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“What is this place?” Logan asked. “I've never seen anything like it.”

“I know.” Hailey smiled. “It's a warehouse. I think you'll like it here.”

3

From the shadows behind Hailey, a boy emerged. And then another. The second one laughed a little, maniacally. Logan recognized them instantly.

“Hailey,” Logan said, grabbing her arm, his nerves taking over. “We have to get out of here!”

But Hailey stood still. She didn't look afraid. She just stared.

“Hailey, I know these guys,” Logan whispered urgently. “Trust me when I tell you, we have to leave
now
!”

Hailey took his hand.

“Good,” Logan said. “Follow me!”

He turned to run, but Hailey planted her feet firmly on the ground. Logan stumbled a little against her weight. He turned to her. Slowly it dawned on him . . . something impossible . . . something that could not be.

“Hailey,” Logan said. “What exactly is going on here?”

“I'm sorry, Logan,” Hailey said, still frozen, and even her lips seemed not to move.

So that was it, then. After all the games, and discoveries, and fears, and revelations, at the final hour, Logan had let his loneliness blind him.

The spy at Spokie Middle was Hailey.

He didn't feel betrayed. He just felt empty.

“You've done well, Hailey,” Jo said, stepping out from the shadows. “Perfectly, in fact. Thank you.”

Something in Logan snapped. He pounced before anyone knew what had happened. Immediately he was on Tyler, punching him, clawing at him, the two of them rolling on the ground, cursing, bleeding. It took all the strength of Eddie and Jo and Hailey together to hold Logan back, and when they finally had him, everyone in the yard was bruised and cut and out of breath. Tyler had both knees on Logan's chest now, and Hailey held his head with her fingers pressed firmly on the brows above Logan's eyes. She held him so he looked straight up into the sky, so that he could see when out of the darkness Blake emerged and towered above the tableau. The small redheaded kid from the Row stood by his side, holding Blake's hand.

“I saved you!” Logan said. “I let you go! We're done now! You've ruined my life! Just leave me alone!”

“No can do,” Blake said. “Sorry.”

Jo stood and joined Blake by his side. “Logan,” she said. “Thank you for coming.” It was the oddest possible thing for her to say, so unexpected that Logan stopped struggling altogether. “And just in time too.” She knelt down to put a hand on his shoulder, looking into his eyes with concern and gravity. “You are in terrible danger.” She frowned. “Please come in. There's someone we'd like you to meet.”

4

Inside the warehouse, the Dust escorted Logan through a maze of crates and boxes, beyond which glowed the aura of candlelight from a stage cluttered with the strange sight of books and paper.

At the center of that stage stood a person.

“Peck.”

“Logan. We're so glad you're here.” Peck smiled. “After all the trouble. I'd offer you a drink if I didn't suppose you'd assume it was poisoned.”

Logan looked into his eyes, searching Peck's face. What he saw confused him, because what he saw was not the face of a killer. His were not the cold, sinister eyes of a criminal. They were empathetic. They were warm. They were of a boy no older than Logan's sister might have been, had she lived.

“You must have many questions for me,” Peck said.

It's all part of it. It's all a trap. Don't be fooled!
Logan reached for his tablet and found it gone. He spun quickly to see Hailey turn it off just before pocketing it. She shook her head slowly.
You're alone
, the gesture seemed to say.
No phone calls. No cries for help. You're playing by our rules now . . . if you ever weren't
.

“I'd just as soon you talk first,” Logan said. “You seem to be the one to have called this little meeting.”

Peck nodded. “Fair enough. First, then, I'll apologize for all the secrecy, and for our invasion of your privacy. I hope you understand why I couldn't simply . . . invite you to the party.”

“But I
don't
understand,” Logan said. “I don't understand you people at all! If you're aiming to kill me, take your shot! You've won, all right? You've won!”

Peck looked disgusted, offended, even. “
Kill
you?” he said. “Logan.” Peck assumed the look of a man choosing his words so carefully that none even came out.

“Then what?” Logan asked. “What is this?” A wave of relief flooded through him, but he tried not to let it show as any sign of weakness. One way or another, this remained a matter of life and death.

