But I’m so tired, so sore, so sad. It would be easiest to lean on him. To trust him.

“And not only did I save you from nanosand,” he continues, and I think I see a hint of a smirk returning. I start to hope for the rest of the smile. “I also carried you back through the desert and more than a mile through the beanstalks. And you’re no featherweight.” He winks. No one has ever actually winked at me before. “And that’s after I chased you through most of the outermost circle. So I really went to great lengths to save you.”

It’s true. I immediately feel ashamed of my suspicions. He’s Rook’s brother, and Rook saved me twice. Lachlan’s a second child himself. There’s no reason to mistrust him. If it wasn’t for him, I’d be slowly digested in a pit of nanosand right now.

And so, haltingly, I tell him about Mom’s arrangement to send me to a foster family after getting the lens implants. I tell him how just a few hours ago I was shaken awake, taken to find the cybersurgeon who would perform the operation. How we were trapped at the roadbock. How Mom gave her life so I could get away.

I hug my backpack to my chest and start to weep silently, my body shaking.

I feel his arm around me. I stiffen, then relax, then lean into him, wetting his shoulder with my tears.

“I’m so sorry about your mother,” he says.

“And now I’m all alone,” I say miserably. “I can never go back home. My father wouldn’t want me, and even if he did . . . the Greenshirts will find out who my mother is, and find my dad and brother through her. What will happen to them?”

“I don’t know,” he says gently. “Right now, we have to focus on keeping you safe. After that, maybe we can help them.”

I have no idea how that can be possible. The two of us against all the might of the Center? Still, there’s something about him that gives me hope. He sounds too confident, too competent to be wrong.

Or is he just telling me what I need to hear right now, so I can get through the moment?

Either way, I’m grateful.

“Thank you for saving me,” I say shyly from under the crook of his arm. He loosens his comforting hold, and I sit up . . . and scoot a little away. “I’m . . . I’m glad I have you with me. Another second child. Do you think we’re the only ones?”

He’s silent for a long moment, staring at me so intently that I want to look away. But I hold his gaze until at last he whispers, “I have an entire family of second children, Rowan.”

FOR A MOMENT I can’t breathe. More second children? A family of them?

“Are you strong enough to move?”

I nod vigorously. If it means meeting more second children, I’m strong enough to do anything! Sleep has relieved many of my aches, given my cuts time to scab, and even my ankle is a little less swollen. I won’t be winning any races, but I can walk.

“Where are they?” I ask, and my eagerness must be apparent on my face because he laughs and says, “Easy now. You’ve waited sixteen years to meet more second children. You can wait another hour or two.”

“Are they out here in the beanstalks? Are they in the outermost circle?” I’m rewarded with another one of his sly, mysterious smiles.

“Second children are everywhere,” he says. “All over Eden, right under your feet, and you’d never know.” He springs to his own feet and offers me his hand. Even though I feel a lot better than I did twelve hours ago, I’m grateful for his help getting up.

“We have to travel fast, and be inconspicuous,” he says. “What do you have in that pack? Can you leave it behind?”

I scoop it up and sling it onto my shoulders. I haven’t even looked inside it, but it is the only thing I have from home, from Mom, and no force on Earth will make me part with it.

“That answers that question,” he says, and starts walking. I scurry to catch up, feeling somehow that he’s disappointed in me.

“When we get back into the city, you need to do exactly what I tell you. Understand? They’re actively looking for you, and the next hours will be extremely dangerous. Luckily, I know someone who can reduce the risk considerably.” He slows to wait for me. “Good thing you’re tall. You’ll look the part.”

He knows an easier route through the tangle of rubble than the one I took, and I make it through with hardly a scratch. We emerge at the back of a building and he leads me inside, through a door barely hanging on its hinges.

“Are these the second children?” I ask. In the dim light I see bodies sprawled in corners, lying on makeshift mattresses or on the cold bare floor. It’s hard to make out details, but their faces look gaunt. As we walk swiftly through, I see a young woman with a band tied tightly around her upper arm. Below it, blue-black veins bulge. There’s a needle in the crook of her arm . . .

Lachlan takes my elbow and hustles me away. “No. We’d never let a second child come to this. We take care of our own. We protect each other, from the Center, and from ourselves—to the death.”

I feel a deep shiver run down my spine.

“Don’t these people need protection, too? Even though they aren’t second children?”

I think I touched a nerve. “They have every opportunity that legitimacy can provide,” he snaps. “If they choose to destroy themselves, it’s not our problem.”

I don’t know. There’s something in his eyes as he looks at the addicts that makes me think his inner thoughts don’t quite match his words.

We’re through the building in a moment, exiting onto a narrow alley that takes us within a few steps to another building. We slither through a street-level window into an empty basement apartment, and wend our way through corridors until we emerge somewhere else. Over and over we do this, traveling mostly through basements of decrepit buildings, through abandoned warehouses and empty businesses, emerging only for a few seconds at a time, using the structures like a warren of tunnels to travel out of sight.

It isn’t long before I’ve lost all sense of direction. I don’t know if we’ve traveled miles toward the Center or in a circle. Finally we slip from one basement into an adjoining building, climb five flights of stairs, and stop at a door locked with a thumbprint scanner. Lachlan presses his thumb to the pad. He seems to shift it restlessly as he presses down.