"He was my contact person," Henry was saying, and I opened my eyes to find myself still in the cave, though the fire was mere embers, and it was quite dark. Henry was gathering his few items. I rose slowly, then felt for my shoes to see if they were dry. They weren't entirely; they were damp and cold, but they'd have to do.

"Who?"

"Allen."

I felt more awake. "Coach Allen?" I'd put enough together last night to figure the man had worked with the Circuit. When I'd first met him at St. James, something had felt kind of off about him. He'd been too friendly toward me. And whatever had happened with Mac--Mr. Allen had conveniently disappeared the minute Mac ended up in the hallway. Had he had something to do with that? Had he brought him into the building and then kept me in one place to be sure I'd run into him? It sounded plausible.

"He was my contact for Animas Forks. My job was to pick up the ED he left there, attach it to the target's vehicle, execute."

I forced aside the sterility of his terminology. "He was there--in Animas Forks? Was he the one who took Paolo?"

"Yes. We expected you, but we didn't want him."

We. He'd said we. "So . . . you didn't just want me to find you. The Circuit told you to find me." He wasn't the Henry who would've reached out to me, to make sure we hadn't forgotten each other. He had forgotten me, and if the Circuit hadn't told him to find me, he probably never would have tried.

His silence was surely confirmation.

"Then why did you kill him?"

Henry's answer was indirect. "I need you."

Not want . . . need. Did that mean that Coach Allen--the Circuit, I supposed--didn't want Henry to be alone with me? He'd done what they asked with the Hineses, but then, as he'd said, he'd taken out our trackers. He was trying to get away from the Circuit. And I supposed he needed me in order to do that . . . ? But they didn't want him to . . . perhaps he was supposed to bring me to them, and he wasn't going to. Maybe they were mad for that.

"Thank you," I found myself saying.

"Why?"

"For explaining a little."

Henry just stared at me for a moment, but it was difficult to see his expression in the darkness. "We have to go."

Reluctantly, I put on my damp shoes and took up my bag. I remembered as I followed him out of the hiding space the weird device Henry had shown me the night before, and when I got out into the early morning light--really it was barely even dawn, and it was cold--he had already flipped the thing open and dropped it to the ground. It was just hovering there as if it were the most normal thing ever. As I was debating what exactly was going to happen with it, Henry shuffled in his bag and pulled out another identical device. This one he also tossed to the ground, where it flipped open and stopped a few inches above the leaves and stones.

"This is how we move, now."

Instinct reminded me to turn toward where the body had been, but Henry caught my motion.

"I removed it."

Not wanting to question him about that, I guessed at what he wanted me to do and put my feet on either side of the hover device. Standing still was easy, but I knew there had to be more to it.

Henry got up on his, and the thing moved. It slowly floated past me then picked up speed. He suddenly zipped off into the trees without more than a rush of displaced air; the thing was silent as the forest. I couldn't believe how fast he'd moved, and I also couldn't understand how he'd stayed so still on it. I looked down at my feet, trying to figure out how to make the thing move, but it stayed as still as anything.

Then Henry was there, again. He'd circled back to me, and I was relieved; I just couldn't figure the thing out.

"Will it to move," he said to me.

"Will it? Like, just think it?"

"It'll automatically attune to you."

I was so confused. "But I--I am thinking it, right now. I'm thinking about it moving, but nothing's happening."

"You can't think it with your mind; you have to use your body. Indicate you want to move."

Still concentrating too much on it, I angled a little to the left, and the thing shot out from under me, throwing me to the ground.

"We don't have time for this." Henry retrieved my hover device and placed it back near the ground. He then stepped up onto his and indicated I take hold of his arm. My feelings were so mixed about touching him--he was terrible and disgusted me--but I didn't know what else I could do. I got back onto my hover board and then slipped my arm through his, and almost immediately, we were off.

I had to reclaim my breath before I could look around at what was happening. My grip on Henry tightened to the point where I was practically on top of him; if I let go, who knew where I'd end up? We were moving so quickly, dodging trees (which, thankfully weren't super thick) and undergrowth. Henry clearly had experience with this sort of movement, as he knew exactly how and where to direct his device. Mine seemed to be glued to my feet, taken over by whatever direction Henry's must be giving it. Once I adjusted to the shock, I began to actually enjoy the ride. It was exhilarating, like being on some sort of ride or being able to fly, though we didn't move up and down so much as forward. Within moments, we were above the creek we'd walked in a day earlier, and I smiled at it when my feet didn't even grace the water. Henry turned and zipped along the creek rather than cross it, and we sped above it.

I was able to enjoy the sky, the forest, the air itself--I was actually . . . having fun. It was amazing. And I didn't even realize how close I held Henry until we stopped to rest much later. My arms hurt from how tightly I'd held on to him.

