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a
little
humor to the space. These days, students at Spokie Middle were simply too downcast to care. Erin would walk through the

Beach Wing, where not a single classmate stood soaking up the artificial sun. She would sit through lunch in her corner of the cafeteria, counting stains on the laminate table under weak fluorescent light, not even looking at the hushed “mountain landscapes” all around her.

In class, the teachers were somber, boring, apologetic, even,

for continuing to teach under the circumstances. In every hallway, room, and stairwell, Erin could feel in her gut the low, trembling sadness given off by a student body still reeling from the one-two punch of losing Logan Langly so soon after losing Dane Harold.

And still no one at Spokie Middle was hit harder than Erin.

By the time news struck that Logan had gone missing, everyone in school knew that she and Logan had become something of a pair.

So after one too many questions about where Erin thought Logan might be and whether or not she thought Logan might ever come

back, Erin decided once and for all that she was done being friendly to these people—the whole lot of them—and after that she just

sort of retreated into her own private world of anger and suffering.

In economics class, Erin sat with her head on her desk, staring sideways at the empty seat where Logan would have been, just two rows from the front of the room. She sat that way the entire lesson, and no one said a word about it.

Things were no easier on Hailey Phoenix. For years, Hailey

had been friends with the missing boys, and just this fall, she’d been the source of a major falling-out between them. Now it

seemed there wasn’t anything Hailey could do to avoid the gossip
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surrounding her, with some kids even wondering openly whether

Hailey might have been responsible for Dane’s and Logan’s dis-

appearance
herself
.

“After all,” girls would whisper in the locker room behind her back, “the last anyone knows of Logan, he was on a date with
her
.”

They were right, as it turned out. Hailey had, in fact, brought Dane and Logan to the Dust, one at a time, over the course of the fall. She’d betrayed them, even if it
was
for their own protection.

But this was her secret. She hadn’t been caught, and she hadn’t confessed it to
anyone
. Certainly, in all their gossiping, none of the students at Spokie Middle actually
believed
the things they were saying . . . right? Even if they did happen to be true?

Hailey was a careful person. Had she known about what Logan

told Erin the night before his Pledge—that Hailey had been working with Peck, and that she was a part of the Dust—she would

surely have stayed away. She might even have left town with all the others.

But Hailey
didn’t
know what Erin knew. And she
had
to risk it.

She
had
to stick around—just a little while longer, at least. Because the only thing Hailey did know for certain was that Erin was working with DOME. And if Hailey ever wanted to see Logan again,

if she ever wanted to find him and bring him back to Peck . . .

well . . . then that made Erin Arbitor her single best lead.

“Rough day?” Hailey whispered as Erin made her way out of

economics class and into the Arctic Wing.

“As bad as all the others,” Erin said. “Today some jerk asked if I thought Logan might have been eaten by wolves.”

“They roam around these parts.” Hailey laughed.

“So he said.” Erin rolled her eyes, and the two of them walked together down the hall, acting not entirely unlike friends.

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“Hey, your dad works for DOME, though, doesn’t he?” Hailey

asked, seizing the opportunity to bring it up.

“Oh, uh . . . yeah. Government work,” Erin said.

“That’s right, that’s right. Cool, cool.” Hailey looked at the ground. “I heard, actually . . . uh . . . I heard, I think on the news or something, that when Logan ran away, it was during his Pledge . . .

or something. Isn’t that weird? I just . . . sometimes I wonder if that means DOME might be looking into it—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t know anything about that,” Erin said, too

quickly. “Dad never tells me anything.”

“No, I guess not,” Hailey said. She laughed, a little nervously.

“I guess . . . I guess I’m just hoping we’ll see him again, is all.”

Erin frowned. “You ever feel like maybe he and Dane are

still around, sometimes? Like maybe they haven’t actually gone too far?”

“No,” Hailey said, narrowing her eyes. “What makes you think

I would?”

“Oh. Just wishful thinking, I guess.” Erin gave Hailey a sad

smile and backed up onto the escalator. “You’re right. Let’s not kid ourselves. We’ll never see either of them again.”

2

When Erin made it home a half hour later, her father was sitting at the kitchen table with a DOME agent beside him.

“What do you want?” Erin said, still standing in the doorway.

“I have homework.”

“Johnson’s here to see you,” Mr. Arbitor said.

“Again? I’m flattered.” Erin dropped her backpack onto the

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floor with a
thud
. “You gonna take me seriously today, or are we all just here to insult me some more?”

“Erin. It’s good to see you,” Johnson said. “You remember

where we left off?” He stood and reached out to take Erin’s coat, but Erin made no motion to accept the gesture. Instead she took her time closing the apartment door behind her, letting the sound accentuate the room’s awkward silence before answering.

“I do remember,” she said. “We had just finished the part where you didn’t actually listen to anything I had to say, and, if memory serves, we were about to begin . . .” She frowned and thought for a moment, tapping her chin. “Oh, that’s right! Wasting my time.”

Mr. Arbitor stood from the kitchen table and straightened his

sweater. “Erin, we are not wasting your time, because this time is not yours to begin with. It is borrowed. From the government. It is time we are
allowing
you not to spend in Corrections for your suspected involvement in Logan Langly’s escape.”

“We’re hoping this’ll just take a minute,” Johnson added,

smiling uncomfortably.

