean, you seem very happy here now. Did someone say something to talk you into it?”

“No, nothing like that.” He looks slightly bemused as he thinks back over his past. “I don’t remember exactly when it changed for me. I think I just adjusted to my new life gradually, you know? I made some friends here, and that helped. I met Rachel. We used to talk about getting married one day, even back then. I knew that when I turned eighteen I would have the option to leave the ranch, since I would be a legal adult, but by then, I wanted to stay. I liked my life. I had a plan for my future.”

“We know this life can seem strange to outsiders,” Rachel says, twining her fingers through James’ and leaning against his shoulder. “We both thought it was insane when we first got here. But gradually, we came to realize that there are plenty of valid ways to live your life, and as long as you’re happy and not causing harm, you’re doing pretty good.”

“It means a lot to Rachel and me that the ranch is sustainable,” James says. “So many human societies are burning through natural resources without a care. But we can go on as we are for a long time.”

I nod, regarding the two of them. They look happy, but what I didn’t expect—even after all the time I’ve spent with Tammy—was how self-aware they sound. They’re just as smart as she is. They know how weird Pyrite Ranch is. Well, okay, no, they don’t really know how weird it is. They don’t know Xavier is stockpiling weapons. But they do know that it’s hard for people to understand, and they’ve both clearly put considerable thought into their decision to live here.

How is it possible that all these people are so cognizant of their surroundings and yet are all so deceived as to the true nature of this place?

There’s only one explanation I can think of.

Xavier must be a genius.

And that’s an absolutely terrifying idea.

I dust the cookie crumbs off my hands and get to my feet with the others, ready to get back to work. If you’d asked me this morning, I wouldn’t have believed it, but now, I can see that this building is most likely going to be complete by the end of the day. Looking around the lawn, I can see that each of the different groups has finished their wall. The next step will be to put them upright and attach them together—then, the basic structure of the dormitory will be in place.

After that, I’m not sure. We’ll have to skin the thing somehow. Do these dorms have insulated walls? That doesn’t sound like a sustainable project. I wonder how it’s done.

Tammy is going to be so impressed when she sees this.

I shoo the thought away. I’m not doing this to impress Tammy. I’m doing it for an opportunity to connect with other people on the ranch. Hell, I’m doing it to distract myself from Tammy. But that doesn’t seem to be working. All I can think about as James and I hold our side of the dorm in place for the others to fasten it to its neighbors is what Tammy will say when she sees that I helped put up a whole new building.

She probably knows already, I realize. It’s not like this project is a secret. It’s big and loud and members of the commune who aren’t working on it have been stopping by all day, pausing to watch our progress. She’s either seen me working or has heard about my being here from someone else.

After all, the fact that she and I are close isn’t a secret, either.

I can’t believe James thought Tammy and I would be getting married.

My God. Is it possible Tammy thinks that?

The thought hadn’t occurred to me before now. I knew, of course, that nothing could happen between Tammy and me because of the commune’s rules about sex before marriage. But I guess I just thought that was an unfortunate fact we both acknowledged. It’s not like getting married is a serious possibility—at least, not while I’m here. I’m undercover. I’m here on a mission. I already feel like crap about lying to her, but letting her marry me under a false identity would be a whole other level of messed up.

She talks about marriage all the time, too. How did I not notice this before? She introduces people to me according to their marital status. This whole place is organized according to marital status. Married people work here and life here, and unmarried people are kept apart. Hell, the first thing she asked me about myself was whether I was married.

She’s thought about it. She must have.

Which means that by spending time with her the way I am, I’m leading her on. I’m letting her think our relationship could evolve into something more than it ever can.

I’d love to take Tammy out on a date sometime. After this is all over. When the ranch is shut down for good. But until then, we can never be more than friends. And now, I realize the harm I’m doing by hanging around her all the time. I need to be more careful.

“Connor?”

I turn. Standing behind me is a man I know by sight only. He dresses differently from everyone else on the ranch—the same beige drawstring pants, but a dark brown tunic instead of a beige one. I’ve seen him here and there, usually standing and watching the rest of us. He doesn’t eat with us at meals, and as far as I know, he doesn’t join in with any of the chores. I’ve wondered about him occasionally, but I assumed he must have some sort of physical disability that kept him from participating in things.

Now, he strides over, looking perfectly fit, and extends a hand.

“My name is Elias,” he says. “Elias Chambers. You are Connor, aren’t you?”

“I am,” I say, and shake his hand.

“I’m sorry we haven’t had a chance to meet yet,” Elias says. “I’ve been watching you since you arrived.”

“You have?” That’s a little creepy, but I bite down on my objections. I can’t raise a stink with this guy. The last thing I want is to make myself stand out.

“It’s standard practice when someone new joins us,” Elias explains. “Xavier wants to get a feel for your skills and aptitudes, as well as the kind of person you are. Just to make sure you’re a proper fit for the ranch and that you’re in the best possible role here.”

“And?” I say. “What’s the verdict?”

Elias smiles. “You seem to be adjusting nicely.”

“Well, it’s a good place,” I tell him. “I’m enjoying being here.”

“Will you walk with me?”

I frown. “What about the dorm?”

“The others can take it from here.”

Shrugging, I fall into step beside Elias. He leads me on a meandering route toward the Commons.

“So, you work for Xavier?” I ask.

“I’m not sure ‘work for’ is the right way to put it,” he says easily. “I assist him.”

“I see.”

“He’d like to see you, Connor.”

I stop in my tracks. “What?”

“Xavier would like to meet you tonight. In person. He’s impressed with everything he’s heard.”

“Xavier wants to meet me?” I’m stunned. This is too good to be true. This whole time, I’ve been trying to figure out how to get an audience with him, and now, I’m being summoned. “When? Where?”

“His private quarters at nine.” Elias points toward a small building, offset from the other private residences.

“Do I need to bring anything?” I’m suddenly nervous, as if I’ve been called to the principal’s office. You’re a Navy SEAL, I remind myself sternly. You can take this guy.

Elias smiles. “Nothing but yourself.”

He bids me farewell and I return to the dorm raising, my head spinning. Xavier wants to meet me. What could he possibly want?

Is there a chance he’s found out who I am?

He can’t have.

I shake away the thought and go back to work. My cover is good, and there’s no point in worrying. Whatever Xavier wants, I’ll find out tonight.