Swipe

you could run your hand directly over it without feeling it was there. “I bet you’d be amazed, the places you’d find this stuff,” Erin said, shaking her head.
    “I thought your dad never told you DOME secrets.”
    “He doesn’t. I’d be amazed too. Anyway, after tonight, I’ll be able to quarantine the data from whatever’s recorded here in the DOME system, so I can control who sees it and where it goes.”
    “This is through your magical second hacking session later on?”
    “Not magical. I learned from the best.” Erin thought of Mac and smiled, thinking how proud he would be.
    “Clearly,” Logan said.
    “I’ll be watching closely,” Erin told him. “And I have the surveillance gel, so I’ll be able to hear anything that goes on as soon as it—”
    “Wait, where are you—”
    “He’ll never show if I’m here with you,” Erin said, as if Logan should have realized this. “But I won’t be far.”
    “Erin, you can’t leave me here.”
    “Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said. “You’re almost Marked, remember? Don’t even need a night-light.”
    Logan gritted his teeth.
    “So your job,” Erin said, as if uninterrupted, “will be to get Peck to say something we can use against him. We already know he’s guilty, so the point’s not to entrap anyone—we just need clues. Where Peck’s been hiding, where he’s trying to take you, what he’s done with Meg . . .” Erin’s face grew a little dimmer. “On the other hand, if events do start to deviate from what we might call . . . our ideal scenario . . .” She paused for a second. “I guess . . . just try to make sure they deviate with this in your pocket.” She handed him a small button. Logan knew what it was.
    It was a tracker.
    11
    “I don’t like this,” Blake said, still in the shadows. “She’s planning something.”
    Eddie squinted. “What is all that stuff she has?”
    “No idea. It’s high-tech. But it’s clear she’s laying a trap.”
    “That meddling little—”
    “Tyler, I need you to find Jo. Tell her to relay to Peck—we’re packing up. I’m calling it off.”
    “I told you you’d blow it,” Tyler said, grinning.
    “When we get back to Fulmart, I’m gonna strangle you in your sleep.”
    “Too bad I’ll be sleeping on a shelf too high for your fat hands to reach.” Tyler disappeared into the shadows, giggling as he went.
    “He’s right,” Eddie said. “You blew it. We should’ve pounced before school started back up.”
    Blake didn’t say anything for a minute. Then he just said, “You’re right, Eddie. I blew it.”
    12
    Logan looked at his tablet: 3:00 a.m.
    “I don’t get it,” Logan said into nothing, knowing Erin could hear him. “Where is he?”
    A minute later Erin appeared from the shadows. “You made it up, didn’t you?”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “You set your own fire.”
    “I saw a face in my window —”
    “An easy lie. You met a pretty girl and got her attention, and you thought you’d take advantage of it. You win, Logan.” She sighed.
    “I didn’t lie about anything! And this wasn’t my idea—it was yours ! I have no idea why Peck didn’t show! Maybe he saw you bugging the place and decided—”
    “Right, Logan, of course it’s my fault. That’s convenient.”
    “Whatever,” Logan said. “This could have gone a lot worse. ’Least you didn’t get me killed tonight.”
    “Yeah, there’s that,” Erin said without sincerity. She had her fingers in her ears and scraped violently at the gel inside, tearing it out in flakes that she flicked impatiently to the ground. “Stupid echo,” she said. “Can we at least move to where there isn’t so much powder? Everything I say shouts back at me inside my head.”
    “I’ve got a better idea,” Logan said. “Let’s go home.”
    “Fine.” Erin went to her rollerstick and grabbed its top, dragging it behind her with visible frustration as she walked away from the playground.
    “We’re not gonna walk—”
    “Yes, we are,” Erin said.
    “It’s over a mile back. It’s three in the morning—”
    “Too bad.”
    “But what about your roller—”
    “It wasn’t built for two.”

    The walk back to Wright Street from the park seemed longer to Logan than it ever had, and it was silent except at the end, when he spoke.
    “What do you suppose he wanted?” he asked. “If we hadn’t scared him off, I mean . . . what do you think he really wanted from me?”
    “He was never