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coming,” Erin said. “Admit it.”
    “You not believing it won’t change the truth, Erin.”
    She looked at him and frowned. “I’m not going home anytime soon, am I?”
    “That I don’t know. I have a feeling we came close to something tonight, though. Closer than it seemed.”
    “Maybe.” Erin shrugged. “Or maybe you’re just stringing the new girl along.”
    “Right,” Logan said sarcastically. “Anything for a second date with ‘the new girl.’ Since tonight was so dreamy and all.” He paused and kicked a rock, sending it skipping down the sidewalk. “I’m not, though.”
    “I can’t believe we took all this stuff,” Erin said, changing the subject. She bounced the backpack on her shoulders, glad it was too dark for Logan to see the blush she felt in her cheeks. “Maybe I can return it.”
    “Or maybe it’ll come in handy yet.”
    Erin shrugged. “Either way.”
    They turned onto Wright, and Logan could see his house ahead.
    “Don’t get caught on your way back in,” Erin said.

    When Logan snuck back into his own bed, in his own room, he was more tired than he’d ever been.
    How long had he been asleep when Logan woke to the whisper in the dark, its faint vibrations directly in his ear?
    “Surveillance powder. Very clever . ” There was a pause in the words, and the stillness of Logan’s room rang in their place. “Well, Logan, if that’s how you want it . . . we can play this little game.” And then a rushing sound filled Logan’s ears, like water crashing inside them, and his line to the chalk went dead.
    Logan lay under the covers with his eyes wide and horrified. He didn’t sleep again after that.

SIX

REGROUP
    1
    L OGAN STOOD IN THE SAHARA WING AT Spokie Middle, just staring out the fake window into the virtual dunes beyond. The sand was red and untouched, isolated from everything and everyone. It was all Logan wanted, to be there, to forget about this week and the world of trouble he was in.
    “You okay, Logan? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Logan jumped; Hailey had come up behind him and spoken before he knew she was there.
    “Something like that.” He laughed and turned around. After everything else that had happened, his memory of seeing Hailey last night on the sidewalk felt like it was from years ago.
    “It was nice bumping into you yesterday, briefly.” Hailey stared intently at her hands, which she was wringing. If there was anyone in Spokie more nervous-looking than Logan, it was usually Hailey.
    “Yeah.” Logan chuckled. “Sorry about that . . . whole . . . running off thing. What can you do, right?”
    “Right.” Now Hailey looked out at the desert too.
    “I’d rather be there,” Logan said, without turning to Hailey. “Of all the hallways in this school, if you could, which one would you go to?”
    “The moon,” Hailey said.
    Logan laughed. “Probably the one place farther from people than I chose.”
    “Do you like the new girl, Logan?” Hailey asked. The quiver in her voice was gone. She asked it with purpose.
    Logan didn’t know what to say. “We get along all right,” he finally admitted. “It’s not romantic, if that’s what you—”
    Hailey made the smallest sigh, barely perceptible, but Logan heard it. “You always say we should hang out more. But we never do.” Hailey was paying close attention to the wind on the dunes.
    Girl trouble? Now Logan was having girl trouble? Is that really what this was, on top of everything else? How much crazier was eighth grade going to get? He thought back to last year, when his biggest concern was algebra, and whether or not he’d get the last throw in during his food fights with Dane and Tom at lunch.
    “Well, let’s hang out,” Logan said, heading this complication off at the pass. “Seriously. I mean it. I think that’d be great.”
    “Okay,” Hailey said, brightening up immediately.
    “Sometime next week?”
    “Good,” Hailey said.
    Logan smiled inwardly. His sudden excitement surprised him, and yet it was sincere. A date next week with Hailey—that’d be all right.
    But this was silly. It was hardly a date. It was hardly anything at all.
    And if it was, how would Erin feel?
    Fine, Logan. Erin would feel fine. Don’t kid yourself . Erin wouldn’t bat an eye. After last night, she doesn’t even like you as a friend right now .
    And in any case, the way things were going, Erin would probably be on her way back to Beacon by next week.
    Or Logan would probably