I certainly hadn't been looking for it when I opened the small compartment, but there they were, nested on top of a pile of crumpled napkins.

Truthfully, I had been expecting envelopes, or at the very least lined notebook paper. Which was stupid and didn't make any sense, because it's not like their camp had arts and crafts days. It's not like they were just given the paper and pens. Still, I had been expecting the letters to be something...heavier. For Chubs and Liam to be carrying theirs with them.

Jack's letter was on top, written on half of what looked like a computer printout, folded over several times. He had managed to squeeze his father's name in tight capital letters on the back of the paper, between the large black words: AREA RESTRICTED.

Instead of putting the map away, I took the letter out, only vaguely aware of the argument Liam and Chubs had gotten into over the best route to Lake Prince. I wasn't thinking much of anything as my fingers slid over the wrinkled surface, smoothing it out as I unfolded it. No date in the upper right-hand corner, just a hasty, straight to the point Dear Dad.

I didn't get to take in another word. Liam reached over and ripped the paper out of my hand, crumpling it slightly in his fist.

"What are you doing?" he demanded.

"I'm sorry, I just..."

"You just what?" he barked. I felt my body jerk in response. "It's personal! It's none of your business what it says."

"Lee..." Chubs said, sounding every bit as surprised as I felt. "Come on."

"No, this is serious. We don't read each other's letters!"

"Never?" I said. "What if you can't find his dad and the letter has some clue about where he might be?"

Liam was shaking his head, even as Chubs said, "She has a point."

He said nothing, but his hands trembled on the steering wheel. It was his silence that stung, and when I couldn't take another second of it, I reached over and turned on the radio, sending up a prayer that an Allman Brothers' song would be on. Instead, Betty picked up a news talk show.

"-children are in containment for their own good, not just the safety of the American public. My well-placed sources in the Gray administration have informed me that all instances in which a child has been removed from rehabilitation early have resulted in their untimely death. There is simply no way to reproduce the routine of medication, exercise, and stimulation these rehab centers are using to keep your children alive."

Liam punched a knuckle against the volume button, trying to turn it off. Instead, the tuner jumped to the next available station, and this time it was a woman's voice delivering the bad news. "Sources are reporting that two Psi fugitives were picked up on the OhioWest Virginia border, traveling on foot-"

Betty turned so hard and fast into the empty rest stop that I swore she did it on two wheels. Liam parked diagonally across three different spaces, throwing the brake on with a fast, "Be right back." One minute he was beside me, and the next, we were watching the back of his red flannel shirt as he jumped over a puddle of stale rainwater and headed for the Colonial-style brick building and vending machines.

"That was...dramatic."

I turned to look at Chubs over the seat, but he was just as confused as I was.

"You should probably follow him," Chubs said.

"What should I say?"

Chubs gave me one of his looks. "Really? You need me to spell it out for you?"

I had no idea what he meant, but I went anyway, tracing Liam's trail of anger and frustration past the restrooms, past the abandoned sitting area, to the other side of the building, where there was wild long grass, trees, and absolutely no way we could have seen him from Betty.

He stood with his back toward me, sagging against the rest stop's wall. Arms crossed over his chest, hair standing on end. I thought I was being quiet like a fox, but he knew the moment I stepped behind him. His grief hung around us like humidity, seeping into my skin. I felt the invisible fingers at the back of my mind awaken. Howling, like a feral cat that'd been caged too long.

I kept my distance.

"Lee?"

"I'm okay. Go back to the van." Again, with the forced, bright voice.

He dropped to a crouch, then completely to the ground. But I didn't move, not until he leaned forward and stuck his head between his knees, looking like he was about to throw up everything in his stomach.

I stared long and hard at the place where his light hair curled against his neck, at the exact spot an old bruise disappeared down his shirt collar. My hand lifted at my side to push the soft fabric away. I wanted to see how far the ugly mark extended. To see what other old wounds he was hiding.

You touched him before, a little voice whispered at the back of my mind, and nothing happened then....

Instead, I took a step back and away, so I was no longer standing directly behind him, but off to the side. Distance. Distance was good.

"You're right, you know," he said quietly. "I don't want to find the Slip Kid just to deliver Jack's letter. I don't even want to use him to help me find my family. I know where they are and how to reach them, but I can't go home. Not yet."

Somewhere behind us, I heard one of Betty's doors slide open, but it didn't break the stillness of the moment. "Why not? I'm sure your parents miss you."

Liam rested his arms over his knees, his back still to me. "Did Chubs tell you...did he say anything to you about me and the League?"

He couldn't see it, but I still shook my head.

