"What, you bring them me and Henry, and you and Amirah--they let you go?" He nodded, though it was difficult to make out in the light. "And you believed them?"

"I don't believe anyone."

My laugh was bitter. "They've really ruined us that way, haven't they? Playing us off of one another, making sure we can't trust anyone, even ourselves." It had grown quite dark. I seemed to just realize it as I stared at the fire and couldn't see much beyond it. Even Lucas was a mere upright blur. "We should put that out."

"No."

"Fine." His curtness annoyed me. There was no point in arguing with him. I didn't hate him. My ire was not toward him. Sighing in resignation, I sat back down by the fire. It was warm and bright, welcoming in a way no person I knew was. "Will you sit with me?" I tried to catch his eye, but it was too dim. "Please. Let's not be this way with each other. You aren't my enemy. I'm not sure who is, anymore, but I don't think it's you."

"I would have been," he said darkly, but he did slowly approach and sit not across from but next to me.

"What's your plan, then? You going to try to run from them again?"

"I was never trying to run. I wanted to find her."

"And you did, but they won't let you stay together. So you said you'd bring them me and Henry, and they'd let you go off into the sunset."

"Don't say it like that."

I turned my body so I faced him instead of the fire. "I don't know how you could believe them."

"I told you, I don't. I didn't. We didn't. But it was the only choice they'd ever given us." He licked his lips, distance arising between us as he recalled. "You know how it feels. You know the--the emptiness, like something essential is missing. A limb, or a lung--like you don't know how to breathe properly, and then when they're near you, you realize they are that thing."

Yes, I knew the feeling. I was experiencing it even then, that absence. That void. Only being near Henry made it disappear completely.

Then Lucas said something perplexing: "I don't even like her."

"Amirah?"

He leaned back, rested on his hands, wouldn't meet my eyes. I wondered if he'd meant to say it. "We don't . . . agree on much."

"She doesn't want to run around killing people?"

He looked at me out of the corners of his eyes, didn't respond. Somehow, I felt discomfited. I wasn't exactly sure why--there was something about his affect that unsettled me.

"At least Henry and I get along." I said, trying to ignore the unease inside. There was a heaviness behind my words; after what I'd just learned, had we really gotten along? Or had it been fake?

Lucas scoffed.

"What?"

"Henry's weak."

I grew defensive in spite of my own growing doubts about him. "It's because of what they did to him. They--they traumatized him--"

"It made me stronger."

"It made you heartless. You almost killed those kids last night."

He peered at me, his eyes the same glass as Henry's. "You stopped me." I could hear him breathing. Why was it so audible, all of a sudden? "Thank you," he said after an awkward moment.

"You're . . . welcome." Had he really just thanked me? What was going on with him?

Our eyes locked, and as uncomfortable as it was, I wasn't going to look away first. I was determined to hold my own against him. He couldn't unnerve me. I wasn't going to let him. I was different, now. He was right about that. And I wasn't going to allow him to get into my head. I kept my look as blank as his, and after a strange stare-off, he got up and headed off toward the tent. I immediately relaxed, feeling as if I could breathe normally again. I assumed he was going to sleep when he went into the tent, and I figured I'd sit out by the fire for a while before putting it out. But then he exited the tent, and in the poor lighting, I thought I saw him crouch down to the ground. "I'll be back," he suddenly said, and I heard the distinct swiping of the hoverboard's wings as they snapped out. Then he was on it and off into the dark. Just like that, he was gone.

While I was surprised, I wasn't worried. He'd come back, as he'd said. And even if for some reason he didn't, I was confident I'd be all right on my own--considered, even, that I might be better off.

It was a solid twenty-four hours before Lucas came back. I had actually begun to think he'd stay gone, had even packed up the tent and erased signs of the fire. I'd hung around the rest of the night he'd left, the whole next day, and into another night, and the only reason I was still there when he at last returned was because he'd (infuriatingly) taken his backpack and the other hoverboard with him. I really hadn't wanted to set off on foot, and I'd wondered more than once whether he'd done it on purpose, being worried I might take off and get too far on the hoverboard for him to find me again.

Most of that time I spent wandering around the woods, not far enough to get lost but just enough to keep from getting too bored. I didn't know exactly what day it was, but I thought it was heading into June, and while the nights could still be a little cool, the day was warm. At one point I came across a creek and sat with my legs in it for some time. From there, the woods were thin enough that I could see, far beyond, where they ended and pushed into fields. I even thought I could see, in the distance, buildings. But I wasn't sure, and I had no desire to go anywhere too far. I needed to be around when Lucas returned.

I hadn't been alone--really alone--in a while. Every moment I spent away from Henry, now, was even more uncomfortable than it had been before he'd touched me, before I'd fallen into that bliss that his skin on mine brought. I'd never felt anything like it that I could remember, and I knew it must mean something. I didn't feel it with anyone else, including Lucas, who was practically his twin. But why--why had Henry lied to me? Why hadn't he trusted information with me? I could understand why he hadn't told me about Paolo, but if he'd had something to do with Paolo's death . . . that was problematic. I had enough to deal with over the way I felt about what had happened back on that cliff; I was still working through how I felt and my part in it. If Paolo had died because Henry had wanted him to, that created a new layer to all of it. Would I be angry at him? Did I have a right to be? Would I have done the same, if I'd thought someone else was turning him away from me? I didn't really probe my thoughts too deeply . . . I was ashamed of what my answers might be.

But if Henry had known Lucas was alive, and that he and Amirah were coming for us, if he'd known going into that fun house what was going to happen--how could I trust him after that? If he could so purposefully look at me and lie to my face . . . allow us to get so physically close to one another while knowing we'd be separated in the middle of it . . . Only one good thing seemed to come from my troubled thoughts about Henry being in on the plan to divide us: he would've known Amirah wasn't me.

