The name board by the elevator mocked Jason. He had traveled for one endless day, last night bleeding into this morning with a brain-muddling headache. He had scared the wits out of his sister, conned the cops, and convinced a completely innocent girl that she was a murderer. All of that, to come here, to this mundanely modern lobby and find a name board completely devoid of any Sam Wiles.

There was no S. Wiles. No anything else Wiles. No Sams, be it Sam Brown or White or Jones. There wasn't even anyone with the initials 'SW'. Nothing.

All the buttons had little cards over their names. Most of them were handwritten, some with little notes about how to call up or where to leave their Amazon packages. One of them might even be Sam's.

Or Sam might not be here.

Jason bit his tongue to hold back his growing frustration. There were a hundred names on this card. He couldn't phone up to each one of them.

A woman with a dripping umbrella murmured a sorry as she navigated past them. She swiped her keycard and the elevator doors opened. Rachel side-eyed Jason as if to say, Do we want to follow her? But he shook his head. He wouldn't have any more information wandering the hallways.

When the elevator doors closed, Rachel whispered, "You do know what you're doing, right?"

"I'm thinking."

She heaved a sigh, but his eyes flicked over the board. A lot of the cards were family names: The So-and-So's. He didn't know if Sam was married. But his mom hadn't told him to go see the Wiles, they'll help you. She told him to go find Sam, and she was very, very precise. He crossed the family names off his list.

A little less than half the remaining cards were definitely girl's names. He crossed all the Mias, Lunas, and Bellas off his list.

After that, there were people with roommates. If Jason was a betting man, and he had to be now, then he'd bet someone who his mom thought could help get this all-seeing spy organization off his back didn't bother sharing rent. People that lived with you knew more about you than anyone else. And, if someone came after Mr. Wiles the way they had come after his parents, he would be putting this hypothetical roommate in danger.

Jason flicked a glance at Rachel, and his conscience pricked. She raised her brows like, Are you done yet? He slid his gaze away.

Now, that didn't mean Sam wasn't working with someone, the same way his parents were obviously both wrapped in whatever this mystery was. But... again, his mother hadn't seemed to think so.

Though she'd certainly left out plenty of details.

His lips twisted wryly. Fine. He'd play the odds, and the odds said single man that lives alone. That left ten names.

One of the names—Liam—left instructions on his card for how to get the doorman to buzz you through in case he wasn't there. Definitely not paranoid enough.

Another, Thomas, left his LinkedIn on his card, as if he was trying to sell you on his tech start-up before he even saw you. Next-big-business guy probably wasn't under-the-radar Sam either.

Jason crossed a couple more names off in like manner—people too open with information, too forward—and was left with five. Five was enough to try.

"Jason," Rachel said, voice low with a note of warning. "The doorman is eyeing you."

"Smile politely and wave," Jason muttered back. "We're guests."

With that, he started his phishing campaign. He punched name number one and waited for the other end to pick up. "Yeah, I've got a package here for a..." He trailed off as if he were reading a note. "A Jessica R.? Are you Jessica?"

"Can you not read, dude?" The line went dead.

Jason tried a few more times with other apartments, using his mother's name each time hoping it would draw a spark from his real target. Rachel elbowed him. "I think they're calling security."

"Almost done," he muttered back and punched the fourth button. This time, no answer came back, and he hoped desperately that Sam Wiles wasn't out late for dinner.

He tried his last remaining option and asked again, "Yeah, I'm looking for a Jessica R.? Package delivery? You're not Jessica, are you?"

The voice that answered back, instead of being irritated or confused like the others, was defensive. "It's Ethan. Like it says on the board."

Rachel elbowed him harder this time. "There is definitely a guard coming."

"Ethan," Jason said. "Uncle Ethan, of course. Look, I admit, I kind of forgot your name, and my mom would kill me if she knew I forgot her favorite brother's name, but I'm in a bit of a jam, and I was hoping—"

"What are you kids doing?" a deep voice interrupted. Beside them, hands on hips, stance not immediately aggressive but leaned forward, gently threatening, stood a tall man in a blue security uniform.

