While I saw Zu and Chubs every day, Liam was a completely different matter. The security team had him scheduled for the second watch-five p.m. to five a.m.-all the way at the far west end of the lake. He was usually too tired to stumble back to the cabin after his shift, and spent most of his days sleeping in the tents they had set up near that entrance. I saw him once or twice talking animatedly to a crowd at breakfast, or visiting with Zu at Cubbies, but it was always from the window of Clancy's room.

I missed him to the point of a real, physical ache, but I understood that he had responsibilities. When I had a thought to spare, it usually went to him, but I was so focused on my lessons that it was hard to let my mind drift to anything else for too long.

Clancy laughed, drawing my attention back to him from the window, and I suddenly wasn't sure how I could let my thoughts wander. He was wearing a white polo shirt that emphasized the natural glow of his skin, and pressed khaki pants casually rolled at the ankle. Whenever he was out with others, he was properly buttoned up, his clothes clean and ironed within an inch of their lives-but not with me.

Here, we didn't have to put on any show. Not for each other.

When we first started these lessons, it had been from either side of his ridiculous desk; it felt like I was squaring off against a school principal, not being guided through a Psi lesson by my freak guru. Next, we had tried the floor, but after a few hours of sitting, my back felt like it was ready to crumble. He had been the one to suggest sitting on his narrow bed. He had taken one end and I had taken the other. Then, we started inching closer. Bridging the distance on his red quilt, nearer to each other with each lesson, until one day I snapped out of whatever haze Clancy's dark eyes had put me in and realized our knees were pressed up against one another.

"Sorry," I mumbled, when I turned back toward him. "Can we go from the top?"

He found everything about me amusing, apparently. "Take it from the top? Are we rehearsing for a play? Should I get Mike in here to start building props?"

I'm not sure why I laughed at that-it wasn't even all that funny. Maybe trying to throw my brain at his for the last twenty minutes had made me loopy. The only thing I seemed sure of was how big and reassuring his hand felt as it took mine and squeezed.

"Try again," he said. "This time, try to imagine that those invisible hands you were telling me about are actually knives. Cut through the haze."

Easier said than done. I nodded and closed my eyes, trying to fight back the flood of color in my cheeks. Every time he used my lame way of explaining how my brain seemed to work, I felt embarrassed, even a little bit ashamed. He had laughed the first time I made the comparison, waved his fingers in front of my face like he was casting a spell over me.

He had tried a number of different methods to try to demonstrate how to do it. We'd gone down to the pantry so I could watch him slip into Lizzie's mind and, for no other purpose than to make me laugh, ask her to cluck like a chicken. Clancy had tried to show me how easy it was to affect the moods of multiple people at once, settling an argument between two kids without saying a single word. At one point, we'd sat on the stoop of the Office and he'd read me the thoughts of everyone who passed by-including poor Hina, who was, apparently, harboring a desperate crush on Clancy.

The truth was, he could do everything and anything. Block me out, push in an image, a feeling, a fear. Once, I was sure, he had even passed on a dream to me. I didn't want to feel like I was disappointing him, not when he was giving me so much of his precious time-the thought made everything inside of me clench with fear. He told me to take it slow, that it had taken him years to master all of this, but it was impossible not to want to rush through the lessons, to get a grip on my abilities as soon as possible. It seemed to me that the best way to repay his kindness was to master myself to the point where I could stand beside him and feel pride, not shame, in what I could do.

Until I could unlock his secrets, we were never going to be equals. He had called me his "friend" several times, during our lessons and in front of other kids, and it surprised me how much I recoiled at the term. Clancy had hundreds of friends. I wanted to be more than that-I wanted him to trust me and confide in me.

Sometimes, I just wanted him to lean closer, to tuck my hair behind my ear. It was a repulsively girly thought, though, and I wasn't sure what dark corner of my mind it had come crawling out of. I think my head was playing tricks on me, because I knew what I really wanted was for Liam to do that-do more than that.

But every time I tried to slip into Clancy's mind, I was thrown back. Clancy had so much control over his powers that I didn't even have time to feel the usual disorienting rush of thoughts and memories. Every single time, it was like he had drawn a white curtain around his brain. No amount of tearing could bring it down.

