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Blake didn't mind. The arrangement suited him. Because he was Markless. And because inside the Fulmart, second shelf up from the floor, was Blake's home on aisle 3.

He walked there now, stumbling a little in the darkness broken only by shafts of moonlight filtering through the boarded storefront windows, and was pleased to find the other Dust waiting up for him.

Tyler and Eddie sat on the floor, playing cards by candlelight. “Wanna join?” Tyler asked.

“What's the game?”

“King's Punch-Out.”

“Never heard of it.”

“That's 'cause we just made it up.”

Blake sat between them. “How do you play?”

“You split the deck among the players.” Tyler handed him roughly a third of the deck, and he and Eddie began playing as he explained. “Each round, you flip a card over.”

Blake followed along.

“The player with the lowest card gets punched in the face.”

Blake looked at the cards. Tyler's was the jack of clubs. Eddie's, the nine of hearts. Blake saw he was holding a three of spades, and suddenly his nose was bleeding. “Very funny, guys,” he said, and Tyler and Eddie laughed and laughed.

“So what's the news?” Eddie asked, as the three of them turned another set of cards.

“I let him know,” Blake said. Then they all flipped cards and he and Eddie punched Tyler in the face.

“You got my eye, ya stingy piker!” Tyler said, and he held his face but still managed to squint with his good eye, undistracted, at Blake. “Think he'll come?”

“ 'Course he'll come, tightwad,” Eddie said, and after they turned over the next round of cards, he punched Tyler again. “If Peck says it's time, then it's time.”

They went through half the deck this way, hitting each other and spewing at one another the worst possible slurs that had cropped up over the years to demean the Markless—
piker
,
tightwad
,
stingy
,
miser
—words that had taken on new and awful meaning since the Mark program began; words that disparaged and mocked the Dust's own helplessness and lowliness. The boys didn't care. It was all part of the game.

Blake snatched up the cards and threw them down the aisle and out of sight.

“Hey—”

“That's enough! Listen. There's more to it.”

Eddie stared at him for a moment. “What do you mean? More to what?”

“He's onto me.”

Eddie shrugged. “So what else is new? He's suspected you for months.”

“Yeah, but last night he
saw
me. And today he found the tin can I'd set up.”

“I told you that wasn't gonna work,” Eddie said.

“Eddie. Listen to me. It gets worse. He made a new friend yesterday.”

Tyler stuck a finger in his mouth. “Good for him,” he said. “I think you knocked my tooth loose.”

“Whaddaya know about him?” Eddie asked.

“It's not a him; it's a her.”

“Nice! A lady friend!” Tyler said, lisping over his finger.

“Shut up.” Blake turned to Eddie. “Only what I could pick up through the girl's apartment wall.”

“And?”

“It's bad, Eddie. She knows about us. Definitively. Well, not us—Peck.”

“
What?
How?”

“Not sure.”

“Well, how much does she know? How much did she tell him?”

“It was hard to hear anything from the hallway.”

“Great. Real good detective work there, Sherlock. What else couldn't you hear?” Tyler spit into his hand and checked it for blood, and Blake already wished he hadn't thrown the cards, so he'd have an excuse to punch him again.

But instead he just said, “Look, if all goes well, none of it matters after tonight, anyway.”

Eddie frowned. “Sounds like this directly affects whether tonight goes well or not.”

“It won't,” Blake said. “He'll show. And if not . . .”

Tyler stretched his jaw in a circle, rubbing it, assessing the pain but still undistracted by it. “You spent all night listening and didn't pick up a single other thing, did you?”

“Hey, lay off, skinflint!”

“Make me!”

“Stop it.” Silence. “Does he know?”

Blake, Tyler, and Eddie froze. Blake spun around, still sitting cross-legged. The other two inched back, trying to look nonchalant about it. Joanne towered above them all. “Hey, Jo,” Blake said, hoping not to escalate anything too quickly. “Where's Meg?”

“Tied up. I stuck her on a shelf in the sports section. The racks go higher there.”

“Think she'll get down?”

“Nah. She struggles too much, she'll fall. It'd be a long drop with her hands tied behind her back.”

Blake listened to the store for a moment. “You gag her too? I don't hear anything.”

“Didn't need to. Girl's practically a mute.” Jo sighed and clucked her tongue.

“What'd she do this time?” Blake asked.

“Tried to burn the place down,” Eddie said.

Blake shook his head. “That little miser.”

“I don't know why we picked her up,” Tyler said. “I say we leave her up there for the night so she can think about what she's done.”

Jo looked at him. “Forget it, Tyler. She's coming along.” She turned to Blake. “Anyway. Peck know about the girlfriend or not?”

“Not,” Blake said. “I haven't seen him. He here tonight or what?”

“Warehouse. He's preparing. Like you beggars are supposed to be.”

Blake got up and stood face-to-face with Joanne for some time. She was taller than he was. Probably weighed more too. He hugged her. “It's good to see you again. I didn't think you'd be coming by.”

“Wasn't planning on it,” Jo said. “He asked me to. Wanted to get the final update before tonight.”

“Well, you heard it,” Blake said. “We're good except for the girl. Kid read the note. Saw me too, again, but . . . that shouldn't matter at this point.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “'Cause he's not coming.”

“He
is
coming, ya little skimp—forget the girl.”

“What makes you so sure?”

“'Cause I'm the one been watchin' him the past six months!” Blake paused, shook his head.

“Good work,” Jo said sincerely. “Now come on. Midnight approaches. There's work to be done.”

