Swipe

Dane was moving, watching for Hailey’s reaction. His arcs were jerky at first, stilted and nervous, but as Dane played, he seemed to forget she was there. He closed his eyes. His movement smoothed. It became dance-like and intricate— real music, and beautiful. Dane was a natural. When the song ended, he looked at her.
    Hailey nodded curtly. “You don’t suck,” she said.
    “Whatever, weirdo.” It was the happiest Dane had been in as long as he could remember.
    8
    “It’s getting dark, Logan. Can we admit this was a failure yet?”
    Logan and Erin had walked most of the way down the Row at this point, and everyone they met was either too decrepit or too defensive to know or say a single thing about Peck. But even Erin had to admit—everyone recognized the name . . . in some cases, seemed to revere it.
    “I wanna try one more place,” Logan said. He stared at the Fulmart ahead. “Just one more, and we’ll go home.”
    “I’m holding you to that.”
    Logan shrugged. “Either way, we’ve reached the end of the Row.” Beyond the Fulmart, the road ended, and a hill with young, thin trees led off to nothing. Logan’s tablet rang. He looked at it and saw it was his dad calling. Logan declined the call.
    He and Erin stepped between boards covering the front window of the big-box store. The only light inside was natural, coming from windows and holes in the ceilings. Nothing inside the store seemed to work anymore—none of the lights, vents, or security cameras, or the displays that, years ago, must have lit up and made noise and moved around for attention. But the store wasn’t empty. Packaged food still sat here and there on the shelves, and remnants of toys, hardware, furniture, house supplies, and outdoor equipment still dotted the shelves in a couple of places.
    “Hello?” Logan called. “Is anyone in here?” With all the aisles, it would have been easy to hide.
    “Nobody here but us chickens!” someone called out, and suddenly Logan was being pelted from several directions with Nerf darts and tennis balls.
    Two boys popped out from their hiding spots, laughing hysterically, but when they laid eyes on Logan and Erin, they froze so suddenly that it seemed all the life in them had just spontaneously dropped out from a trapdoor under their feet. The room was silent and tense.
    “Who’s the visitor?” a girl called from a few aisles over. “What’s going on?” And then she, too, stepped out into the greeting area where Logan and Erin stood, and went silent and white.
    “Can we help you?” the girl asked. She was bigger than either Logan or Erin by thirty pounds, pretty, not dirty or famished like the other Markless on the Row, and with a deathly cold stare.
    Logan cleared his throat, uneasy. It was the first time that afternoon he’d truly felt scared. “We’re looking for someone,” he said. “Just want to talk to him, and we thought someone on this block might know where he was.” Logan held his arms up.
    “Put ’em down,” the girl said. “I know you’re not Marked.” She looked at Erin, who held her hands in her pockets. “And I know she is.”
    Logan looked from boy, to boy, to girl. “Anyway,” he said finally. “The name of the guy we’re looking for . . . is Peck.”
    The girl before him didn’t blink or flinch or move in any way. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t know anyone by that name.”
    “Pack? Did you say Pack? Maybe he said Pack,” one of the boys said to the other.
    “We don’t know any Pack,” the second boy said.
    “Okay.” Logan nodded. “Okay. Sorry to bother you, then. We’ll be going now. You have a good night.” And he and Erin backed away slowly until their heels pressed up against the storefront doors. They stepped outside and ran quickly across the parking lot toward home. The girl watched them through the window the whole way.
    9
    “They’re the ones,” Erin said. “They know everything about him.”
    “Them?” Logan said. “They were scary, but . . . just ’cause they threw a couple tennis balls at us doesn’t mean—”
    “I could care less about that,” Erin said. “I’m talking about Peck.”
    “What about him? They didn’t even know the guy’s name. Of everyone we talked to today, those are the kids you single out?”
    “They’re the only ones who had something to hide.”
    “I don’t know,” Logan said. “We were trespassing. That could have been all it was.”
    “I don’t think so.” Erin shook her