Sneak (Swipe Series)

He made it easier on me. It would’ve been tough without him. That would’ve been real tough . . .”
    Blake and Tyler and Eddie were on the other side of the fire pit, their ears to the radio speaker, listening intently. “Are you listening to this?” Tyler asked Jo. “Now Mama’s talking too! They’re famous . . . the Hayeses are famous , Jo!”
    “How about them?” Dane asked, pointing to the others as they sat distracted by the broadcast. “What’s their story?”
    “Well, the whole group is Peck’s doing, of course. Soon as he realized DOME was using the Pledge to swipe troublemakers, he swore he’d never let another Spokie kid risk flunking. So Eddie, we kidnapped,” Jo said. “Like we did you. I don’t know what’s wrong with him.” She laughed. “Just a problem child, I guess. I mentioned to Peck one time how much trouble he was always getting into at school. I’d seen him around, growing up, even though he was a couple grades below me—he was just notorious.” She shrugged. “So Peck red-flagged him, and a couple months later, he was living with us.
    “Same with Meg, pretty much. Peck heard there was a girl in town with autism, and he knew from the patterns he’d seen that this made her a target. So we headed that off at the pass.
    “Tyler, on the other hand—he grew up orphaned. Lived in huddles all his life, out on the Row.” She laughed again. “Poor kid never stood a chance.” Jo stared at Tyler now. He was still listening to the radio, mouth open, enthralled by the pre-Unity tech. “Amazingly, after all that, Tyler still planned to Pledge. Wanted to ‘turn his life around.’” She shook her head. “ Man , he would’ve flunked so fast . . .”
    “So you kidnapped him too.”
    “Well, it wasn’t much of a kidnapping, taking some beggar orphan from a huddle. We just popped in one day and started hanging out with him. Soon enough he was living with us. He’d forgotten all about his big plans.”
    Dane nodded.
    “Blake was another easy one,” Jo recalled. “He ran away from home on his own, just before his Pledge. Good instincts, I think. As good as Peck’s. He knew something was wrong about the whole process. He and Peck met at the Fulmart back when Peck could still show his face around town. They hit it off right away. And they’ve been friends ever since. Best friends, until all this.”
    In the background, Papa’s voice was soothing through the static of the airwaves.
    “Logan’s not a bad guy,” Dane told Jo. “I want you all to know that. He’d never have wanted to put us through all this.”
    “Yeah, well, he did,” Jo said. “Everyone here’s had it tough.
    There’s no excuse for what he’s done.”
    “Peck seems to think there is.”
    “Then Peck’s an idiot.”
    Dane frowned. “So what if we find him? What if Hailey really is able to bring Logan here? Are you all just gonna stop being friends? After everything you’ve been through?”
    Jo stared into the pit, mesmerized by the sizzling of the last few ember pockets in the wood. “We’ll see,” she said. “But we probably won’t ever have to deal with that.”
    “You mean . . . DOME . . .”
    “Yeah,” Jo said. “Between you and me? Logan doesn’t stand a chance.”
    9
    Hailey and her mom dusted themselves off and walked out past the outskirts of Spokie, past the abandoned six-lane expressway, past the ghost town of Slog Row and the charred remains of the old warehouse, deeper and deeper into the woods beyond.
    “The house is bugged even worse than before,” Hailey said. “Surveillance powder everywhere. Bug tape . . .”
    “And you’re surprised? After your little outburst at dinner yesterday?” Mrs. Phoenix smiled.
    “I know,” Hailey said, and she took her mother’s hand.
    “So when are we gonna talk about those clothes?” Mrs. Phoenix asked.
    “We’re not,” Hailey said. She looked down at the dressy coat she was wearing. It covered a blouse, skirt, and leggings that screamed middle-aged.
    “You look about forty.” Mrs. Phoenix laughed, and she coughed a little when she did.
    Hailey shrugged and adjusted the heavy purse on her shoulder. “I’d hope that’s about right,” she said.
    Her mother sighed. “This is it, isn’t it? The endgame.”
    Hailey’s dress shoes clapped against the hard snow. “I need to know if you can take care of yourself after I’m gone.”
    The two of them walked for a long time under the branches and the clouds and the