“Surely by now you know what this is about,” Peck said. He looked genuinely convinced that Logan must.

“I know you kidnap Pledges. I know you kill the Marked. And DOME agents—”

Peck shuddered at the accusations. “You can't honestly tell me you risked so much to spy on my friends just to come to
those
conclusions?”

For a moment Logan felt a tinge of self-doubt. “I'm not sure what I've concluded,” he said. “I admit it doesn't all add up.”

“No,” Peck agreed. “It doesn't.”

“Which makes you even scarier!” Logan said, ashamed and not looking at anyone now. “I can't stop you if I don't know what you're after! You're better than me. I give up.”

Peck frowned and was thoughtful for a moment. “I am . . . a bad person,” he said, finally. “I'm a bad kid.” He sat at the edge of the stage now, deflating in front of everyone. “All growing up, I was . . . the problem child. I cheated on tests, I'd lie to my parents, I wouldn't listen, I'd fight . . .” Peck laughed. “My last few years at school, I spent more time with the principal than I did in class . . . more time at home than in school . . . and I was a bully.” Peck shrugged. “So no. I have a long ways to go before I am better than you, or anyone.” He stood and began pacing around the stage. The whole thing seemed rehearsed, as though spoken many times to many kids.

“So you refused the Mark,” Logan said. “And now you're taking it out on everyone else.”

Peck sighed. “Hardly,” he said. And then he paused. “Surely, after your sister, you know a thing or two about . . . flunkees?”

Immense anger rose inside Logan now. “
What do you know about my sister, you miser?
” He cocked his fist and lunged, but Peck easily deflected him, and Logan fell to the ground.

“We'll get to your sister, Logan. First I want to know what
you
know—about the ones who don't return.”

“I know some kids die in the Pledge. I know accidents happen. I know it's rare. That's all I know.”

“So you
don't
know, then, that the rate of flunkees has increased every year since the Mark Program began?”

“No . . .”

“And you
don't
know, then, that there seems to be a pattern among the kids who don't come back?”

Logan recoiled. “What are you talking about? What pattern? It's random failure. Procedural risk!”

At this, Peck laughed a hearty, tired laugh. “I don't know everything,” he said. “But I do know this: Flunkees are
not
random failure. Flunkees are calculated. Flunkees are chosen.”

“That's ridiculous—”

“There is no such thing as ‘procedural risk,' Logan. There is only judgment. Judgment from people with no right to judge. Judgment over the ones who pass . . . and the ones who don't.”

“That's crazy, Peck. That's an absurd conspiracy theory.”

“It is crazy,” Hailey said. “But it's true. At least . . . we believe it's true.”

“And you expect me to believe this—coming from a wanted murderer?”

Now silent tears began to roll down Peck's face. He didn't speak.

“Peck didn't kill Jon,” Hailey said, finally. “DOME did.”

“That's absurd. Why would DOME do that?”

“To frame him, Logan. To cut off his support. They had a dozen reasons. Jon was our Dust on the inside. He could live the life we couldn't. He could help us.”

“Trenton too,” Blake said. “And DOME had the same plans for him. Would've worked if I hadn't caught on . . . and if Peck hadn't stopped them first.”

Logan looked from Dust to Dust. And despite himself, he started to believe them.

“I can't prove what I'm saying,” Peck admitted. “I've tracked kids who've gone on to call me insane . . . worse . . . who've laughed at me and Pledged and lived happily ever since. There's no science to what I'm doing here, and I'm probably wrong as often as I'm right.” He frowned. “But I don't think I'm wrong in your case.”

“
My
case?” Logan felt a chill run down his body. “What are you talking about, ‘my case'?”

At this, Peck took a deep breath. “Logan. It is my belief that if you Pledge tomorrow, you will never return.”

5

Logan felt tunnel vision closing in on him now. His head pounded, and he feared he might faint, so he found a chair on the stage and sat, limp, his arms hanging off its sides.