That didn't mean I didn't try, though.

Clancy smiled, reaching over to brush my hair back over my shoulder. His hand lingered there, sliding over to cup the back of my neck. I knew he was staring at me, but I couldn't bring my eyes up to meet his, even as he leaned closer.

"You can do this. I know you can."

My teeth clenched until I felt my jaw pop. A muscle twitched in my right cheek. I tried drawing the hundreds and thousands of wandering fingers together, focusing them into something sharp and lethal enough to penetrate his wall. I squeezed his hand, increasing my grip until I'm sure he felt pain, and threw the invisible dagger toward him, diving in as fast and hard as I could. And still, the moment I brushed up against that white wall, it felt like he had reached over and slapped me across the face. He sighed and dropped his hand.

"Sorry," I said, hating the silence that followed.

"No, I'm the one that's sorry." Clancy shook his head. "I'm a terrible teacher."

"Trust me, you are not the problem in this equation."

"Ruby, Ruby, Ruby," he said, "this isn't an equation. You can't solve it in three easy steps, otherwise you wouldn't have accepted my help, right?"

I looked down as he began to rub his thumb over my upturned palm. A slow, lazy circle. It was strangely calming, and almost hypnotizing to watch.

"That's true," I began. "But you should know I haven't exactly been...honest."

That got his attention.

"The others-they were looking for you because they thought you were some magic man that could get them home. But I wanted to look for you because I was banking on the rumors that you were an Orange, and that you might be willing to teach me."

Clancy's dark brows drew together, but he didn't let go of my hand. Instead, he rested his other palm on the sliver of space between our crossed legs. "But that was before I told you what the League was planning for you," he said. "What did you want me to help you with? No-let me guess. Something to do with what happened to your parents, right?"

"How I erased myself," I confirmed. "How to keep it from happening again."

Clancy closed his eyes for a brief moment, and when he finally opened them, his eyes seemed darker than before, almost black. I leaned in closer, picking up on a strange mix of sadness, guilt, and something else that seemed to be seeping through his pores.

"I wish I could help you with that," he said, "but the truth is, I can't do what you can. I have no idea how to help you."

I have no idea how to help you. Of course. Of course he didn't. Martin was an Orange, too, but he didn't have the same abilities I did. I wonder why I'd assumed the Slip Kid would.

"If you...tell me about it, and explain how you think it works, I-then I might be able to figure something out."

It wasn't so much that I couldn't talk about it; it was that I didn't want to. Not right then. I knew myself well enough that I could predict the choked words and teary explanation that would follow. Every time I let myself think about what had happened, I always came out the other end exhausted and shaking, feeling every bit as scared and hopeless and horrific as I did when those moments had actually occurred.

He watched me from under those dark lashes of his, a look of understanding quick to come. His thumb hovering over the pulse point in my wrist. "Ah. It's a Benjamin. I should have expected that, I'm sorry." Seeing my look of confusion he explained, "Benjamin was my old tutor back-well, back before everything went to hell. He passed away when I was very young, but I still can't talk about it. Still hurts." One side of his mouth curled up in a rueful smile. "Maybe you don't have to say anything at all, though. We could try something else."

"Like what?"

"Like you blocking me this time, not the other way around. I bet it'll be easier for you."

"Why do you say that?"

"Because you're not vicious enough to put up a good offense-trust me, that's a compliment." He waited for me to smile before continuing. "But you are guarded. You don't show your cards to anyone. There are times that you're impossible to read."

"I don't mean to be," I interrupted. Clancy only waved me off.

"It's not a bad thing," he said. "In fact, it'll help you."

Well, it certainly hadn't helped me fend off Martin.

"Can you sense when someone is trying to break into your head?" he asked. "There's a tingling sensation...."

"Yeah, I know what you're talking about. What should I do when I feel it?"

"You have to push right back up against them, throw them off whatever track they might have been on. In my experience, the things you really want to protect, like memories or dreams? They have their own natural defenses. You just need to add another wall."

"Every time I tried to get into your head, it was like a white curtain blocked me."