“Don’t bother, Johnson.” Mr. Arbitor laid his hands on Erin’s

shoulders. The two of them stood there for a moment by the head of the kitchen table. Then Erin’s father pushed her, hard, straight down into the chair where he had been sitting. “Let’s not forget who got us into this mess.”

“For the last time, Dad, I don’t know what you’re talking

about.” Erin looked at her father blankly, leaning back and letting the snow fall in chunks from the coat she was still wearing. All three of them listened to the wet sound of slush hitting the apartment floor.

“There is
no
way
Logan Langly evaded those DOME agents on his own,” Mr. Arbitor said. “There is
no
way
he made it out of DOME’s
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Pledging Center by himself. So I am more than well enough aware that you do, in fact, know what I am talking about,
dear
.”

Erin shrugged.

“But we are not here to talk about that,” Erin’s dad continued.

“Not this time. Not anymore. We are putting those details behind us—”

“About time,” Erin mumbled.

And Mr. Arbitor spoke through gritted teeth. “We are
here
, Erin—if you would be so gracious as to listen to me, your father, who has been nothing but patient and kind and forgiving ever since you decided to help that little miser—we are
here
to talk about next steps.”

“Next steps,” Erin repeated.

“Next steps,” Johnson agreed.

Erin raised her eyebrows in a sarcastic display of excitement

and surprise. “You mean, finally, that you’re not just here to blame me for your mistakes? That you’re not just here to yell at me and threaten me because you and the idiots you call agents

were too slow to catch half a dozen
kids
hiding out in a warehouse, just waiting to be arrested, after I
told
you exactly where they were and how to get there? You mean you two are actually

thinking of moving on from all of that? Of actually
investigating
something? You’re really planning to play detective with your

little friends over at DOME?” Erin laughed. “That’s adorable!”

She leaned forward, resting her elbows on the table and looking from her father to Johnson.

A vein in Mr. Arbitor’s forehead throbbed visibly as he glared at his daughter.

Johnson cleared his throat and fiddled with his tie. When he

spoke, he spoke calmly and slowly. “What we are doing here is

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spearheading a two-pronged strategy to find the Dust as well as your friend Logan Langly.” Johnson smiled, ignoring everything about Erin’s attitude. “We are hoping that with your help, we

might maximize our chances of success.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “I already told you—I don’t know where

Logan is. I don’t know where the Dust is. They ran off and you lost them. What else do you want me to say? Follow Hailey Phoenix.

She’s in league with all of them, and we know she’s their spy—

Logan told me so before his Pledge.”

“We are following Hailey.” Mr. Arbitor shook his head. “No

luck. Her movements are strange, no doubt, but they haven’t led us anywhere. Peck must know she’s a liability—he hasn’t met with her at all.”

“Have you powdered her house?”

Johnson nodded. “And a lot of good it did us. Hailey’s extremely careful about what she says to her mom. They’re both clearly aware of the risk she’s put them under.”

“Then bring her in and question her yourselves.” Erin hated

herself for saying it. She really did like Hailey. But she just couldn’t stand this anymore. She desperately wanted Logan back. And fail-ing that, she at least wanted this whole thing to be over so she could go back to Beacon. So she could be with her mom. So that she might have a real, functioning family again.

Mr. Arbitor paced around the table now, thinking. “She’ll

never rat Peck out, and you know it. If she’s anything like the rest of the Dust, she’d sooner let us kill her.”

“Besides,” Johnson said. “That’s an endgame for us. As soon as Hailey gets even a whiff of DOME—as soon as she has so much

as the slightest sense that Logan might have told you anything,
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that you might have gone to us, that we might have proof to hold against her . . . she’ll disappear. Much better, instead, for you to continue keeping tabs on her for us. See if she slips up and lets her guard down.”

“How’d it go today?” Mr. Arbitor asked. “You talk to her?”

“Yes, Dad, I talked to her. Obviously. How many times do

I have to tell you she’s
way
too suspicious of me to say anything helpful?” Erin looked down at her hands. “And besides, I don’t like doing it.” She looked up again, at her father. “We need another angle.”

Johnson smiled. “We’re here today because we think we have

one.”

“Well, I can’t wait to hear it. I’m sure it’s a doozy. In fact, if it’s anything like your last dozen plans—”

“We found Logan,” Mr. Arbitor said. And he relished the

look on his daughter’s face. “Yeah. Thought that might get your attention.”

“What do you mean you’ve found him? Where is he?” Erin

turned to Johnson, speaking urgently now, her tough attitude

forgotten.

“To clarify—we don’t actually have the boy in custody. In

fact, we’re basing this off a rather unreliable source that has yet to be confirmed and . . . well . . . it could easily turn out to be a false alarm. But Erin”—Johnson leaned forward—“between you and

me, I don’t think it is.”

Two more ice chunks fell from Erin’s sleeves. They splashed

on the table in front of her, and she leaned back slowly.

“Okay,” she said, unzipping her jacket. “So what do you need

me to do?”

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3

There was a perfect stillness to the woods outside of Spokie. The trees were bare, and the sky behind them was a bright, clear blue.

There were no birds or squirrels. Even Hailey’s footsteps barely made a sound.

She arrived at the glade just as the sun slipped into the trees, casting long shadows across the grass. Hailey knelt down, scanning the ground and counting the rocks and the sticks scattered about. To anyone else, they were nothing. But to Hailey, they were a lifeline. Each rock a dot and each stick a dash, they spelled out exactly what she was looking for.

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