The images he was flooding into my mind.

I don't know how he did it, but it was so real. The image was burning me up from the inside out, blistering my lungs. Pockets of acrid smoke bubbled up under my skin, until it felt like I was about to burst open. My vision burned to black at the edges. Fire bloomed on my clothes, singeing my hair.

This is not real, this is not real, this is NOT REAL- Clancy must have let go, or I must have found a way to twist away, because just as quickly as the fire came, it went back out, dispersing in three shaky exhales.

"You can't block me," he said, his eyes wide. "Do you even know how to use your abilities? The file the League had on you made it sound like you could control it."

Wasn't it obvious? I shook my head. That's why I'm here, I wanted to say. That's why I need you.

His gaze flicked down over me, from head to toe and back up again. When he spoke, his voice was soft. Sympathetic. "Look, I know how it is. You don't think I struggled with this, too? How lonely it is to not be able to touch someone the way you want to, how terrifying it is to be trapped in somebody else's head without knowing the way out? Ruby, everything I've learned I had to teach myself, and it was awful. I want to save you from that. I can teach you things, tricks-how to use your talents the way they're meant to be used."

I hoped he couldn't see the way my hands were shaking. Oh my God, he had offered-I hadn't even had to ask-and I still couldn't say a damn thing.

Clancy's posture relaxed, and when he touched me again, flicking my braid back over my shoulder, there was no ill will behind it. "Think about it, okay? If you decide you want to, just come to the office. I'll clear my schedule for you."

I pressed my lips together, biting down hard on my tongue.

"There's nothing wrong with wanting to know how to use your abilities," Clancy added. "That's the only way we're ever going to beat them."

Beat who?

"There are so few of us left," he said. "Until you showed up in the system, I actually thought I was the only one."

"Well, there's at least one more. His name is Martin-"

"And he's with the Children's League," he finished. "I know. I accessed their report on him. Creepy kid. When I said us I meant the non-psychotic Oranges."

I snorted.

"I'll think about it," I said, finally. I was pinned under his dark gaze again; the hair on my arms standing on end, like a whisper of electricity had run over it. I took an unknowing step closer to him.

"Listen to your gut," Clancy said, turning to head back inside the Office. A cluster of kids called out to him from where they were setting up lunch near the fire pit and, ever the president's son, he smiled and waved at them real pretty.

Listen to your gut.

So why was it at odds with my head?

I made a beeline for the wood dock I had discovered the afternoon before, needing to find some way to wash out the jitters racing through my heart. My mind felt tangled with the possibilities.

Clancy Gray had just offered me everything I could have asked for. A way to avoid repeating what had happened to my parents and Sam. A way to be with Liam, to find Grams, to not live in constant fear of what I could do to them. So why hadn't my yes come tumbling out, then?

I ducked under the rope tying off the path to the lake and made it all the way down the trail before I realized anything was amiss.

"Crap," I said when I saw him.

"Oh no-no, no, no," Chubs said. The goofy grin dropped off his face and he stopped throwing bread crusts out to the ducks gathered in the water. "This is my secret hideout. No Rubys allowed."

"I found it first!" I huffed, plopping down next to him.

"You most certainly did not."

"Try a week ago, while you were unpacking."

He balked at that. "Well...fine. But I got here first today."

"Aren't you supposed to be on Garden duty?"

"Got tired of hearing some girl coo about how smart the Slip Kid is for making them plant carrots." He leaned back. "Aren't you on Storage duty?"

I looked down at where my hands had clenched into fists. When I didn't answer, Chubs set the bread bag aside and sat up straight.

"Hey, are you all right?" He put a cool hand to my forehead. "You look like you're going to be sick. Are you experiencing any migraines or dizziness?"

That was an understatement. I croaked out a laugh.

"Oh." He pulled his hand away. "That kind of head trouble."

I lay back against the rough wood and threw my arm over my eyes, hoping the darkness might help dampen the headache. "You said Jack taught you how to use your abilities?"

"Pretty much," he said. "That was the only way I was ever going to learn-if some other kid taught me, I mean. It just took a while to decide."

"Why?"

"Because I thought that if I didn't use them, they'd eventually go away," Chubs said, quietly. "I thought everything might go back to normal. There's scientific evidence that if we stop using parts of our brains, those sections will eventually cease to function, you know." After a moment, he asked, "Did Clancy offer to help you with your abilities?"

I nodded. "I told him I'd think about it."

"What's there to think about?" Chubs smacked me on the stomach with his book. "Didn't you say that you didn't know how to control it?"

"Well, yeah, but-" I'm afraid of how much I don't know.

"You need to be able to control it, otherwise it'll always control you," he said. "It'll scare you and manipulate you until you go crazy, die, or they find the cure. And guess which one of those things will probably happen first."

The lunch bell sounded-two rings, for second meal. Chubs stood and stretched, throwing the rest of the bread out into the water.

"You really think they're going to find a cure?" I asked.

"My dad used to say that anything was possible when you put your mind to it." His mouth twisted into a humorless smile. At the mention of his father, my stomach clenched.