Blake, Joanne, Tyler, Eddie—they were a family. Not a real one, of course, but without a doubt the closest thing any of them had to it. Blake was fourteen, a runaway who'd left home nearly two years ago. Joanne was fifteen and had been on her own twice that long. Tyler and Eddie were thirteen, new to the life in the Dust. Then there was Meg . . . the newest addition to their group. All of them misfits, all of them Markless . . . all of them brought together by Peck.

“So what's your take on the kid?” Jo asked, meaning Logan. She led the three boys through the darkened Fulmart aisles as they talked.

“You really want it?” Blake asked.

“Yeah. I know what Peck thinks. But you're the one who's been watching him, so what's the verdict?”

Blake sighed. “He's a good kid. I wish we didn't have to do this to him.”

“Oh, come on!” Eddie chimed in. “It'll be fun!”

“Yeah,” Tyler said. “We got some
games
for him.”

Blake tried to ignore them. “Anyway, Peck's right. He does need to go.”

“And now's the best time. You're sure?” Jo asked.

Blake shrugged. “That's been the plan. Peck's plan, anyway.”

“But you agree?”

“This new friend of his could be an issue. But yes. I think we need to pounce.”

Tyler started punching him on the arm. “You gonna screw it up, like you did with Trenton? Huh? Huh? You gonna botch it? You gonna drop the ball?”

Blake grabbed Tyler's collar and threw him against the shelves so hard a couple of jars rolled off and crashed onto the floor. “You will
never
say anything about Trenton to me again! Do you hear me, Tyler, you crummy little beggar? As long as we're in this thing together, you will
never
—”

Jo put her hand on Blake's shoulder, calmly. “Enough. Save it for midnight.”

Eddie waited until they started walking again to say, “Tyler's right, though. What if tonight doesn't work out? What if this girl put enough ideas into Logan's head that he doesn't show?”

“It's a miracle they ever show,” Jo said.

“It's not a miracle.” Blake shook his head. “Peck just knows how to pick 'em. And when to move in. If it fails, I'm telling you right now—it'll be the girl's fault.”

“Whatever,” Jo said. “I suppose if it comes to that, we could just bag 'im, take him here by force.”

The boys all laughed. “You crazy?” Blake said. “It'd never work. He's too suspicious now. We can't get close to him if he doesn't want us to. It wouldn't be like it was with Meg.”

Jo shrugged. “Logan's always been suspicious. Been jumpy for years, right?”

“He's had reason to be,” Blake said. “We've made sure of that.”

Jo nodded. “I haven't eyed him in months, since you took over. Maybe more.” She paused. “Think he has any actual sense of how much danger he's in?”

“Jo. Come on. Do they ever?” Blake nodded in Meg's general direction, over in the sports racks. The four of them stood now by the Fulmart's back door, about to exit into the moonlit alleyway.

Jo laughed. “Not so far.”

“No,” Blake said. “Not so far.”

And Tyler laughed too, and Eddie, but Blake didn't crack a smile. He just stared at the three of them, very grim, until the whole Fulmart behind them was silent. “Guys.” Blake shook his head, and then the slightest, bemused smile did cross his face. “He has no idea.”

2

“Starting fires—!”

“
What
were you thinking?”

“It wasn't me—!”

“Who
was
it, then?”

Once the smoke alarms had gone off, the scene in Logan's room turned quickly from one of solitary, quiet horror into a frenzied chaos of anger and panic. Mom and Dad loomed over Logan, arms crossed and catapulting accusations, while he sat on the bed and tried repeatedly to explain in the calmest possible tones that there'd been an intruder, that he'd left a note, and that it was burning by the time Logan found it.

“This has gone too far, buddy,” Mr. Langly said. “These delusions are dangerous.”

It occurred to Logan to tell them everything. About Peck, about the murders and kidnappings, about DOME's involvement . . . but he'd made a promise. And anyway, he had no evidence of any of it. He'd had enough trouble believing Erin's conclusions while she held the case files right in front of him. If his parents didn't believe his story now, they certainly wouldn't believe him once he turned it into a full-fledged conspiracy. So Logan was stuck. He'd cried wolf one too many times, and now, with one right at his door, his parents couldn't bring themselves to help.

By the end of it, Logan got off with what amounted to a warning. “But no more acting out,” his dad said. And he lumped Logan's “after-school romp” in with the rest of it.

It wasn't two minutes after they left that Logan was on the phone with Erin.

“What's up?” she asked, looking excited over the connection. “Any more clues?”

Logan didn't say a word. Instead he pointed his tablet toward the desk, toward the ashes and the puddle of water.

“Is that—” she started to say.

“A note,” Logan told her. “Burning at the time I found it. And someone in the window, watching me read. Now can we go to your dad, please?”

Erin looked disappointed in him. “And tell him what? That you started a fire on your desk?”

“I didn't start a fire on my desk! Someone left a burning note!”

“Well,
you
know that. And
I
know that . . . I guess. But it wouldn't hold up. The kid covered his tracks. There's no trace of him other than a couple of ashes you could have easily made yourself. Is there anything left of the message? Any words or handwriting?”

“No. Nothing.” Logan's heart sank.

“Unless it said something so completely incriminating that . . . I mean, were you even able to read it?”

“It said to meet at the Spokie playground at midnight. Or else.”

Erin was still for a moment over the connection.

“Or else what?”

“I don't know. Most of the message had burned away.”

“But you're sure about all this?”

Logan nodded.

“If you're messing with me . . .”

But the look on Logan's face left no room for doubt. “Logan,” Erin finally said. “Do you realize what this means?”

Suddenly Logan felt angry and righteous. “Yes! I know exactly what it means! It means they're trying to kidnap me—
tonight!
”