I leaned over and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “You really don’t hate me,” I breathed out. “You’re not scared—not even a little?”

His battered face twisted with what I thought was supposed to be a smile. “I’m scared to death of you, but for a completely different reason.”

“I’m a monster, you know. I’m one of the dangerous ones.”

“No you aren’t,” he promised. “You’re one of us.”

TWENTY-EIGHT

CHUBS RETURNED A FEW MINUTES AFTER Liam faded into a restless sleep. He stirred again when we began cleaning the cuts and gouges on his face, reaching for my hand at the first touch of stinging antiseptic. When I felt his grip began to relax, and saw his eyelids flutter shut again, I finally released the breath I had been holding.

“He’ll live,” Chubs said, seeing my expression. He was stuffing away the rest of the supplies in my backpack. “He’ll have a wicked headache in the morning, but he’ll live.”

We took turns sleeping, or at least pretended to. My body was thrumming with anxious unspent energy, and I could hear Chubs muttering to himself, as if trying to work through the night’s events.

And then came the sound of feet slapping against the concrete steps of the cabin once more, and we gave up pretending altogether.

“Lizzie—” I heard one of the boys outside our door say. “Are you—”

She pushed past them, throwing the screen door open so hard that it slammed against the wall. Liam startled awake, more confused and disoriented than he’d been before.

“Ruby!” Lizzie was looking straight at me, her face ashen. Her hair had caught in her dozens of piercings, but it was the blood on her hands that stopped the flow of blood to my head.

“It’s Clancy,” she gasped, clutching my arms. “He just…fell and starting shaking all over like crazy, and bleeding, and I didn’t know what to do, but he told me to get you because you’d know what was going on—Ruby, please, please help me!”

I stared at her hands, the wet blood.

“It’s a trick,” Liam croaked from the futon. “Ruby, don’t you dare…”

“If he’s really hurt, I should go,” Chubs told Lizzie.

“Ruby!” she cried, like she couldn’t believe I was standing there. “There was so much blood—Ruby, please, please, you have to help him!”

He really thought I was stupid, didn’t he? Or did he just think his influence extended that far—that I could ever forget what he had done to Liam and go rushing to his side? I shook my head, anger rippling over my skin. Too immature and weakhearted to use my abilities, was I?

We’d see about that.

Liam pushed himself up into a sitting position. “You know him,” he was saying. “Don’t do it, don’t—”

“Show me where he is,” I said, over Chubs’s protests. I turned to him. “You have to stay with Liam, understand?” You have to watch him because I can’t. “I’ll take care of everything.”

I would get us out. Not Mike, not a burst of random luck—I would get us out, and seeing Clancy’s face slack with my influence would be well worth the effort it would take to break into his mind. Hadn’t he taught me everything I needed to know to do it?

“Ruby—” I heard Liam say, but I took Lizzie’s arm and guided her outside, past the confused kids, past the cabins. Outside, the temperature had dropped almost twenty degrees.

Fat tears dripped down her chin. “He’s in Storage—we were talking about—about—”

“It’s okay,” I told her, putting an awkward hand on her back. We ran through the garden and up the office’s back steps. She fumbled to put her key in the lock, only to have it jam. I had to kick it in; Lizzie was too far gone to do anything but sprint inside. The hall and kitchen were empty. The whole building smelled like garlic and tomato sauce. Everyone must have been out setting up for dinner.

Everyone except Clancy, who stood in the middle of the storage room, leaning against a shelf of macaroni boxes.

Lizzie ran to the back right corner of the room and dropped to her knees. She pawed at the ground, her trembling hands clutching only air. “Clancy,” she cried. “Clancy, can you hear me? Ruby is here now—Ruby, come here!”

My stomach turned violently, and I was surprised by how sad it made me feel to have my worst suspicions confirmed.

Why does it have to be like this? I thought, looking at him. Why?

“You came, you really came,” Clancy said in a bored, flat voice. He sounded like he was reciting the words from a script. “Thank you, Ruby. I appreciate your help in my hour of need.”

“Why are you just standing there?” Lizzie wailed. “Help him!”

“You’re sick,” I said, shaking my head. Clancy came toward me, but I moved to the opposite end of the room, where Lizzie had her face buried in the ground. “Stop it, I’m here. There’s no reason to keep torturing her.”

“I’m not torturing her,” Clancy said. “I’m just playing around.” And then, as if to prove his point, he barked, “Liz, shut up!”

She stopped mid-gasp. A trickle of blood escaped her lip from where she had bitten it. I took her hands, turning them over. The blood was coming from her, from two neat cuts across her palms.

“What do you even want?” I asked, whirling around. “I’ve told you everything, and what I didn’t say, you went ahead and saw!”