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it doesn’t all add up.”
    “No,” Peck agreed. “It doesn’t.”
    “Which makes you even scarier!” Logan said, ashamed and not looking at anyone now. “I can’t stop you if I don’t know what you’re after! You’re better than me. I give up.”
    Peck frowned and was thoughtful for a moment. “I am . . . a bad person,” he said, finally. “I’m a bad kid.” He sat at the edge of the stage now, deflating in front of everyone. “All growing up, I was . . . the problem child. I cheated on tests, I’d lie to my parents, I wouldn’t listen, I’d fight . . .” Peck laughed. “My last few years at school, I spent more time with the principal than I did in class . . . more time at home than in school . . . and I was a bully.” Peck shrugged. “So no. I have a long ways to go before I am better than you, or anyone.” He stood and began pacing around the stage. The whole thing seemed rehearsed, as though spoken many times to many kids.
    “So you refused the Mark,” Logan said. “And now you’re taking it out on everyone else.”
    Peck sighed. “Hardly,” he said. And then he paused. “Surely, after your sister, you know a thing or two about . . . flunkees?”
    Immense anger rose inside Logan now. “ What do you know about my sister, you miser? ” He cocked his fist and lunged, but Peck easily deflected him, and Logan fell to the ground.
    “We’ll get to your sister, Logan. First I want to know what you know—about the ones who don’t return.”
    “I know some kids die in the Pledge. I know accidents happen. I know it’s rare. That’s all I know.”
    “So you don’t know, then, that the rate of flunkees has increased every year since the Mark Program began?”
    “No . . .”
    “And you don’t know, then, that there seems to be a pattern among the kids who don’t come back?”
    Logan recoiled. “What are you talking about? What pattern? It’s random failure. Procedural risk!”
    At this, Peck laughed a hearty, tired laugh. “I don’t know everything,” he said. “But I do know this: Flunkees are not random failure. Flunkees are calculated. Flunkees are chosen.”
    “That’s ridiculous—”
    “There is no such thing as ‘procedural risk,’ Logan. There is only judgment. Judgment from people with no right to judge. Judgment over the ones who pass . . . and the ones who don’t.”
    “That’s crazy, Peck. That’s an absurd conspiracy theory.”
    “It is crazy,” Hailey said. “But it’s true. At least . . . we believe it’s true.”
    “And you expect me to believe this—coming from a wanted murderer?”
    Now silent tears began to roll down Peck’s face. He didn’t speak.
    “Peck didn’t kill Jon,” Hailey said, finally. “DOME did.”
    “That’s absurd. Why would DOME do that?”
    “To frame him, Logan. To cut off his support. They had a dozen reasons. Jon was our Dust on the inside. He could live the life we couldn’t. He could help us.”
    “Trenton too,” Blake said. “And DOME had the same plans for him. Would’ve worked if I hadn’t caught on . . . and if Peck hadn’t stopped them first.”
    Logan looked from Dust to Dust. And despite himself, he started to believe them.
    “I can’t prove what I’m saying,” Peck admitted. “I’ve tracked kids who’ve gone on to call me insane . . . worse . . . who’ve laughed at me and Pledged and lived happily ever since. There’s no science to what I’m doing here, and I’m probably wrong as often as I’m right.” He frowned. “But I don’t think I’m wrong in your case.”
    “ My case?” Logan felt a chill run down his body. “What are you talking about, ‘my case’?”
    At this, Peck took a deep breath. “Logan. It is my belief that if you Pledge tomorrow, you will never return.”
    5
    Logan felt tunnel vision closing in on him now. His head pounded, and he feared he might faint, so he found a chair on the stage and sat, limp, his arms hanging off its sides.
    “But I have to Pledge,” Logan said. “My appointment is set. My parents need me to—” His voice caught. “I’m already hated by everyone I know. If I don’t Pledge, I’ll be a pariah, I’ll be nothing, I’ll be . . .”
    “Like us,” someone said. “You’ll be like us.” It was Dane. He stepped from the darkness between the crates and walked delicately toward Logan, standing before him in the chair. “I know the feeling.”
    “Dane!” Logan jumped from his seat, having half a mind to throw a hug around