“But I have to Pledge,” Logan said. “My appointment is set. My parents need me to—” His voice caught. “I'm already hated by everyone I know. If I don't Pledge, I'll be a pariah, I'll be nothing, I'll be . . .”

“Like us,” someone said. “You'll be like us.” It was Dane. He stepped from the darkness between the crates and walked delicately toward Logan, standing before him in the chair. “I know the feeling.”

“Dane!” Logan jumped from his seat, having half a mind to throw a hug around him, but stopping just short. “You're alive.”

“Thanks to Peck,” Dane said. “I believe that's thanks to Peck.”

Peck walked to them now. “When I went Markless, Logan, it was my belief that I could run from it. From the pattern I'd seen. From the reality of it, and the horror. It was my belief I'd be free of it. That I'd washed my hands clean, that I could make it out on Slog Row, fending for myself, forgetting about the rest.” Peck stared off, distracted for a moment. “But I wasn't free of it, Logan.” He shook his head. “I wasn't free at all. Because every time I heard whispers of another Pledge not coming back, I knew it could've been me . . .
should
have been, perhaps. And it was a guilt that would not let me go.”

Logan tried to follow. “What pattern, Peck? What reality? What horror? What is it you and the Dust know that the rest of us don't?”

Peck looked across the warehouse, across the crates of books and stories. “It started with teachers, cops . . . idle threats to ‘Make sure you behave, you little brat! Or you just might not come back from the Pledge!' At first, it sounded to me like the boogeyman, waiting to take me away at night if I'd been a bad boy. But it planted doubt. It planted suspicion. So I began looking. ‘Any flunkees today?' I'd wonder. ‘Who were they? What were their stories?' Finally I started to believe the threats the authorities didn't believe themselves. Finally I realized the myth . . . might be true. That maybe it wasn't just an empty threat.”

“You're kidding yourself,” Logan said. “Of course it was.”

Peck thought for a moment, then sighed a deep sigh. “We live in the American Union, Logan. Soon to be Global. But true unity is not in a name. It's a way of thought.” He went, now, to the podium. He planted his hands on the sides. “When the Mark Program began, it was the intention that the Pledge would bring us together. Would create peace. That our allegiance to Lamson and ultimately to Cylis would bind us—give us a common ground from which all ideas could grow, together. Compatibly. After the Total War, the Mark was to be a symbol of our commitment to honor this goal. A constant reminder of our loftiest intentions.” Peck laughed. “But DOME soon realized that a promise was not enough. That words were only so binding. That allegiance forced was no allegiance at all. And it never would be.” Peck gestured across the space, past the stage and into the stacks. “This is a warehouse of books, Logan. Banned books. I live in a house of ideas nobody wanted us to have. And I've had a lot of time to read.” He smiled. “These days, Logan, the Mark is many things. But chief among them, it's a sorting process. A pruning. They're swiping kids, Logan. Kids who, once grown, might not make for a . . . more perfect Union. Kids who might grow up not to get along. Kids who might grow up to be sick. Kids who might grow up to be criminals, yes, but also kids who might grow up just to think different. Who might grow up to
question
. To
doubt
. They're weeding us out, Logan. So that all who remain . . . may be . . .
unified
.”

“That's . . . not true,” Logan said, but some part of him knew it could be. “I'm the last person you'll ever meet to defend the Mark Program, but it is
not
some sort of . . . selection process.”

“Oh no? You don't think? Then tell me, Logan, why it is that, in some way or another,
all
the kids who don't come back—
all
of them—are . . .” He searched for the word. “
Off
.”

“Off?”

“The bad kids, Logan. The . . .
troubled
. . . kids.”

Suddenly Logan seized on Peck with a defensive, passionate hatred. “My sister was not
off
!” he yelled. “She was not
troubled
. My sister was
perfect
!”

“I know,” Peck said quickly. He was mournful now. Apologetic. “I am so . . . fully aware of that.”

The admission struck Logan dumb. He squinted at Peck in the candlelight. Was it possible? Did Logan . . . recognize him? “You . . .” Logan tripped on the words. “You were her friend. Daniel. You were there on the morning of her Pledge. Your name is Daniel Peck.”