The next morning dawned gray and rainy in sad contrast to the day before. I'd grudgingly followed Lucas to a motel after he'd convinced me that Henry was most definitely not in that town anymore, that Amirah had surely left with him. I refused to speak to him any more that night when we arrived at the place. I was sick of diners and motels, sick of constantly moving and trying to see through lies. Sick of everything, but mostly physically ill from being so far from Henry, now that we'd grown so close to each other. I threw myself on a bed and pretended to sleep but really laid awake the whole night, miserably wondering about Henry. Did he realize she wasn't me? That was the worst of my preoccupations. Because if he didn't, he'd probably try to give her the attention that was meant for me and she'd either accept it (which was a nauseating prospect) or deny it, in which case he'd think I'd lied to him and didn't really care about him. I hated both pictures. He had no reason to suspect she wasn't me. I'd met Lucas. I knew he existed. But neither of us even knew whether Amirah was alive or dead or real, for that matter. Henry would be as unsuspecting of her being false as I originally was of Lucas.

More than once I considered getting up and running out of there, getting away from Lucas and going somewhere—anywhere—to at least have the freedom to make my own decisions. But infuriatingly, he sat up the whole time, watching television. Whenever I tried to sneak a discreet look, he was wide awake. He never even got up to use the bathroom! And I knew there was no way I'd get out the door with him watching me. I'd fight him if I had to, but the odds weren't in my favor. He was much taller and stronger than he looked, just like Henry, and I knew Lucas well enough to know he'd do whatever it took to get what he wanted, even tie me up if he thought I was a flight risk.

And while Henry was my most prominent distraction, I was awash with mixed feelings about Lucas himself, as well. Hadn't I been completely fractured at his death? The fact that he'd died before I even knew him as himself? My feelings for him had changed by the time they'd killed him. Whereas I'd hated him at first, I'd grown to almost, in a conflicted sort of way, care about him, and when I'd thought they'd killed him, I'd felt real grief. So now that he was here, again, keeping me from Henry, how could I reconcile the sorrow I'd felt at his loss with the rage I now felt at his presence?

I was so lost that night. Just, irate and worried and so empty . . . that pulling and stretching feeling had dulled into more of a void, as if some piece of me were missing, because Henry was part of me. I'd known it for a while, that he was more than just some person I liked. He wasn't like Paolo--I'd been physically attracted to Paolo, and I'd enjoyed being around him, and I'd liked the attention he gave me--but that was it. And what was love? I didn't know, but I didn't think it was what I felt for Henry. He was . . . something more. Something more like food or water, a need, but also a want, a desire. My understanding of that had grown steadily since I'd met him at Oliphant, and the closer we'd grown, the more my body had felt it, that he was a necessary piece of me. I wasn't sure I could live if something happened to him, if I could never be near him again. And I realized that this was how Lucas felt. I'd thought he was a horrible person, back when I'd first met him. I'd thought he was amoral, but if this had been how he'd felt at being separated from Amirah, the desperation he'd experienced in trying to find her . . . I understood it. I was like Lucas. I knew I was, now. He'd said we weren't too different long ago, and I'd scoffed at him. Now I got it. I was desperate to get back to Henry. I'd do what it took, too. If there were someone I needed to force a memory out of in order to get me Henry, no doubt I would've secretly drugged them the way Lucas had done to me.

Realizing this all made me ashamed—ashamed that I'd hypocritically judged him but even more ashamed that I'd become like him. I knew it all to be true.

When the morning arrived and it was too late to pretend to be asleep anymore, I got out of the bed and locked myself in the bathroom for a little while. Lucas let me stay in there for a bit (I hoped because he felt bad for doing this to me), but then he grew impatient and banged on the door to ask if I was all right. Rather than answer, I just opened it and stepped out, no room for doubt in my voice when I said, "You need to tell me what's going on, and be real about it, or I will give you hell until I get away from you."

"Can we talk while moving?"

"No. I know how you operate. I'm not going anywhere unless you talk to me."