"Harry-my stepdad-he knew from the start that the Children's League was bad news. Said they would use us worse than Gray ever would, and wouldn't shed one damn tear if we died helping them. Even after...even after Claire-Claire is, was, my little sister." He cleared his throat. "Even after she was gone, he used to remind me that no amount of fighting was ever going to bring her back. Cole had already joined up with them, and he came back to get me to go with him. To fight."

Was. Was my sister. Was gone. Another victim of IAAN.

"I bought into it. I was so angry, and I hated everyone and everything, but there wasn't anyone to direct it at. I was there with them for weeks, training, letting them turn me into this weapon. Into the kind of person that would take an innocent person's life just because it served their needs and what they wanted. My brother was like a stranger; he even kept this-this thing he called a kill chart in our room. And he'd add to it, every time he killed someone important. Every time he completed a mission. And I would come in after training all day, and I'd look at it and think, How many of those people had families? And how many of those people had people who needed them like we needed Claire? And that's just it-they all did, Ruby, I'm sure of it. People don't live like islands."

"So you got out."

He nodded. "Had to run during a training simulation outside. I was trying to get back to Harry and Mom when the PSFs picked me up." He finally turned so he was looking at me. "I can't go back to them yet, not until I earn it. Not until I make it right."

"What are you talking about?"

"While I was with the League I realized that the only people that were ever going to help us were ourselves. So when I figured out a way to break out of Caledonia..." Liam's voice trailed off. Then he said, "It was horrible. Horrible. I totally failed them, even after I promised it would work out in the end. So why-" His voice caught. "You heard what that newscaster said. Only a few of us got out, and they just keep picking us off like rabbits in hunting season. So why do I want to do it again? Why can't I shake it? All I want is to help more kids break out of Caledonia-out of Thurmond-out of every single camp, one by one."

Oh, I thought, feeling vaguely numb. Oh. I had only ever wanted to find the Slip Kid to help myself, to figure out how to tame my abilities. But all along, Liam had wanted to find him because he was sure he'd be able to help others. That, together, they could figure out a way to save the kids we'd all been forced to leave behind.

"It's just so unfair, you know? All this morning, I kept thinking, it's so goddamned unfair that I'm here, so close to finding East River, and the rest of them are gone." He pressed the back of his hand to his eyes. "It makes me feel sick. I can't shake it. I can't. Those kids they were talking about on the radio-I'm sure they were from Caledonia. I just..." He took in a ragged breath. "Do you think...do you think they regret following me?"

"Not for a second," I said. "Listen to me. You didn't force them to follow you. You only gave them what the PSFs and camp controllers took away from them-a choice. You can't live in a place like those camps and not know what the consequences might be. If those kids followed you out, it was because they chose to. They believed you when you said we'd all get home someday."

"But most of them didn't." Liam shook his head. "In some ways, it would have been safer for them to stay in the camps, right? They wouldn't have been hunted. They wouldn't have had to see how afraid everyone is of them, or felt like they don't have a place out here."

"But isn't it better to give them that choice?" I asked.

"Is it?"

My head was pounding, and my shoulders ached. By the time I finally thought of something to say, Liam was climbing up onto his knees.

"What are you still doing here?" Not upset or angry. Not anymore.

"Watching your back."

He shook his head, a sad smile on his face. "You've got better things to worry about."

"I'm really sorry." The words tumbled out of me in a breathless rush. "I shouldn't have opened his letter. It was none of my business. I wasn't thinking."

"No-no, I'm the one that's sorry. I didn't mean to blow up at you. God, it was like Dad was talking through me. I'm so, so sorry."

Liam looked down, and when he looked back at me, his lips were pressed tight together. I thought he might cry or scream, and felt myself sway forward at the same time he took another dangerous step toward me. It made me feel boneless to meet his gaze straight on, but I wanted the truth from him even as I worried the intensity of his gaze would burn me.

"Come on, let's go back." He shook his head. "I'm fine. I shouldn't have left those two alone again."

"I think you need another minute," I said. "And I think you should take it. Because when you get back in that car, you'll have people depending on you."

He tried to reach for my arm, but I took a step back.

"I don't know what you're-" he began. God, I wanted to take his hand when he offered it. Mine were frozen, needled with pain.

"Here-" I motioned between us. "This is a place where you don't need to lie. I meant what I said before, but I can't help you if you don't tell me what's really going on inside your head. If you need to talk or vent or scream, do it with me. Don't just get up and go like that again-like you always do. I know you think you're protecting us, but, Lee, what happens if one of these days you go off and don't come back?"

He took a step toward me, his eyes darkening with something I didn't recognize. It never occurred to me how tall he was, but he seemed to tower over me then, leaning down until our faces were level with each other. I could see what I would have done if our situation had been different. If I had been in control of myself. I could see what he wanted.

What I wanted.