Clancy nodded. "That's the way I do it. When I feel the sensation, I push back the image of that curtain and I don't let up, no matter what. So what I want you to do is bring to mind some kind of secret or memory-something you wouldn't necessarily want me or anyone else to see-and I want you to drop your own curtain down to protect it."

I must not have been doing a good job of hiding my hesitation, because he took both of my hands in his again, lacing our fingers. "Come on," he said. "What's the worst that could happen? I see some embarrassing moment? I think we're good enough friends now that you can trust me when I say I won't tell a soul about any falls or public puking."

"What about streaking and eating playground sand?"

He pretended to consider it for a moment, grinning. "I suppose I could refrain from sharing that with the entire camp at dinner."

"What a fair, just leader you are," I said. After a moment, I added, "Do you really consider me a friend, or are you just saying that because you want to see me get my four front teeth knocked out when I tried to play soccer?"

Clancy shook his head and laughed. His favorite stories always seemed to be the ones that involved me trying to pretend I was a boy, or the fast-food binges my dad used to take me on when my mom was out of town at a teacher's conference. They were so completely foreign to his experience, I realized, that I must have seemed like an alien.

"Of course I consider you my friend. Actually..." he began, his voice low. When he glanced at me again, his dark eyes were burning with a kind of intensity that made me feel like my head was full of air, ready to float away. "I consider you a lot more than that."

"What do you mean?"

"You may have been looking for me, but let's just say that I was waiting for you. It's been a long time since I felt like someone understood what I was going through. Being an Orange...you can't compare it to what the others are. They don't understand us or what we can do."

It's only us, came a small voice in my mind, it's just the two of us.

I squeezed his hands. "I know."

His attention seemed to wander, his eyes carrying over to the other side of the room, toward his computer and TV. I thought I detected a glimmer of sadness in his eyes, a real kind of pain, but just as quickly, it was gone, replaced by his usual confident expression.

"You ready to try?"

I nodded. "I promise I've been trying. Please-please, don't give up on me."

I was surprised when I felt his hands pull free from mine. Stunned, when I felt them glide up my bare arms and over my shoulders. I didn't stop him. This was the thing about Clancy-the thing I was quickly coming to terms with. With him, I didn't have to be afraid, not of what I could do intentionally or by mistake. I didn't have to throw up every defense I possessed to keep my brain's wandering hands still, because Clancy was more than capable of keeping me out of his head.

But Liam...he was something precious, something I could break with a single misstep. Someone I couldn't be with, not right then, not the way I was.

Clancy leaned forward to begin his work. I leaned forward, too, right up against his chest, where it was warm and smelled of pine and old books and thousands of possibilities I had never known.

I didn't block him on the first try-I didn't even block him on the fifth try. It took three days and his witnessing almost every sour, cheek-reddening memory in my head for me to finally throw up some kind of defense.

"Think deeper," he told me. "Think about something you wouldn't want anyone else to know. Those memories will provoke your strongest defenses."

There wasn't anything left that he hadn't already seen. I swear, the kid could have been a brain surgeon for how sharp and accurate his pokes and prods were. Every time I brought to mind a memory or thought and tried to put an invisible wall around it, my defenses crumbled, as flimsy as waxed paper. Still, he didn't get frustrated.

"You can do this," Clancy kept repeating, "I know you can. You're capable of more than you'll admit to yourself."

It was his strange badgering for some kind of juicy memory that finally produced my first actual result.

"Does it have to be a memory?" I asked.

He seemed to consider this. "Maybe you should try something else this time. Something you imagine." It could have been my mind playing tricks, but his face suddenly appeared much closer to mine. "Something you want. Or...someone?"

The way he said it made me think it was a question, a serious one cloaked by a casual voice. I kept my face impassive.

"Okay," I said. "I think I'm ready."

Clancy didn't look so sure. But I was. This particular fantasy had been creeping up on my dreams for weeks, invading the slips of time when I wasn't holed up practicing my abilities.

