seems angry, but there’s still love in her. We can reach her.”
I hadn’t sensed any of this supposed love, and was covered with enough cuts and bruises to make a strong counterargument. But Priyanka’s feelings for Lana were unequivocal.
“Why did you want to come here?” I asked.
“Because we’d heard about Daly—about your friend, Ruby,” Priyanka said. “We’d heard that Lana might have left the Psion Ring, and we were hoping she’d be here, or your friends might have heard something. I was so stupid to think she could have gotten away from them.”
My thoughts were too tangled to put them into words.
“You were right to hope they would help,” I said. “They would have, no questions asked. But they’re not here. About two weeks ago, Ruby went missing on a run to pick up another kid.”
The wind ruffled the trees overhead.
“Holy shit,” Priyanka breathed out. “Seriously?”
Her voice was lost to the scream of a helicopter ripping through the air overhead—moving not toward the lake, but away from it. Priyanka and I exchanged a look.
We took off together, weaving through the forest back to the trail, only to find that Roman was already there. He ran up the dirt path at a steady clip, Sasha clinging to his back, her tear-streaked face pressed against his shoulder.
“It’s done,” he said quietly, then looked to Priyanka. She shook her head.
“We should go,” I said. But Roman had turned again to the forest, that hard look of determination back on his face. We didn’t have time to chase after someone who didn’t want to be found, not right now. “Come together, leave together. Right?”
His eyes found mine, but the prickling heat I felt at the base of my skull had nothing to do with that look, and everything to do with a familiar power signature nearby.
Drone.
I was running again, leaving the others to follow as I moved up the path. My feet slowed until, finally, I saw it. The spiderlike device whirred as it floated over the bodies of the soldiers, passing over the scene in slow, intentional passes. It lit the ground beneath it, which only would have been necessary if it was taking photos or video.
Miguel had destroyed the phone with the original set of photos—but if this device had photos of our attackers, I wanted it. As Mel always said, people want to believe, they just needed a narrative plausible enough to justify it. Mine, at least, had the benefit of being true.
I heard Priyanka and Roman catch up behind me, but didn’t turn. I began unraveling the silver thread of power in my mind, only to cut it off. It would be too easy to fry it and render it useless. So, instead, I raised the pistol. The drone was about as big as a cat, which was probably not a comparison I should have let my brain make as I tracked its movement and aimed.
“What are you doing?” Roman whispered.
The drone hovered low over the porch, scanning for something. I took a deep breath in, adjusted the angle of my arms, then fired.
The bullet tore through one of its wings. It bobbed, trying to adjust and forcing me to shoot out a second one. The drone crashed into the charred wood of the porch, skidding across it.
“Careful,” Priyanka warned as I approached it. “The camera’s probably feeding directly to someone.”
“Good,” I said, gripping the drone and turning it over. Glancing back over my shoulder, I found Roman watching me, his anxious expression fading. Priyanka knelt beside one of the soldiers, searching his pockets and belt, removing his flashlight and sliding something into the pocket of her jeans.
The drone’s propellers stopped spinning, but there was still a small red light on beside the glossy camera lens.
I brushed the dirt off it, just so it would have as clear an image as possible.
“I don’t know who the hell you are,” I said. “But if you come at me or my loved ones again, you better pray to God you actually kill me, because I’m right behind you and I’ve got nothing else to lose.”
The red light blinked off.
AT THE END OF THE long, crude tunnel dug beneath Haven was a storm drain that opened into a trash-strewn field. We found the others there, sitting together in a tight cluster, the kids leaning against each other’s shoulders and backs, fighting to keep their eyes open.
Lisa and Miguel had gathered the late arrivals from the tree houses and were tending to cuts and