Swipe

head. “They’re trespassing too. They don’t own that store. They don’t own anything. They’re Markless.”
    “You don’t think . . .” Logan thought of something new. “You don’t think Peck could be . . . working with anyone, do you?” He had never considered that the boy he’d chased to Slog Row might have been anyone else. If that was true . . . he and Erin were even further from cracking this case than they thought.
    “That’s exactly what I’m thinking,” Erin said. The sun was setting. They were almost running now, back to the main part of town. “I think he’s working with them.”
    “It’s a stretch,” Logan remarked, but he didn’t dismiss the idea.
    “Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t.” Erin shrugged. “Either way . . . I know how to find out.”
    “I don’t think I wanna hear it,” Logan said.
    “You don’t,” Erin agreed. “I’ll tell you when I’m done.”
    10
    “Well, that didn’t go well,” Tyler said.
    “Could’ve gone better.” Jo sat, expressionless, on a lawn chair near the beach section of the store.
    “You think they saw us last night?” Eddie asked.
    “It’s possible,” Jo said. “But I don’t think so. They didn’t seem to know who we were. At least not when they walked in.”
    “But now . . . ?” Tyler said.
    Nobody answered him.
    “He’s smarter than we gave him credit for,” Eddie said to Jo.
    She sighed. “What he is—is fearless.”
    “And the girl?”
    “She knows way too much.”
    “So what now?”
    “Blake’s left for the warehouse to discuss plans. We’ll see what he comes back with.” Still reclining, Jo kicked a beach ball into a shelf of Tupperware and knocked a half dozen plastic containers to the ground. A couple of them hit Meg, who growled.
    “Stop it!” Eddie grabbed Jo in her chair and shook her. “You don’t do that in here! This is our home!”
    “Not anymore it’s not,” Jo said. And she shattered a sand castle display with a volleyball. “Pack your stuff. We’re moving on.”
    11
    It was nighttime when Blake arrived at the warehouse, and even the moon had sunk far below the horizon, so Blake moved carefully under pinpricks of starlight in the blackened sky.
    By necessity, Peck had become more than a little reclusive in recent months. In the early days, he’d been the linchpin of the Dust. He’d shepherd them, rile them up, calm them down, teach them games, make them feel at home—wherever that home happened to be. He’d feed them and clothe them, he’d moderate disagreements, he’d make them think and teach them tricks about life without the Mark. . . . To the boys especially, he was more than just the leader of the Dust. He was the father.
    And now he was a ghost. Only Jo saw Peck with any regularity ever since Meg’s abduction prompted the DOME investigation. Tyler and Eddie hadn’t seen him at all, and even Blake, Peck’s right-hand man, had met with him just twice—first to receive his new set of responsibilities while Peck was away (watch over the boys, make sure Meg doesn’t escape or kill anyone, and spearhead the intelligence effort on Logan while Joanne tended to other things), and second to discuss the plan of attack against Logan that was supposed to have played out last night. That attack having failed spectacularly, tonight would mark Blake’s third visit to the warehouse, and for the first time, he wasn’t looking forward to it. Twice along the way, he even turned around to head back, unsure if he could handle Peck’s disappointment—but Blake pressed forward. The Dust was all he had.
    The warehouse was well outside even the outskirts of Slog Row, in a sort of no-man’s-land far beyond Spokie but just before the next town over. It was an old building, back from pre-Unity days, Blake guessed, judging by its bizarre architecture, with once marble-white stone walls and an ash-colored roof. Now graffiti and a thick layer of dirt made it seem dull and gray. The facade sloped up to a high point in its middle, with spires at each corner and a tall steeple to the side. The walls around the building were filled with colored windows that had pictures in them—of people and shining stars and scenes as if out of a story—at least the ones that weren’t broken. The large double doors should have led, welcoming, into what must have once been a pleasant space inside, but instead they stood shackled, boarded shut and padlocked, the building around them closed and forgotten.
    But not