I watched water circle my bare feet. The water was cold, but I wasn't bothered by it. Sunlight played through the trees, and small animals moved around in hidden places; some came to the water, mostly birds. I saw a few little minnows, as well. There was something beautiful in being alone, genuinely alone. As much as I sensed Henry's absence, I wondered whether I'd be better off on my own. Away from all of them. I was the only person I could trust, it seemed.

And yet, even as I thought that, I knew Henry and I were inexplicably bound. We couldn't stay away from one another. If I were on my own, what would I do? Where would I go? What would my purpose be? I was a criminal at this point. Wouldn't that catch up with me? Or they'd catch up with me. They wouldn't let me just run around on my own. And I could never carve out some normal life for myself. What, would I go to high school? Go to dances and study sessions and get ready for college? Date people and celebrate Christmas and go grocery shopping and do all the normal boring things everyone did? Take a vacation to Florida once in a while? Impossible. And what had Lucas said about always being this age? What had that meant?

Lucas himself was being strange. He'd always been strange, but why had he just flown off like that? In spite of all he'd told me, I was more confused than ever, and while I was alone for hours, I made real effort after wrapping my mind in circles all morning to empty my head of such thoughts and just appreciate the solitude, the sunlight, the chance to be with myself.

But eventually, as night fell and I began to wonder, Lucas did come back, scaring me half to death as he silently appeared like a ghost out of the trees under no light but that of the moon. And he didn't say a word to me. Nothing. Just wrapped up the tent more tightly so he could put it in the bag and then started off into the woods, walking.

I stood there for a moment, wondering if I was seeing correctly; it was so dark. But yes, he was definitely heading away from me. Angry, I jogged after him, trying to watch my step as I headed out of the clearing and into undergrowth. I stumbled several times before catching up to his ring of light; he'd whipped out a flashlight and had it on the ground in front of him.

"What is your problem?" I snapped. "Where have you been?"

His pace was quick, and he didn't answer me.

"Why don't we use the hoverboards?" I shoved a low branch out of my face as it brushed my forehead. "Lucas, stop." He didn't. In fact, if anything, he quickened his step. "Are you afraid I'll leave you? Give me my hoverboard!" Still nothing. Enraged, I stopped walking. "Fine. I'm better off without you, anyway." And I turned and started off in the opposite direction.

That did it. I heard him pause, call out to me an apology. Ask me to come back. And I did. Without a light or the hoverboard, I didn't know what to do or where to go, anyway. But I was irritated on the brief walk back to him.

He stood there in his ring of light, and I saw something I'd never seen in him before--something like defeat. "I don't know how to win this, Nadia."

"Win what?"

He spread his arms as if to encompass the whole forest. "All of us. Them. How to beat them. I've spent my entire life at their mercy. Every moment of it, except, I thought, those moments after I took you, got rid of my acumen. When we went to the beach, the lighthouse. Up until that moment I saw that drone, I'd finally felt free of them. But I wasn't, and you weren't, and none of us ever have been or will be. Everything we've ever done, we've done because they let us do it. Everything in our lives has been a manipulation. How can we win when we don't have any understanding of the game they're playing?"

He'd never spoken so much so passionately to me. I almost wondered if he were the same person. "What about the Circuit leaders?" I asked, quietly. "They couldn't have seen that coming."

"Of course they did. Why do you think no one stopped us? I thought of it more as we did each one in. Law enforcement can't possibly be so incompetent. No, they knew we were coming, somehow. They let us do it."

"Where were you, Lucas, today? Where did you go?"

He heaved a huge sigh, dropped his bag on the ground. "I went back to San Judo, to our crime scenes. Literally nothing was going on. It was like none of it even happened. No police, none of that yellow tape. If they were mad at me, I'd know it by now."

"Do you have a tracker in you? An acumen?"

"Not that I know of, but they've built us to follow us. The other devices were extras. They are always with us."

"Lucas, what exactly did they tell you to do, you and Amirah? Where were you supposed to bring us?"

"Back to the beach house. Somehow. Amirah thought it'd be easier if we split you up."

"The beach house?" I laughed resentfully. "So you have lied to me."

"No. Never. You're the one that brought up Xanadu. I never said it was where we were going."

"But you told me we were going to take them out. Together. That's what you said!"

"No--you said it. I just didn't deny or confirm it."

"I don't want your mind games, Lucas. I'm so tired of everyone withholding information from me."

"I won't, anymore. I promised you. I--I . . ."

His voice trailed off. I waited for him to say whatever he'd begun saying, but he must've changed his mind. He held the flashlight downward, its ring of light wasted on the plants and stones and roots around us. I abruptly took hold of it, pulled it upward, and he quickly let go when my hand touched his. There was no static, no electricity when our skin met, and I was glad for that. When I shone the light on his face, he looked perturbed.

But I couldn't think about his problems. "We're going to turn this around. Maybe they're always watching. Maybe they hear us right now. But we're not going to the beach. I'll never go back there. I'll kill myself before I go back there. We're going north, to Xanadu. We're going to find it, because it's where they are. They don't want us to know where it is, so it has to be where they are. And if they find us before we find them, so be it. If they stop us, or if they let us get to them, we'll take it as it comes. This all has to end in a confrontation, doesn't it? And if you and Amirah want to run off, do it. If Henry wants to leave me--" I hesitated, trying to push aside the hurt I knew that would cause--"so be it. I'm going to find them if it's the last thing I do." I looked up into the trees, yelled at the top of my lungs, "You hear me? I'm coming for you! Be ready for me!" And then I turned back to Lucas, shoved the light against his chest and let go, leaving him to grab it. "Get it together. Contact Amirah. Tell her we're meeting them, now. And give me my goddamn hoverboard."