"You still haven't had a chance to send them a message."

"I've asked around, but there's only one computer in this entire godforsaken place, and only one person gets to use it."

That's right. The silver laptop on Clancy's desk.

"Did you ask him if you could use it for a few minutes?"

"Yeah," Chubs said, as the fire pit came into view. It looked like they were handing out sandwiches and apples. "He said no. Apparently it's a 'security risk' if someone other than him touches it."

I shook my head. "I'll ask tomorrow. Maybe I can convince him."

"Could you?" Chubs grabbed my arm, his face lightening considerably. "Will you tell him that we have a very important letter to deliver, but we need to be able to look up Jack's father's new address? Tell him we'll do anything-no, tell him that I will personally lick every single pair of shoes he owns clean."

"How about I just tell him that it's the whole reason we came here in the first place," I said, "and leave your tongue out of it?"

Chubs waited until I had taken my sandwich from the table before pulling me away. I thought he might want to eat back at the cabin or even the dock, but we wandered until we found Liam.

He and a few of the other guys on the security team were on a break from their rounds and had found themselves a nice clearing in the trees. It was just wide enough to square off into two small teams for a quick game of hover ball, otherwise known as football with no hands. Chubs and I found an old tree trunk to share, ignoring the small group of female spectators who had gathered to cheer the teams on.

A tall redhead with an explosion of freckles on his face levitated the old football at the start of a play. He ran alongside it, trying to keep both it and himself out of the reach of the others. Liam, at one point, had the football an inch in front of him, but his hands were too slow and his footwork too bad to catch it when it was tossed to him.

"Keep your eye on the ball, butterfingers!" I called. Liam's head whipped around in our direction. Just as his gaze locked on mine, Mike, who had the football at that point, mowed him over to get to the makeshift end zone.

Chubs and I cringed as Liam hit the ground and knocked his head against one of the old trees' roots.

"Wow," I said. "He wasn't kidding about sucking at sports."

"It'd be funny if it weren't so damn sad."

The other boys were too busy laughing to keep the ball in the air. Liam stayed on the ground, his face flushed red, but his entire body shaking with laughter. He lifted his shirt to wipe the sweat off his face, giving me, along with every other girl present, a glimpse of skin.

This time, I was the one blushing.

One of the guys I didn't recognize jogged over to Liam and helped him up, patting him on the shoulder. They laughed together like they had known each other since preschool.

But that was Liam for you-he joked about Zu making friends at the drop of a hat, but he was the same way. But Chubs and I were perfectly content to sit by ourselves, watching, waiting, but not dipping our toes into the ocean. Maybe we had just gotten too used to being alone-and maybe that needed to change.

The next morning, at exactly 9:21, I found myself standing outside of Clancy Gray's office, my hand raised and ready to knock. The only thing preventing me, besides the nerves hula-hooping my guts, was the conversation happening on the other side of the door.

"-sure we have the kind of numbers to do that. If I sent the amount of kids we'd need, there wouldn't be enough left here to maintain watch." It was a girl's voice, soft but not sweet. Olivia, most likely, if they were talking about security.

"I get what you're saying, Liv, but it would be a waste to miss this opportunity," Clancy was saying. "We're getting low on medical supplies, and Leda Corp has stopped running as many trucks up through our area."

"Are you going on another one of your trips?" she pressed. "Isn't that when you usually pick up tips about shipments?"

"Why do you ask?"

"It's just...you haven't gone on one in almost a year," Olivia said. "And you used to go all the time. I know we haven't been hurting for supplies, but maybe if you met with your source..."

"No," Clancy said, with finality. "I can't leave the camp anymore. It's not safe."

The floorboards creaked. "Did something come up on the PSF scanner?" came Hayes's gruff voice.

"They heard about the fruit stunt, obviously," Clancy said. "It would have been hard to miss, considering you mutilated that driver."

"Why d'ya have to say it like that?"

"Because you should have just left him there like I told you to. I appreciate you wanting to spread the symbol, but couldn't you have spray-painted it on the truck?"

"Are you worried this'll be bad for our image?" Olivia's voice dripped annoyance.

"Most people are going to have a hard enough time accepting that we're not monsters, without reports about us maiming innocent people," Clancy said. "So, please, keep spreading the black. Keep using the symbol. Just...try for some subtlety."

"Some what tea?" Hayes asked.

"I'm sorry to cut our meeting short, but it seems like you both have things under control and I have someone waiting for me," Clancy said. I pulled myself away from the door. "Liv, plan the hit. I'll worry about our numbers."

I took a few steps back down the staircase, but it was pointless to pretend that I hadn't been listening. The door opened, and the girl-Olivia-was the first to appear. She was tall and willowy, with legs for days and a tan that made her skin glow.

I shook my head and turned to allow her and Hayes to squeeze by. Olivia was probably about my age, but she looked so much older. She looked like what I imagined twenty would feel like. When I looked up again, Clancy was leaning against the doorframe, grinning.

