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You like calling my two rotten parents ‘master’? Calling me ‘master’? Being compensated in table scraps?”
    George sighed. “There are things more important than material wealth, Master Dane.” And very quickly, he flashed to Dane a charm, which dangled from a necklace he’d kept hidden under his suit. What was it? A symbol? Of what? Dane had never seen it before, but it seemed somehow rebellious to him . . . dangerous.
    “What is that, George?”
    George winked. “A reminder, Dane. Just a reminder.”

    George had left Dane after that, closing the door behind him, leaving Dane to play his mitts as long as he wanted, increasing the noise cancellation in the walls as he exited.
    It wasn’t until very late that Dane shot up and realized he’d fallen asleep with his mitts still on. He threw them to the beanbag. What was that noise?
    A crack. A snap. Motion outside the den’s window. Dane dashed to it and cupped his hands around his face, peering outside. Who was there?
    Dane bolted through his house and out the front door, onto the lawn. The night was cool and damp. “Hello?” Dane called. “Show yourself, ya stingy miser.”
    There was no response. Just the stillness of night. The oak tree whistled in the wind.
    Dane crept to the window outside his den, looking for signs of trespassing . . . or trespass ers .
    No one was there. But in the flowers below the den’s window, Dane saw three chrysanthemums bent and broken, lying in the dirt, trampled.
    “I heard you!” Dane shouted into the black of his empty cul-de-sac. “I’m calling the cops!”
    And when Dane went back inside, that’s exactly what he did.
    “I’d like to report a disturbance,” Dane said over the video connection of the tablet. “Trespassing. The perpetrator got away.”
    “Noted,” the woman said, unimpressed, on the other end of the line. She frowned. “Can you show me your Mark, sir? Just holding it up to the camera is fine.”
    “I’m not Marked,” Dane said. “I’m underage.”
    A wave of interest suddenly flashed over the woman’s face. “I see,” she said. “Another one.”
    “What do you mean, another one?” Dane asked. “What is that supposed to mean?”
    “It’s probably nothing,” the woman said. “But if you see or hear anything else out of the ordinary— anything at all —I want you to call this number.” Then she flashed the digits on the screen.
    Dane recognized the extension number. It was famous, drilled into children’s heads right along with the codes for fires and police and medical emergencies. But the number was different from those. It was unique. The number was for DOME.
    6
    The Dust travelled silently through browned cornfields, already an hour’s walk out of town. Tyler didn’t devise a game. Meg rested limp and dull on Jo’s shoulder. This was not a happy field trip, and everyone knew it.
    But Blake knew something else too. You can force us from our home, Logan. You can keep us on the run as long as you want. But we’re not your big concern anymore. And Peck has a trick or two left up his sleeve .
    So you wanna play a game with us, Logan? Sure, we’ll play a game with you. We’ll go a round. We’ll even go all in. Take a chance, Logan. Call our bluff. See what it brings you .
    He couldn’t hold his excitement any longer. There was hope, and he had to let someone else know it. “Logan’s gonna have some fun at school from now on,” Blake whispered to Joanne.
    Jo nodded. She smiled too. Jo knew exactly what that meant.
    “Boo!” someone whispered behind the two of them, and Meg stifled a yelp on Jo’s shoulder.
    Blake turned abruptly. “Don’t do that, you little skimp!”
    It was Eddie. Blake had sent him off earlier to do a sweep of their trail and make sure no one was following.
    “See anything useful?” Blake asked. “Or were you just hanging back there long enough to scare us?”
    Eddie leaned in, serious but perfectly relaxed about it. “A little of both,” he said. “But, yes, we’re being followed.”
    7
    “They’re walking in circles.”
    “What are you talking about?”
    “We’ve been through this cornfield before. Half an hour ago.
    They’re walking in circles.” Logan looked at Erin in the dark and shrugged.
    “Do you think they’re lost?”
    “Not sure,” Logan said. He squinted across the field, over the husks. “But I only count four kids up ahead. Maybe one’s lost and they’re looking for—”
    But a powerful knock to the