He looked so much like Henry and yet was so different. He still had the dark, shaggy hair I'd last seen him with. He was dressed similarly to how Henry had been dressed last night, though not identically, and I was frustrated that I hadn't noticed it then. Lucas was staring at me with those similarly glassy eyes, but his held no warmth whatsoever. "I actually am sorry to have tricked you like this," he said, and I did believe him. Lucas wasn't one to lie about his feelings (or talk of them at all, really). "But we didn't think you'd come if you knew it was us asking."

"You and Amirah? Come with you where? Where are we going?"

He didn't answer right away but after a pause, said, "We're going to end this."

"End it? Where?" And then my mind raced back to the only memory I had of Amirah--wasn't it where she'd been? Wasn't it where we'd all end up? She'd said it was the place they sent us when they didn't want us anymore--that's what she'd said. I thought, looked hard at him. "Xanadu?" My question was barely a whisper.

Lucas returned no answer, but I saw beyond his eyes a flicker of light, of recognition . . . of confirmation?

"I'm right, aren't I? Did they--did they tell you to bring us there?"

He leaned against the corner of the wall, crossed his arms, broke the aura of mystery that had surrounded the conversation. "We aren't doing this for them. We're doing it because we want to be free of them, for good. You know as well as I do that they won't let us alone."

"So . . . you want to take them out? And you didn't think Henry and I would want to go with you? That's ridiculous! We want them gone as much as you do! Why didn't you just say something instead of splitting us up? Don't you feel sick being apart from Amirah, the way I feel about Henry? You can contact her, right? Why don't you tell her that we're meeting up, now that you've explained it and we want to help. You don't need to keep us apart. Please, Lucas, I don't--"

"Nadia, stop! I just--" he'd grown uncharacteristically flustered with me as I'd gone on. In the past, he'd ignored me or steered the conversation elsewhere, but I was hitting a nerve. And I could tell that was the truth of it when he added, "It's what she wanted, not me. It was her idea."

I paused before snap-responding; I'd been about to make a sarcastic comment about someone actually being able to tell him what to do. But I realized he'd spoken against his better judgment, that he'd shown me a vulnerability; I hadn't known he had any. So I chose my words carefully. "So the plan is to go where we need to go, and I suppose we meet when we get there?"

"Something like that."

"Can you promise me we'll meet with them? You promise?"

His eyes met mine; they'd grown cold, again, as if revealing a weakness had separated him from me. "Do you think my promise is worth anything?"

"I . . . I do. I think--I believe that you care."

"Well. Then there's your answer."

I'd be pushing his willingness to cooperate if I asked any more; I could sense that. He'd closed up, suddenly, and reverted to the person I'd met back in Animas Forks. He was distant from me for the moment, but I was hopeful that we'd come back to a decent place, as long as I didn't try his patience too much. The Lucas I knew, even up to mere moments before he'd (I thought) died, had planned to force drugs on me to get what he wanted. I had to remind myself that we'd hardly been friends. He'd fulfill his agenda long before he thought about what I wanted. It didn't matter that I'd actually mourned his death.

While I ruminated over these things, he picked up a little around the room and then asked me--or told me, really--to give him back his bag.

I was startled, though I shouldn't have been. Of course he'd want his stuff back. The bag was on my shoulders, where it'd been all night; I kept it on my front, so I could hold it, almost every night since taking it from him. I'd become incredibly possessive of it, but he was right; it was his. "Can I at least keep the gun?"

His head tilted a little to the side; he narrowed his pale eyes. A wry smile almost played at a corner of his mouth. "Really?"

"I've . . . grown to like it. To need it."

He let that settle, thought about it. Then asked, "Have you used it? For more than threats, I mean?"

Chest swelling with a multitude of feelings (pride and shame chief amongst them), I nodded. "Three times."

Lucas half-laughed, but there wasn't any sort of humor in it. "You're surprising. All right. I have another, anyway."

I removed the gun, put it in my pocket, and reluctantly handed the bag to him. In spite of my annoyance at losing it, I was privately thrilled to have at least won the gun. If Lucas had any doubts about me, he wouldn't have let me keep it. I felt sure of that.

Resigned to the understanding that I'd get no more information from him at the moment, I followed Lucas out of the motel room and into the parking lot, so many questions still on my mind. When he led us to a jeep and told me to get in, I didn't even ask how or why it was there. It just didn't matter. It was there. I wasn't afraid of him. Not really.