"You came." He waved me inside and guided me toward his desk. Sitting down in one of the chairs, I had a fleeting look at the other side of his room, where the curtain had been restrung.

Clancy took his usual seat behind his desk, rocking the chair back as he smiled. "What made you change your mind?"

"It's...like you said," I mumbled. "There are so few of us left." And I want to know how I can be around the people I love and not be terrified of erasing myself.

"I read on the League's network that they weren't able to find any other Oranges aside from you and Martin," Clancy said. "Most of the Reds were killed, apparently. That puts us at the head of the pack."

"I guess," I said. Another thought occurred to me. "How do you have access to the League's network? And the PSFs?" I gestured around the room. "Any of this?"

"I have friends everywhere," Clancy said, simply. His fingers drummed against his desk. "And my father leaves me alone because he wouldn't be able to stand the outrage if I expose the fact that there is no rehabilitation program, not for people like you and me."

"Me and you," I repeated.

Clancy ran a hand through his hair. "The first thing you need to understand, Ruby, is that we're not like the others. Me and you...everyone classified as Orange. We're different. Special. No-no, wait, I see you rolling your eyes, but you have to listen, okay? Because the second thing you have to understand, is that everyone-my father, the camp controllers, the scientists, the PSFs, the Children's League-they've been lying to you this entire time. We're special not because of what we are, but what they can't make us into."

"You're not making any sense," I said.

He stood up and came around the desk to sit next to me. "Would it help if I told you my story first?" My eyes flicked up to meet his. "If I do, you have to promise that it stays between us."

Keeping secrets. That, I could do.

"All right," he said, "give me your hand. I'm going to have to show you."

When I had slipped into other minds, there had always been a queasy feeling of sinking involved in it. More often than not, I found myself dropped in the middle of a swamp of dimly lit memories and unrestrained feelings with no map, no flashlight, and no easy way of finding the way out.

But there was nothing frightening about Clancy's mind. His memories were bright and crisp, full of blooming images and colors. It felt like he had taken my hand there, too, and was guiding me down a long hallway of windows into his past. We only stopped long enough for me to glance inside each of them.

The office was plain, stuffed full of gunmetal gray filing cabinets, but little else. It could have been anywhere; the white paint was fresh enough that it bubbled on the wall. But I recognized the beginnings of crescent-shaped machine in the back corner and the man staring me down from across the card table serving as his desk. He was plump and balding at his hairline-and a permanent fixture in the Infirmary. I watched his lips move in a soundless explanation, my eyes drifting down to the crisp stack of papers on the desk in front of him. My eyes kept drifting down to his hand resting against the table, weighing down a sheet of once-folded paper that was trying to curl back in on itself. There at the top of it-the White House emblem. The words went into crystal focus, and I felt my eyes jump over them, drinking them in with disbelief. Dear Sirs, You may have my permission to run tests and experimental treatments on my son, Clancy James Beaumont Gray, provided these do not leave visible scars.

The lights in the office grew brighter and brighter, bleaching out the memory. When they faded again, I was in a much different room in the Infirmary, this one all blue tiles and beeping monitors. No! I thought, trying to jerk free of the Velcro restraints that held me down against the metal table. I knew what this place was.

The overhead lights were drawn down closer to my face by a gloved hand. At the corner of my vision, I saw the scientists and doctors in their white scrubs, setting up machines and computers around me. My jaw was clenched shut around the leather muzzle they had strapped to the back of my head, and hands kept my head still as wires and monitors were hooked up. I struggled again, twisting my neck far enough to catch sight of a table lined with scalpels and small drills; I saw my reflection in the nearby observation windows-young, pale with terror, a mirror image of the portraits that would later hang across the camp.

The harsh light from above grew and swelled, eating the scene. When it faded, the memory had changed again. My eyes fell first on the hand I was shaking, then slid up to the unfocused eyes of the same scientist I had seen before. The men hovering around us all had that murky quality to their expressions-blank smiles, blanker eyes. I squared my shoulders, a small thrill of victory working its way through my center as I moved through the main gate to the waiting black car. The man in the suit that welcomed me in with a perfunctory pat on the shoulder wasn't the president, but he appeared in nearly every memory that fired by next, ushering me onto stages in school auditoriums, outside domed state-capital buildings, in front of cameras at the centers of small towns. Each time, I would be handed the same set of note cards to read, be faced with the same expressions of hope and deep grief from the crowd. Always, my lips began to form the same words: My name is Clancy Gray, and I am here to tell you how the camp rehabilitation program saved my life.

Another light, this time from a camera's flash. When the shock of it faded, I was looking up into a face that was an older, weathered version of my own. The photographer flipped the monitor around for us to see the portrait, and I was no longer seeing myself as a boy, but a young man-fifteen, maybe even sixteen. As the photographer set up his equipment again, this time across the room, I put a hand on the president's back, guiding him around the couches, to the great dark wood desk. The rosebushes were scratching intently at the windows, but I directed his focus to the sheet of paper waiting there for him, and compelled him to pick up the pen. When he finished signing, he turned to me with an unfocused gaze and a numb, unknowing smile.