We sat by the river (the creek had become a river at that point, widening and deepening to where we couldn't make out the bottom anymore), and we sat for a while. Standing for so long had been more tiring than I'd thought it could be. The sun was actually shining--maybe it had been shining days before, but we'd been under cover of trees for so long that it had all looked dark. What I felt was something close to happiness in those moments, sitting in the golden warmth on a large rock overhang, listening to the soft rippling of the water passing by, the anticipation of another zip on the hoverboard sparkling in my mind. Henry was even being tolerable. We hadn't spoken at all during the ride, which had been far too fast for conversation, but he hadn't said anything about how tightly I'd held on or the fact that I didn't know how to ride by myself. He stood apart from me, contemplating I-didn't-know-what, and I found myself almost beginning to like him again--

Almost.

Then I thought about Mel and how kind she'd always been to me. I thought way back about the night I met Ella and Mel and how they were there when Slim died. I thought about Jason, watching him go out running every morning. I thought of Ella, just starting her life beyond high school. And I thought of Paolo, who was hopefully and probably alive and well . . . Paolo. Guilt surged through me. I'd grown so close to him so quickly, and over the past several days, I'd gone long stretches without thinking of him at all. But he'd be all right, I was sure of it. Paolo had been dangerous in a far different way than Henry was. I'd begun to want the comfort of him being there, to grow complacent and think that I could rely on him. But I didn't want to; I didn't want to rely on anyone. I didn't exactly know what I wanted at this point. I knew I had to give up the notion of "saving" Henry. He wasn't the same person I'd known before--or maybe he'd always been that person, and who he was after Oliphant was the lie. So that was gone. I was with him now because I didn't know where else to be. I couldn't just go back to San Judo.

And the Circuit. What did they want with me, anyway? Henry wasn't being forthcoming. They'd obviously tracked every movement of mine since leaving Oliphant. I'd never been off their radar. But they hadn't come after me. Instead, they'd sent Henry after me, and then what had he done but taken us both away from them! They mustn't have expected that, and now they were mad, which was why they sent someone after us.

So what was Henry doing, then? Why had he angered them? Was he trying to escape them, as I'd hoped he'd do? Trying to get far away and make a new life for himself? It's what I'd hoped while I thought about him all summer, and yet . . . I didn't know that I wanted to be with him when he did get a new life, anymore.

The air chilled as the sun moved behind clouds. Whatever brief faux-happiness I'd begun to feel evaporated with the warmth. I couldn't let myself forgive Henry for what he'd just done. I had to remember the Hineses.

"Where are we going, anyway?" I asked him, calling him from whatever thoughts he'd been wandering through.

Henry didn't bother looking at me. "Allen followed you from San Judo, you know," was what he said instead of answering my question.

"What?"

He turned around and stepped across the rocks toward me. "He got you the message in San Judo. The zip. And the message in Silverton. He tracked you the whole way."

"Ok . . . so . . . why are you telling me? It doesn't matter now."

"Your friend--he knew."

For a moment, I didn't understand what he meant, but then it sank in. "Paolo? He--he knew? What did he know, exactly?"

"All of it. Or most of it, anyway." Henry stepped past me and threw the hover devices back toward the ground.

I stared after him in frustration and disbelief. "Can't you tell me about it? What did Paolo know?"

"I told you--all of it."

He was infuriatingly difficult to talk to! He had to be lying--Paolo wouldn't . . . but I had to admit that I'd thought it many times, that Paolo had been with the Circuit, that he'd deceived me, that he'd been--no! I wouldn't believe Henry. Henry was horrible. Paolo . . .

I was a complete idiot. I'd let myself get carried away with Paolo. But then again, here was Henry, who was also incredibly untrustworthy. Oh, why couldn't I believe in anyone? I couldn't even believe in myself--how long had that tracking device been under my own skin, deceiving me?

Henry motioned for me to get on my device and take hold of him again, but I stayed where I was. He grew angry, but I held firm.

"Tell me where we're going, or I am not getting back on that thing. I'd rather starve to death here in these woods."

The rage flashed in his eyes, again, but he stepped off his hoverboard. "We're going into town."

"Why?"

His nostrils flared but he kept his patience. "Because I need to see someone."

"Then why have we been wandering around these woods for a week?"

He shot out a hand and grabbed my wrist, the one he'd cut the tracker out of. I winced in pain--the cut had healed, but it was still tender. "Because we needed to disappear for a little while. Now that I know we're off the map, I need to take care of some business." Henry pulled me over to the hoverboards, and I got up on mine, shaking from his sudden turnaround. He didn't wait for me to take hold of him and instead gripped my arm so tightly that it started to tingle, but we were speeding through the woods again too quickly for me to have time to fight him, nor did I want to once we started moving, fearing what would happen if I fell off mid-flight.