Jason pointed at the name board, other finger still pressed down on the button. "Just talking to my Uncle Ethan. He's mad we showed up late for dinner, but I keep trying to tell him, we got harassed by the cops. Jessie here wasn't even speeding that much."

Rachel hit him with the back of her hand, adding to the authenticity of the act—and sending a jolt through his shoulder. He held back a wince.

The security guard leaned into the speaker, glancing down at the button Jason was pressing. "Mr.... Parker," he read. "Do you want me to see them out?"

Jason swallowed. Rachel tapped her foot.

A heavy sigh came from the other end of the line. "No, no. I'm buzzing them up now."

The elevator dinged open. Jason nodded his thanks at the guard, who narrowed his eyes at them, then escorted Ana past the doors. They closed behind Rachel. The floor number clicked slowly up. Rachel's foot tapped.

"Nervous?" Jason asked. With no logic puzzle to focus on, his own anxieties jittered inside him, but he didn't allow himself the luxury of an outlet. Or at least not a physical one. Perhaps asking her rude, dumb questions was his.

"Curious," she said.

"I don't think he's going to shoot us," Jason said. "In case you're worried."

She snorted. "You didn't think I was going to shoot you."

"You didn't."

They shared a wry smile before it occurred to both of them that Rachel had shot someone today—at least in Jason's version of history. Her gaze dropped. Jason's tongue wet dry lips, as if it could wipe the lies away. He could tell her now. He could be honest, could remove the weight that made her shoulders hunch and droop as she stared into the corner of the elevator.

Instead, he squeezed Ana's hand to offer himself a bit of comfort he didn't deserve. She didn't squeeze back.

The elevator door dinged and opened. The hallways were padded with the same grey, geometric carpet he'd seen in a hundred hotels. Golden, plastic sconces held incandescent lightbulbs. The place wasn't as expensive as it had first looked. It was middle-class living, something cheap that aspired to be more than it was.

Somehow, the false fanciness set Jason more at ease. He had lived in lots of places like this. This was familiar, far more familiar than fifty thousand dollar windfalls or unknown rich friends. It could be that Sam Wiles had a duffel stuffed with cash too, but he still lived like Jason's parents had.

Emboldened, his steps came faster. He tugged Ana along as he followed the numbers on doors to the one he had pressed downstairs.

He knocked. There was a long silence, long enough that Jason started to wonder if Sam had developed second thoughts about letting them in. Rachel scoffed and reached around him. She pounded on the door, loud enough to rattle the frame.

It flew open. "Would you cut that out?" a man hissed.

He was in every way not what Jason had expected. Though he was maybe Mom's age, his chubby cheeks and curly hair gave him a childish appearance. His short stature and Iron Man t-shirt, bulging with a cherubic gut, didn't help that any. The man's cheeks were flushed—with surprise, anger, or alcohol, Jason was too taken aback to be sure. Gripping his door, he peered out into the hall, eyes darting. "Well, are you going to stand there or what?"

"You're the one who wouldn't open the door," Rachel groused, but she slipped in past him. Jason ushered Ana through, and Sam shut and locked the door.

The coffee table was amess with takeout containers and empty beer cans. A small TV and video game system sat on what should have been a desk, but had been repurposed as an entertainment system. Games, old physical disks in their actual containers, spilled out of shelves in the bottom. The couch, like the desk, was in a modern, impersonal style, as if it had been furnished by the apartment building itself. The dining table huddled in a corner, buried in mail and newspapers.

To the right, a small, chrome kitchen was covered in dirty dishes and Cocoa Pebbles boxes. To the left were two more doors, almost closed, but not quite, as if even that task was too hard to complete neatly. A big window across from the front door might have made the space feel less claustrophobic, except for the heavy curtains that blocked the glass and pooled in the floor—too tall for the house.

Jason drifted toward the couch, numbed with shock. This wasn't the house of a confident, prepared man, the kind of friend he would expect his type-A mother to keep. It wasn't the house of a long-lost uncle or a daring mob boss. It wasn't even just a messy bachelor's house. This pigsty... His eyes roamed over it all again, feeling like the floor itself was crumbling beneath him. This was the house of a child who had never grown up.

