I could feel my surprise betray me. "Don't you need to go out there?" I asked. "What's Hayes going to do to them?"

Clancy only waved me off. Again.

"Don't worry about it, Ruby. Everything is under control."

One crack might not be enough to bring a fortress's defenses down, but it was enough to splinter into two cracks, and then three, and then four. After the initial breakthrough, it became a mission of mine to find different ways to slip into Clancy's mind. I never got to stay for very long before I was unceremoniously tossed out, of course; but every small victory spurred me on to achieve another, and then another. I could catch him when his thoughts were focused on something else, trick him into trying to protect one memory when I was really going after another. It surprised Clancy, but I thought it also, in a secret way, excited him. Enough, at least, to have me start practicing on others.

It was like running downhill in a way; the momentum carried me through all sorts of experiments, big and small. I made a spectacular mess of dinner one night when I pulled each of the six kids working on it aside and planted six very different ideas about what they were supposed to be making for the meal-all at the same time. I had one girl so convinced her name was Theodore that she began to cry whenever anyone told her otherwise. It became so easy, in fact, to convince someone to do what I asked, or suggest that they had done something they really hadn't, that Clancy told me it was time to move on to trying to do the same without having to touch the unsuspecting test subject first.

I was getting there, slowly, and maybe not entirely surely, but there was something almost delicious about feeling the same powerful swell of abilities that had once terrorized me corked and controlled. Every aspect of them became sharper, easier.

But on the Tuesday that followed, we were interrupted again.

One of the older Yellows, a girl named Kylie, came pounding on Clancy's door. She didn't wait to be let in; I actually fell off the bed with the force of her entrance.

"What's this about you denying our request to leave?" Tangles of dark curls flew around her face. "You let Adam leave, you let Sarah's group leave, you even let Greg and his guys go, and you and I both know they have the collective brainpower of a fly-"

The floorboard squeaked as I took a step back toward the bed. Clancy had left the curtain open when he went to answer the door, so Kylie had a full view of me. She whirled back toward Clancy, who had put two pacifying hands on her shoulders. "Oh my God! Are you in here fooling around? Did you even look at my proposal? I spent days on that!"

"I read it three times," Clancy said, motioning me forward with his hand. He looked at her with the same calming smile and patience he had shown me since our lessons began. "But I'm happy to discuss why I had to decline now. Ruby-tomorrow?"

And just like that, I found myself outside in the morning sunshine.

The spring weather was still sporadic-cold and dismal one day, perfectly warm the next. Spending two weeks holed up with Clancy had made keeping up with the season's bipolar tendencies even harder. I stripped my sweatshirt off and pulled my hair up in a messy bun. My first thought was to check in on Zu, but I didn't want to interrupt her lessons. I tried to find Chubs in the gardens, but the girl in charge told me-in her bossiest voice-that she hadn't seen him in a week, and she was going to rat him out to Clancy for the punishment he deserved.

"Punishment?" I repeated, bristling, but she didn't elaborate.

I found him in the next logical place.

"You know," I called as I stepped onto the dock, "bread is actually bad for ducks."

Chubs didn't so much as look up. I sat down next to him, but it only prompted him to stand up and stalk away, leaving his bag and book behind.

"Hey!" I called. "What's your problem?"

No response.

"Chubs-Charles!"

He whirled back around. "You want to know what my problem is? Where do I even start? How about that it's been almost a month, and we're still here? How about the fact that you and Lee and Suzume are all off making friends and skipping around even though we're supposed to be working to learn a way to get home?"

"Where is this coming from?" I asked. Maybe he hadn't fit in as naturally as Liam and Zu had, but I saw him talking to other kids as he worked. He seemed okay-maybe not happy, but, then again, when was he ever? "This place really isn't that bad-"

"Ruby, it's horrible!" he burst out. "Horrible! We're told when to eat, when to sleep, what to wear, and we're forced to work. How is this any different from camp?"

I sucked in a sharp breath. "You're the one that wanted to come here! I'm sorry it's not living up to your high and mighty expectations, but it works for us. If you'd just try, you could be happy here. We're safe! Why are you in such a hurry to leave?"

