Swipe

nodded. “Salmonella.” She held the apple out to him and smiled.
    “No, thanks,” he said.
    “So, your sister . . .” Erin sat next to Logan and pulled the iguana down to her lap, petting it in a way it didn’t particularly seem to mind. She ate the apple as she spoke. “What happened when she didn’t come back?”
    Logan sighed, keeping an eye on the lizard but mostly looking down, one distant part of him ecstatic to have made friends with the new girl so quickly, but the other devastated to have done so in this way. He couldn’t imagine his sister’s story being the basis of any positive relationship. “You mean that night?” he finally said. Erin shrugged. “I was shielded from a lot of it. But of what I can remember, some DOME officer came to our house. Said something like, ‘We regret to inform you your daughter won’t be returning from her Pledge,’ which my parents didn’t understand. So he told them sometimes the Pledge process didn’t agree with the Markee, that it was rare, but that on occasion, it happened. ‘Procedural risk,’ I guess he called it. And my parents asked, ‘Dead? Is she dead?’ And they started to cry, and the officer said we’d be compensated for our loss.”
    “Compensated?”
    “Mom doesn’t have to work anymore, if she doesn’t want to. And her medical bills are covered by DOME. Prescriptions and such. Though the deal terminates on my thirteenth birthday, in November, if I don’t Pledge. DOME’s little form of persuasion, I guess.”
    “What about your dad?”
    “Same offer, but he refused it.”
    “How come I’ve never heard of anything like this?”
    Logan frowned. “It’s probably not in DOME’s interest to talk about it, even among themselves.” He shrugged. “Anyway, things have been sort of rough for me ever since. I’ve spent a lot of time . . . scared.”
    “Of the Mark?”
    “No. Of being watched. Soon after Lily didn’t come back, I guess I started feeling . . . haunted. I’d hear footsteps in her room at night. I’d see faces in my window. Or thought I did. Things in my room seemed to move on their own while I was away. There were a few years where it had gotten better, even went away. But recently . . . it’s come back big-time. These last few months, everywhere I go, I feel like I’m being followed, or . . .” Logan stopped himself. “I know it sounds crazy.”
    Erin leaned down to put her iguana on the floor, and it dashed out of sight. “You don’t actually think you’re haunted, do you?” she asked.
    Logan laughed. “Not by Lily. Not by ghosts,” he said. “That’d be less scary, I think.” He shook his head. “No. Someone really has his eye on me.”
    “Do you have proof?” Erin said.
    “None. Nothing I can point to, anyway. That’s why it all sounds so ridiculous. But I’m not crazy, Erin. I swear to you.” He stared at her for a moment, and she stared back, curious, evaluating, piecing him together like a puzzle. Inside her head, something uncanny rang out, some distant alarm about . . . Peck? . . . the Markless threat in Spokie ? But none of that surfaced just yet. Instead it weighed on Erin, a pressure just under her skull, waiting to get out. It hummed like a teakettle in the silence of the room.
    “Hey, you know . . . I should probably get going,” Logan said. He looked at the time on his tablet and noticed his father’s three missed calls. “It’s getting dark. My parents are probably worried.” He tried to look nonchalant about it when he tapped the tablet to call his dad back, but Erin noticed he made it a private call.
    “Yes. Yes, I’m so sorry, Dad. Walked a friend home from school and just lost track of time—I’m on my way, I promise.” Logan ended the call.
    “I’ll see you around,” Erin said with a small wave.
    “Tomorrow.” Logan nodded.
    Erin was slow about closing the door behind him.
    9
    As he exited the building, Logan tried to take in the possibilities of his new friendship. He knew he liked Erin—a lot. And here he was, leaving her apartment, to which he’d actually been invited. But his excitement quickly went dull against the grinding prospect of a long and terrifying walk home in the dark.
    Logan didn’t like evenings even when he was safe in his own home. A stroll by himself through dimly lit sidewalks on empty streets was enough to make his heart race.
    You’re stupid , Logan told himself. There’s no danger in this. It’s just a stupid walk home .
    But