My foot slipped against a rock as I stepped away, my back scraping against the wall, my head sending me spiraling into panic. It was trilling in anticipation, relishing how close he was. Maybe his anger had evaporated, but whatever he was feeling now was stronger than before, stronger than pain or frustration or fury. The words Get away from me and Don't were stuck in my tight chest, wedged between terror and want. Liam's lips formed my name, but there was nothing outside of the blood rushing in my ears.

I tried one last time to wrench myself away, but my knees, the traitors, buckled under me. Spots in every shade of the rainbow popped and burst in front of my eyes.

And that's when he grabbed me, only this time it was to hold me up, not pull me to him. It didn't matter. The moment his hands circled my waist, he was gone.

EIGHTEEN.

MY EYES WERE SHUT, but I could imagine what must have happened. How his pupils must have shrunk and then dilated, open and vulnerable. Waiting for a command.

Liam's mind was a blur of colors and lights. One moment I was standing next to a young, blond boy in overalls, clutching a woman's hand. Then I was balancing on the front bumper of an old car as a gentle-faced man with strong arms pointed out the engine. I saw the face of a kid rocket back as I punched him in the nose, heard a roar of approval from a circle of boys formed around us. I stared at Chubs's long legs as they hung over the edge of the top bunk, and then I was standing in front of Black Betty, watching Zu climb into the backseat, looking frail and hungry.

And then I was seeing me.

I was seeing me with the sunlight reflecting off my dark hair, laughing my fool head off in the passenger seat. I didn't know I could look like that.

No.

No.

No! I don't want to see- I slapped him across the face. The sound echoed up through the tree branches. Pain flared in my hand, spreading quickly up my arm to the center of my chest. I heard something else, too-a snap, like a dried-out wishbone being pulled apart. I reeled back, as if he had been the one to hit me. I almost wished he had, because the pain would have distracted me from the dizzy disorientation that came next.

I panicked. I knew from countless experiences at Thurmond that the best way to break a connection was to do it slowly, carefully. Unravel the invisible threads linking us together one by one. Wasn't this exactly what had happened with Sam? One wrong touch and I had pulled back so hard and so fast from her mind that I ripped away every single trace of me.

Wasn't it?

Wasn't it?

The pain lessened, the farther I dragged myself away from him.

"Ruby?"

Why did I always have to do this? Why couldn't I just hold it together for once?

Liam was staring at me. At me, not through me. He looked focused, if not completely bewildered. My eyes fell on the red welt forming on his cheek.

Had I heard that right? My name?

"What the hell just happened?" He let out a strangled laugh. "I feel like I just got hit by a linebacker."

"I slipped-" What could I possibly say? The truth was on the tip of my tongue, dangling there, but if he knew, if he knew what I had just done to him...

"And there I was, trying to be all valiant and stuff by catching you?" He chuckled, using the closest tree to help him stand. "Lesson learned! You're falling next time, darlin', because, man, you have a hard head...."

"I'm sorry." I whispered. "I'm so, so sorry...."

Liam stopped laughing. "Green...you know I'm just kidding, right? Really, it takes a special kind of guy to get knocked out by the same person he's trying to catch. Aside from bringing back a few humiliating memories of school sports, I'm fine, honestly-what?"

Do you even remember what we were talking about?

"Oh my God," he said, all of a sudden noticing I was still on the ground. "Are you okay? I can't believe I didn't even ask-are you hurt?"

I avoided the hand he offered. It was too soon.

"I'm fine," I said. "I think we should head back now. You left Betty running."

My voice sounded calm, but inwardly I was such a desert. All of the hope that had sprung there, growing and spreading and yielding like a stream, had dried up in an instant. I had slipped up, but he didn't know. They never did.

This couldn't happen again-I was lucky this time; he still remembered me, even if he couldn't recall what I had done, but there was no guaranteeing that luck would hold.

No more touching. No more fingers brushing against arms, or shoulders pressed against shoulders. No more taking his hand, no matter how warm or big it was.

That alone was a reason to find this Slip Kid. To beg him to help me.

"Yeah...yeah." He nodded, but I didn't miss the way his brows furrowed when he looked my way again, or the grinding ache in my chest when he passed by and didn't let his hand reach for mine.

I stayed five steps in front of him as we made our way back around the rest stop, past the water fountains, through the silver benches and tables under the overhang. I moved faster, practically jogging as I came around the corner. I half expected to see Chubs and Zu outside trying to rig the vending machines into burping up whatever snacks they had left.

But it wasn't Chubs waiting there for me, and it certainly wasn't Zu.

Dark hair, darker eyes. A man that couldn't have been older than twenty-five, with a scar that began just under his right eye and raced up to his hairline, where the shiny pink skin had prevented any hair from growing back. My brain processed his features one by one, in agonizing slowness. I watched as his face twisted, turning his narrow nose up in disgust.