"Just because your parents didn't want you, it doesn't mean that the rest of ours don't. Maybe you're not in a hurry to get back, but I am!"

He might as well have shot me straight through the chest; I felt all of the blood leave my heart as one of his hands came up to clutch his dark hair. "I've been working so hard, I've been trying, and God, you didn't even ask him, did you?"

"Ask him-?" But I knew. As soon as the words left my mouth, I knew exactly what promise I had neglected to keep. The anger in me deflated. "I'm so sorry. I've been so wrapped up in lessons that I forgot."

"Well, I didn't," he said, and left me standing alone in the sunlight.

An hour later, I was under a stream of warm water, hands pressed to my face.

The camp's wash rooms-one for boys, one for girls-were about as glamorous as an outhouse. The floors were beveled concrete, the shower stalls wood planks and plastic curtains crawling with black mold. We used the rooms every night to brush our teeth and wash our faces, and, once or twice a week, to shower. But today, without floral shampoo and conditioner perfuming the air, I realized the cavernous room smelled like sawdust.

I stayed in there until I heard the bells signal the end of lunch. I still hadn't formulated a plan for the rest of the day when I walked outside-and into the one person I hadn't realized I was desperate to see.

Liam stumbled back a few steps at impact, his wet hair clinging to his cheeks, longer than I remembered.

"Oh my God," I said with a laugh, pressing a hand to my chest. "You scared the hell out of me."

"Sorry about that." He smiled, extending a hand toward me. "Hey-I don't think we've had the chance to meet. I'm Liam."

TWENTY-FOUR.

I DON'T KNOW HOW LONG I stood there staring at his hand, bile rising in my throat as fast and steady as a scream.

Oh my God, no, I thought, taking a step back. No, no, no nonono...

"See, you look exactly like a friend of mine, Ruby, but I haven't seen her in ages, so I'm..." His voice trailed off. "Okay, was that joke really that bad?"

I turned around, pressing my face against my towel so he wouldn't see my tears.

"Ruby?" He looped his own towel around my waist and drew me to his side. "That was the Liam Stewart way of saying, Hi, darlin', missed you something fierce. Oh, wow, bad enough to make you cry?"

He smoothed his hands down over my hair. "Okay, that's it-" He bent down, and before I could stop him, lifted me over one shoulder.

Liam didn't let me wiggle free until we were back at Cabin 18. He dropped me on the folded futon that Zu and I had been sharing, making a quick stop at his bed for a blanket.

"I'm not cold," I said, when he wrapped it around my shoulders.

"Then why are you shaking?" Liam sat down next to me. I turned so my face was resting in the crook of his neck and I was breathing in his clean, woodsy smell.

"I'm just pissed at myself," I said when I found my voice. "I told Chubs I'd ask Clancy if he could use his laptop, but I got distracted and forgot."

"Hmm..." Liam's fingers were busy untangling my wet hair. "I don't think he's upset at you. I think he's upset that I'm keeping us here. It's just reinforcing his fears about not getting home."

"How do I make it up to him?"

"Well, for one thing, you could ask about the computer," he said, his other hand taking mine. "Though I still don't really understand how you're in the position to ask to borrow it. I feel like I haven't seen you in ages."

"You haven't," I said. "You're always on watch."

He laughed. "It's lonely sitting up in a tree without you."

"I want to hear about what you do all night," I said. "Have you tried talking to anyone about freeing the camps yet?"

"I brought it up with some of the guys on my watch, and Olivia. She's trying to get us in to see Clancy about it. I think...I think it's going be great, I really do. It could work."

"Clance said that the western gate is the one that used to give them the most trouble," I said, twisting to look up at him. "You're being careful, right?"

Liam went very still beside me, so still that he seemed to forget to breathe.

"Clance, huh?" he said in an unnaturally light voice. "I guess you are in the position to be asking favors."

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Liam sighed. "Nothing, sorry. I didn't mean for that to come out like that. It's great that you guys are friends." I tried to look up at him, but he was looking at the other end of the cabin, where a set of drawers with our things rested against the wall. "So he's been giving you lessons?"

"Yeah," I said, wondering how much, if anything, I should hold back. "He's been teaching me how to keep others from prying into my head."

