Sneak (Swipe Series)

eager but confused.
    “Back at the mansion,” he continued. “On the River. With Mr. and Mrs. Psycho and their kid, Psycho Jr.”
    “What about it?” Blake asked.
    “Winston. While you all were stuck in the basement, he told me . . . he gave me details.”
    “Yeah, we know,” Tyler said. “You told this story already. Like, fifteen times in the car.”
    “No. All I talked about was the hundred-foot-thick walls and the entrance—”
    “—that might as well be a brick wall,” Tyler interrupted. “We know .”
    “I know you know! But there was something else too! At the time, I thought it was a joke. But . . . when I pressed him on this . . . when I asked if that one entrance was really all there was, Winston said—and I’m quoting here—‘That and the power source.’”
    Peck narrowed his eyes. “Power source . . . like a fusion plant?”
    Eddie shrugged, and he nodded a little.
    “That’s it . . . ,” Logan said. “If we can find a way into the maintenance ducts on the other side of this reactor, we should be able to follow the power cables all the way into Acheron. Of course . Eddie—you’re a genius!”
    “Let me get this straight,” Jo said. “We’re about to launch our whole prison break plan on a story some random Marked told Eddie as a scare tactic while his parents were threatening to torture us?”
    “You got anything better to go on?” Logan asked.
    Suddenly, Jo smiled. “No,” she said. “Actually—I kinda like this.”
    9
    They spent the rest of the night planning, the Dust, all together, in the control room. It was time to break Lily out of Acheron.
    Tyler’s job was to keep watch over Erin. To make sure she didn’t get away, and to head any suspicious behavior off at the pass. There would be no surprises; the Dust was determined. This evening needed to go according to plan.
    The whole Unmarked community was on lockdown. Everyone was a part of the plan. To ensure there wouldn’t be any intruders, it was decided that for the rest of the night, there would be no coming or going from the turbine room. The Markless were in this together.
    Meg was good with numbers, always had been—astonishingly good, in fact—so it was Meg’s job to keep watch over the community. She’d counted with ease the number of Markless underground to begin with—2,370—and if that number changed, even by a single head, Meg would be able to tell. She waited up on the catwalk now, keeping watch.
    Blake and Hailey rallied the Markless throughout the turbine room, mustering support and scrounging for help from whoever was willing. Already, their task had proved valuable; that evening the two of them had successfully found eight pairs of magnecuffs that had been hoarded among the crowd. “For disguise,” she told Logan and the others. “You never know . . .”
    “Thanks, Hailey,” they said uncertainly.
    But Peck smiled. “I’ll make sure we use ’em.”
    Even Rusty had an important job, though the rest of the Dust dreaded the scenario in which he would have to make use of it.
    If worse came to worst, Rusty was the decoy. He’d wait on the catwalk with Meg, and at the first sign of DOME interference, Rusty would run out into the upper hallways and exit into the alley outside. He would attract DOME’s attention, keeping them on ground level for as long as he could while the Dust scrambled to close up shop below.
    Every member of the Dust had a crucial role in the Great Prison Break of Acheron, though none more important than the prison breakers themselves. From the beginning, this job was Logan’s and Peck’s, and everyone knew it was theirs alone. During the planning that night, this particular division of labor came up for discussion not once.
    Less expected, though, was Joanne, who partway into the planning volunteered to follow as backup.
    “You don’t even agree with what we’re doing here,” Peck said.
    “Maybe not,” Joanne told him. “But I believe in the fight.”
    Again Peck refused, but Joanne insisted, and in the end their argument prompted Eddie to volunteer as well.
    Peck was very proud in that moment to have the friends that he had. After all the fighting and doubt had passed . . . after all the hopelessness and second-guessing had run its course, the Dust had stuck together.
    It was time to save Lily.
    10
    Logan went first. Peck and the others followed close behind.
    Once they’d made it past the maintenance rooms and into the power tunnels of the fusion