"Sorry about the mess," Sam muttered, but he sounded more antsy than sorry. He dragged a chair from the dining table and sat in it backwards. With two fingers, Jason moved a paper plate with a half-eaten sandwich off the couch, then settled Ana in its place. Rachel leaned against the wall by the door. He glanced back at her, hoping she might take a less confrontational stance, but she just crossed her arms and waited.

"So..." Sam cleared his throat. He tapped incongruously slender fingers against the back of the chair. "What exactly are you doing here?"

Jason blinked at this awkward, uncomfortable man. How could this be who his mother had sent him to find? "I'm Jessica Reeves's son," he said, since it was his mom's name who'd seemed to get him in the door. He gestured to Ana. "And this is her daughter."

Sam's eyes narrowed. "Jessica doesn't have a daughter."

"I think I would know better than you," Jason said.

"Hm. And who's she?" Sam gestured at Rachel with a finger gun, as if a normal point would be too serious.

Jason floundered for half a second, unsure what Rachel would want to hear him say. My self-appointed bodyguard? The girl who saved my life and almost took it in the same night? A taxi driver who doesn't understand the drop-off-at-the-curb concept? He still wasn't sure why exactly she was still here. He'd just known after the incident with the cop that she would split, if only to distance herself from any reminders. But she hadn't, and he wasn't sure he had the emotional bandwidth right now to sleuth out why.

"A friend," he settled on, perhaps a second too late. Or perhaps not. Who knew? He was tired of guessing and second guessing. "She helped us make it here."

"And..." He drummed on the chair. The fan spun a few lazy circles above them. "What are you doing here?"

A sharp, angry laugh tumbled out of Jason. Could this man not put two and two together? "My mom sent us. Right before someone shot her."

"Oh. Oh." Sam shrunk in his chair, pale as milk. "Blitz... Blitz is dead?"

"I don't know," Jason said.

"Probably," Rachel said, and Jason shot her a glare. She shrugged but wouldn't quite meet his eyes.

The guilt that had been tangling around his heart twined now with anger: exhausted, raw, and not easily packed away. Jason's clenched hand splayed, and he drew a shaky breath. "She said you could help us. Did she lie?"

"Me help her?" A sigh escaped him, a bit incredulous, like a first-grader that had been asked to do calculus. "Look, kid, I don't know if you know, but that's not the way this really works. Blitz, your mom, I mean, she was the hero. I'm just a guy she kept up with."

Sleep and pain nagged at Jason's brain. "Look, adult," he snapped, "if she helped you all that much, maybe she was hoping you might repay the favor. Or are you incapable of housing three kids for a night and answering a few questions?"

Sam drew back like a child slapped. Hurt and shame flickered over his expression; he searched Jason's face as if to see if he'd really meant it. When he spoke, it was in a murmur, head down. "I mean, there's the couch. I don't really have an extra bed."

"We'll take it." One night on the floor wouldn't kill him. One night, and he'd be out of here. The only 'help' this man could give him was the information his parents hadn't for some reason.

Rachel, as if deciding that this spineless man posed no danger to them, dropped her guard position by the door to wander toward his dining table. Jason's lips pressed together. There was only so much he could ask with her listening—for instance Who's really chasing my parents? was right out. She'd know he'd been lying to her the whole time.

He tried a different tack. "How did you meet my mom?"

Tap, went Sam's finger. Tap tap. "If you don't know," he said, then paused for another few taps. "If you don't know, I'd rather not say."

Right. So that was an off-limits topic for Rachel too. Jason hauled himself to his feet and clasped Sam's wrist. "Why don't we go talk?"

The man looked up at him with wide, fearful eyes, but Jason swallowed any empathy that threatened to rise up. He tugged Sam toward the cracked bedroom door, and the man stumbled after him. The bedroom was as messy as the living room had been, clothes draped over the bed, strewn across the floor, heaped in piles in the closet. Jason released Sam, and the man scrambled back. Jason turned to close the door.