"What about tricks to keep you from slipping into others' heads?" Liam asked. "Is he helping you with that, too?"

"He's trying to," I said. "He said that if I strengthened my control over my abilities, that would come naturally."

"Well, you can always practice that with me," he said, resting his forehead against mine. I felt the trickle start at the back of my mind, the warning before the flood. Clancy had told me that when I felt it coming on, I needed to break all physical contact and imagine a white curtain sweeping between me and whomever I was with.

But I didn't want to do either.

I felt his lips travel from my forehead, whispering something against my eyelids, my cheeks, my nose. His thumbs stroked the length of my jaw, but even they stilled as I pulled back and turned away from him.

"What are you so scared of?" he whispered, his voice laced with hurt.

Had this boy really once just been a stranger?

Had I really once thought that I'd be able to live a life without him in it?

"I don't want to lose you."

He made a noise of frustration, his eyes clear and bright as he spoke. "Then why are you the one that keeps letting go?"

I never got the chance to answer. A moment later, Hina burst through the cabin door, Zu in tow, and told us they were leaving.

"Okay, okay, slow down," Liam said. Zu was darting around the cabin, collecting her things, as Hina's mouth ran a mile a minute. I wasn't sure whom I was supposed to be paying attention to-my friend or the girl she had, apparently, elected to speak for her. Every time Hina opened her mouth, Liam and I reverted back to the same state of shock.

Zu. Leaving.

Leaving.

I caught her on her way to the drawers, steering her to the futon and forcing her to sit. She must not have picked up on our shock, because her face was bright and glowing. I studied it, the way her smile seemed to crackle with her own brand of electricity, and felt something inside of me shrink in defeat.

"Us and three others," Hina said, breathlessly. I wondered if she had run all the way over from class. "Two Blues and a Yellow. Kylie finally got permission to leave the camp."

Liam twisted around to look at Zu when he said, "And go...for a hike?"

Zu made her Are you serious? face.

"Help me out here. Tell me what you want to say."

Hina was finally silent, and for a moment, one crazy second really, I thought Zu was actually going to open her mouth and have out with it. Liam's entire body tensed, as if he was expecting the same thing. But Zu only slipped her notebook back out of her pink duffel bag and wrote in her neat, looping handwriting. When she flipped it over, she was looking him right in the eye.

I want to go with them to California.

I know I should have been happy for her. I should have been celebrating the fact that she was finally able to come out and tell us exactly what she wanted. I just never imagined what she'd want would be a future without us.

"I thought Clancy turned down Kylie's request to leave?" I asked Hina.

"He did, but she said she finally wore him down."

"What's in California?" Liam asked, leaning against a cabin wall.

"My parents have a house there," Hina explained, "and they're waiting for us. The West Coast government isn't going to turn us back over to the camps."

"What about Zu's parents?" I asked. "They-"

To her credit, Hina knew what I was trying to ask without my having to ask it. "My father has not been on speaking terms with my uncle for some time."

"Zu, that's a long trip," Liam began uncertainly. "What if something happens? Who else is going? That Talon kid?"

She nodded, and all of a sudden her eyes were on me. I tried to give her an encouraging smile, but I was worried I might burst into tears instead. We all waited as she scribbled out another hasty note and showed it to Liam again.

You don't have to worry about me anymore. Isn't that good?

"I like worrying about you." Liam put a hand on her head. "When would you be leaving?"

Hina at least had the decency to look guilty. "We actually have to leave right now. Kylie is worried Clancy might change his mind. He wasn't...all that happy."

"That's a little fast," I choked out. "Have you really thought about this?"

Zu looked right at me when she nodded. The next note was for both of us. I want to be with my family. I just don't want you to be mad at me.

"Mad?" Liam shook his head. "Never. Ever. You're my girl, Zu. We just want you to be safe. It would kill me if anything happened to you."

There was a knock at the door. Talon, an older Yellow with his hair woven into intricate dreadlocks, appeared first, followed by a wide-eyed Chubs. Liam stood.

"Good," he said. "I was hoping to talk to you."

Talon nodded. "I figured. Kylie and Lucy are here, too." She stuck her head inside and waved. "Do you want to talk outside?"