Sneak (Swipe Series)

committed themselves to him least and turn them into those who had committed themselves to him most —turn them into his own soldiers—then, truly, Cylis could rule the world. It does more than kill two birds with one stone—it proves a point. That there has never , in history , been anyone more powerful.”
    “Erin,” Logan said. “Look. If your goal was to convince me now more than ever that we have to get my sister out of this place—you’ve succeeded. So tell me how to get into this place, already, and stop wasting my time.”
    Erin laughed bitterly. “Fine,” she said. “You want to know so badly? Here goes: You’re standing right on top of it.”
    Logan closed his eyes. He put his hand over his face. Of course. Of course we are. We’ve searched City Center high and low; this whole time, it’s been right under our noses .
    “Do you remember how General Lamson won the States War, Logan? He won by rupturing the dam that protected the old capital from rising waters. And then he had this hill constructed right above it, with the new capital built on top as a symbol of how peace had been won. Except City Center is not just a symbol, Logan. It’s a decoy. It was put on this hill to hide the Markless prison underneath; to hide DOME’s secret army. To hide it right here, in plain sight.
    “Acheron isn’t on the hill, Logan. Acheron is the hill. Your sister is right below us.”
    7
    “All right,” Peck said. “We’ve heard what we needed to hear. Blake, Jo, tie these two up. Take anything they have on them. Erin and Shawn both. These next few hours are crucial. No risks. You got that?”
    “Wait!” Erin yelled. “No! Logan, no! Hear me out! Lily can’t be saved!”
    “Different song,” Peck said. “But the same old tune. Starting to sound awfully familiar, Erin.”
    “Peck, please—listen to reason!” But Jo had her gagged before she could say anything else.
    “You okay with this, Logan? I need you on board.”
    Logan looked at Peck sadly. He wished he had a little more time to figure everything out.
    Was Erin really here to help?
    Or was she here for DOME, up to her usual tricks?
    They’d come all this way. They’d risked so much.
    And now they were right there .
    Erin really could derail that. Just a pea-sized tracker, or a little strip of tape—or any number of the other spy gadgets Erin knew all too well how to use—and she could ruin this whole thing. She’d done it before. She’d done it at every opportunity, in fact.
    “You picked the wrong side of history ,” Erin had said back at the warehouse that night in November. “You’re alone now, Logan. I can’t help you anymore .”
    So what made him think tonight was any different?
    Logan looked Erin in the eyes when he spoke, summoning all the cold, hard resolve he could. “Take her to where she can’t bother us, Dust. We have work to do.”
    8
    The Dust was stationed back in the control room, with Erin tucked very far away.
    “Okay. We know it’s under us,” Logan said. He had intended to draw up a plan with chalk on an old slate that hadn’t been used in years, but he realized now that this one fact was as much as he knew. So Logan drew a horizontal line across the board, and a dot underneath it. And then, sheepishly, he sat down.
    “All right, go team!” Blake said sarcastically.
    Logan buried his face in his hands.
    “We know they freeze their prisoners,” Tyler said, trying very hard to be helpful. “We learned that on the wagon, remember?”
    “And snakes,” Eddie said. “I heard they have snakes.”
    Logan shook his head. “Wait a minute. I heard they poke your eyes out, or they tar and feather you, or they put you in a fiery cell. I never heard anything about freezing or snakes.”
    “That’s ’cause everything we heard was an urban legend!” Blake blurted out angrily. “Don’t you guys get it? No one knows what’s in Acheron—that’s the whole point! Everything we’ve heard . . . it’s all just stories. Stories that don’t fit together at all. Because they’re nonsense. They’re made up!”
    “Face it,” Jo said to the group. “We know nothing.”
    “Not true.” Logan pointed defiantly at the slate. “We know it’s right under us. We know that.”
    “Yeah? And what good does that do us, exactly? Huh? We can’t even walk in, let alone sneak in—we don’t even know where the entrance is!”
    “Actually,” Eddie said, very slowly. “We might.”
    The Dust all leaned forward,