In the living room, Ana jumped up from the couch. Her mouth was tight, her cheeks pale and drawn. Darting over, she reached through the slit in the door and snagged Jason's hand. She tugged twice, shook her head, and pled with her eyes. He didn't think he'd ever seen her eyes look so clear; they were like a pool of water after the rain. She pulled the back of his hand to her face. She took a gentle step back, begging.

Not a toddler, begging him to stay. Not a sister, begging to come with him. There was something in her eyes that was older, deeper, stranger. He'd never seen her look at him like this before. It was like—like she was afraid for him.

Afraid of him.

He yanked his arm from her grasp. "Go sit," he ordered. She gave a plaintive cry of protest, eyes wide and wet, and reached for him again. He pushed her back. "Sit! Rachel, keep an eye on her."

Ana stumbled away, jaw open, lip trembling. She gaped at him as if she'd never seen him before. Her eyes accused him, made him feel like a stranger who'd taken her brother's skin.

Angry and unsettled, he slammed the door closed. He locked the door and turned around.

Sam was nowhere to be seen.

There wasn't really anywhere to hide in here. The whole room was visible. The bedframe was flush with the floor. The closet was open. There were windows, but they were small and highset.

The hair on the back of Jason's neck rose, but he stood his ground. "I know you're in here." He was glad his voice didn't sound as uncertain as he felt. But where could the man have gone anyway? No, he had to be in here.

Circling away from the door, Jason scooped up a handful of laundry from the floor. "You might as well show yourself. I just want to talk." The hard edge to his voice said what he really wanted was a fight, but even as he heard it, he couldn't seem to smooth it out. He chucked a sock to the left, a shirt to the right. They both fell to the ground like expected. "What is it? Are you invisible, like my mom is too fast? That's your ability, right? That's how you knew her."

Or maybe Sam's ability was teleportation, and Jason was talking to an empty room. Or shrinking, and all Jason was doing, as he threw clothes and navigated the bedroom, was increasing the odds he squished the man.

"Look," Jason gritted out, scooping up some more ammo. His shoulder twinged, and he winced as he straightened. "My mom never told me about any of this. I'm having to figure it out on my own. I don't have anyone. Rachel doesn't know anything. My sister doesn't know anything. I need help, just a little help, and my mom sent me to you. I don't know where else to go."

Jason let the words hang in the air, holding fire for a moment, hoping the man might break down and talk to him. Sam lived in this apartment by himself; surely he knew what it was like to be lonely, to be scared, to be tired. Surely, as he got over his initial shock, he would want to lend a hand.

Instead, the lock turned on its own and the door started to twist open.

Jason vaulted across the room, jumping over the corner of the bed, and tackled the air at the door. He and an invisible mass thumped to the ground. Pain jolted down Jason's arm. A weak, unseen fist caught him across the jaw. The mass squirmed beneath him, and Jason threw a punch at the floor. It connected with flesh and a cry of pain, and his fist barreled down again.

Nails clawed at his face. Jason hissed and found Sam's shoulders by touch. As he reached forward, his hand disappeared at the wrist, as if he were an amputee. Freaked out, Jason closed his eyes, quickly sliding his hands down Sam's flailing arms to pin him.

"Are you going to talk to me now?" Jason demanded.

Sam went still. Jason risked a look. The man had reappeared, eyes wide, face ruddy. "I don't know what you want from me!" he spat. "I'm not Blitz, I'm not the Resistance. I'm nobody, okay? And I'd like to stay that way."

You're a freaking coward, is what you are. But Jason bit back the words—and the urge to sock this guy in the mouth—because both would only serve to shut Sam up. "If that's the case, then how come my mom sent me to you, specifically?"

"Where else was she going to send you? To the freaks in Arizona?"

"Are the people chasing us from Arizona?"

"Yeah, right." Sam laughed, a sharp, bitter thing. "The people chasing you are everywhere. Now will you get off of me?"

"Are you going to run?"

He shook his head no. His darting eyes said yes. Jason didn't know which to believe, but he was saved from having to decide.

A piercing alarm blared through the building.