It came to me in the middle of our third night at East River, right at the hour that separated day from night. I startled awake in bed, confused as I listened to Chubs snore and Zu toss and turn. Every inch of my skin had tingled as I tried to process what I had just seen, if any of it had actually happened-if any of it might actually happen.

This was a dream I could never share, one I carried deep inside my heart, tucked so far down that I hadn't even realized it was there until it sprang out of me, fully formed.

I must have dreamed we were in spring. The cherry blossom trees at the end of my parents' street in Salem were in full bloom. We drove past them in Black Betty-Liam and I, sitting up front together, listening to a Led Zeppelin song that might not have even been real. Outside of my parents' house were white balloons, tied off on either side of the white fence's gate, floating arrows that pointed us up to the open front door. Liam took my hand, wearing exactly what he had worn the day I had met him, and together we walked straight down the house's main hallway, through the pale yellow kitchen, until we found the door to the backyard and everyone outside waiting.

Everyone. My parents. Grams. Zu. Chubs. Sam. All sitting around a blanket my parents had spread out over the grass, eating whatever it was my dad was grilling. Mom was running around, tying up more balloons, her hands still stained with dark dirt after planting all of the new, pale flowers that flooded over what once had been a yard of plain grass. We said hello to everyone, I hugged Sam, I pointed out the birds up in the trees to Zu, and introduced Chubs to my mother.

And then, Liam bent down and kissed me, and there were no words to describe that.

Clancy's intrusion came like all the others had before, first with a tingle, then with a roar. I had been so lost in thinking about the dream that I hadn't even felt him take my hand to start that trial run.

I liked Clancy a lot. More than I ever expected. But he didn't have a place in this dream. There was nothing there I wanted to share with him.

I clenched his hand back, hard, and threw everything I had into sending my other set of hands out from inside me, like a shove.

His curtain strategy hadn't worked for me, but this one? Using offense as defense? This one was maybe a little too effective. Even before I opened my eyes, I felt Clancy jerk back, sucking in a hiss of what sounded like pain.

"Oh my God," I said, when I finally shook the haze from my mind. "I'm so sorry!"

But when Clancy looked up, he was smiling. "Told you," he said. "Told you that you'd figure it out."

"Can we do it again?" I asked. "I want to make sure it wasn't a fluke."

Clancy rubbed at his forehead. "Can we give it a rest for a little while? I feel like you just tackled my brain."

But Clancy didn't get a rest. Almost as soon as the words had left his mouth, we both heard a very different kind of warning. There was a shrill wail from the other side of the room, one I had never heard before, almost like a car alarm. He winced, tucking his head down to escape the noise, even as he jumped up from the bed.

He made his way to his desk, flipping open his laptop lid. His fingers flew as he typed in his password, the blue-white screen of the laptop illuminating his pale face. I came to stand behind him just as he clicked open a new program.

"What's happening?" I asked. "Clance?"

He didn't look up. "One of the camp's perimeter alarms was triggered. Don't worry-it might be nothing. We've had animals step a little too close to the wires before."

It took me a minute to realize what I was looking at. Four different color videos, one in each corner of the screen; four different viewpoints of the camp boundaries. Clancy leaned forward, bracing his hands on either side of his laptop.

He reached across me to get to the wireless black radio sitting on the other side of his desk. He never once took his eyes off the screen.

"Hayes, do you read me?"

There was a moment of silence before Hayes's gruff, "Yeah, what's up?" came crackling through the speaker.

"The southeast perimeter alarm was triggered. I'm watching the feed now, but-" I think what he was going to say was, I don't see anyone or anything, but his next words had me ducking under his arm to take a look at the screen myself. "Yeah, I see a man and a woman. Both in camo-unfriendlies, by the look of it."

And there they were. They looked well into middle age, but it was hard to be sure. Both were wearing what could only be described as hunting attire, head-to-toe camouflage. Even their faces appeared to have been painted brown.

"Got it. I'll take care of it."

"Thanks...get them to back off, will you?" Clancy said carefully, then turned the volume of the radio all the way down.

Southeast perimeter-good, not Liam's area. I let out a grateful sigh.

My eyes were still on the screen when Clancy shut the laptop lid. "Let's get back to work. Sorry for the distraction."