After about a half hour of quiet driving, I tried to ignore the pulling feeling inside. Lucas had told me it'd get easier, but the more I thought of Henry, the more I wanted to jump out of the car and take my chances finding him. I could trust the magnetism within; it would draw me to Henry. It could be my compass.

Every single moment, I wondered what he was doing. What Amirah was saying to him, whether she was making him laugh, where they were going, whether he knew. He had to know she wasn't me, if through no other means than what he felt. I knew he felt the pull, as I did. We were each other's; we were connected. I satisfied my anxiety by telling myself that he'd most definitely feel that she wasn't me. And if he tried to touch her, or she tried to touch him, the electricity wouldn't be there. He'd know right away. That kept me from getting too sad about everything that had happened. He'd know; we'd meet up with them soon; Henry and I would be with each other again. We would. I thought of the way he'd looked at me in that maze, how he'd seemed to glow under the weird lighting, the way his arms looked as he'd stood before me when my back was to the mirrors. And the touch--the buzzing of it, like little lightning bolts wriggling under my skin. Slightly uncomfortable at first but then . . . so . . . warm, and then so . . . melty, as if I were dissolving into light.

I shivered just recalling the sensation. What was it?

I caught Lucas giving me side-eye. He must've seen me shiver. Frowning, I turned to the window and stared out into the gray. It was misty, the sort of weather that forced you to use your wipers even without the rain. Was I doing the wrong thing? Was acquiescing to Lucas the right answer? Had Henry realized Amirah wasn't me and left her? Run back to find me? And I was now going farther away from him?

And who was she, anyway? Who was Amirah? Another me, but not another me. She and I were probably about as similar as Henry and Lucas. When I'd seen her in my memories . . . I'd felt that she was me and yet different. Were we twins, somehow? Identical twins? Were Henry and Lucas identical twins? Or were we some type of clones? The thoughts were awful. They had no answers, only created more speculation. I felt only frustration in thinking about them.

Suddenly, I started to pay attention to the road signs out my window, and I noticed something that startled me: we were heading back to San Judo. I had no idea why, and I was hesitant to ask. We sped past the many suburbs outlying the city. It was huge, sprawling. I'd known it, and I'd seen it driving back in with Henry, but in spite of my familiarity with the place, my anxiety began to build. Were they here--the masked people? Was this where Xanadu was? And what even was it? In the distance, at length, I saw the skyscrapers of San Judo itself, and I knew it was where we were headed. I didn't really want to return; it felt as if I were going backward. On the other hand, if Henry were there with Amirah, we'd quickly be reunited. I couldn't contain my curiosity anymore. I was about to open my mouth and ask him what was going on, but he preempted me with a question of his own:

"Will you make a deal with me?"

I absent-mindedly fidgeted with the door lock, trying to act as if I wasn't as nervous as I was. "Maybe. It depends on what it is."

"I'd like your help with something. If you help me, I'll tell you everything I know."

"You already told me you wanted me and Henry to help get rid of them."

"This isn't about them, exactly. It is, but it isn't. I know you're wondering why we're going to San Judo, and no, it's not where Xanadu is."

Mixed feelings swam through me. We were going backward. Henry wasn't in San Judo; I'd be beginning to feel better if that were the case.

My silence must've given him the impression I was ok with it all. "I want to hurt them. To do it, I have to cut off their source of income."

That grabbed my attention.

"Whoever they are, whatever they're doing, the Circuit funds it all. I'm sure of it. They enable the Circuit, like they enabled that place they sent you and Henry--"

"Oliphant? I burned that place down."

Lucas laughed slightly. Waited, then said, "Who are you?" I didn't respond. I couldn't. I didn't have the answer, myself. And I felt a weird glow from his almost-compliment. "Help me get rid of the Circuit," he said, "and I'll tell you anything I can."

Something in my mind began to turn. Was this real? Was Lucas suggesting the very thing I'd been dreaming of doing for months? Was he going to help me achieve this singular goal? A smile crossed my face. He glanced at me, and his grin mirrored my own.