When they were four blocks down, she stopped and called for him to wait. The streets of San Francisco were a wasteland behind them. Aubrey bent over, crouching to catch her breath. She pulled the bottle of Flowerbomb from her jeans pocket and sprayed herself, much to Dan’s confusion.

“Trust me,” she said, with a gasp. “It’s how they’ll find us.”

She looked back the way they came and let out a small laugh. Like Jack and Laura would need much of a map to track them.

And then a dot appeared, coming at them impossibly fast.

“Dan—”

Before the word had escaped her lips, the road bulged upward. The dot, which became the shape of a man, couldn’t stop in time and rocketed up the bulge and over their heads. He flailed through the street, arms scrambling for hand holds in the empty air, before landing with a crunch.

Aubrey’s heart sank. The man didn’t move. No, he wasn’t a man. He was a Lambda. He was a teenager, just like her, and now his broken body lay in the street, motionless.

She wanted to throw up. He was dead. Just like that. Killed as casually as swatting a fly.

“Where’s Laura?” Dan asked.

Aubrey stood and stared for several seconds.

“They’re going to come after us,” Dan urged. “Where’s Laura?”

Aubrey stared. Without even looking, she disassembled the M9 and dropped it to the dirt.

“Come on,” Dan said.

She took a deep breath, and then pointed in the direction of the car.

“They’ll follow me,” Aubrey said.

FIFTY-SIX

LAURA SAID THAT DAN HAD a storage shed in Southern California that would be the closest place to hide out. Jack drove, completely silent other than a few glances at Aubrey. At one point he thought he heard her say, “I’m scared,” but it was too muffled by her raspy voice to be sure.

Dan was more than Jack had expected, but he should have thought about it. Dan was a Lambda 5M—that had been in the file Aubrey had read, and a 5 was just like Laura. They were both powerful weapons.

It was getting late, and Aubrey asked Jack to pull the car into the parking lot of a gas station. There was a big spray-painted sign out front that read “No Gas,” but Aubrey insisted she needed to go to the bathroom and get something to eat.

She took his hand before getting out, and pulled him across the car toward her. He wasn’t expecting it at all, but she kissed him on the lips and then on the cheek.

“Listen.” One word, breathed beside his ear.

He sat behind the wheel and watched her walk away. Laura and Dan were in the back, talking about something on the smartphone. Jack wasn’t focused on it—all his attention was on Aubrey. Every footstep, the tiny grains of concrete rubbing under her shoe, the wisp of her fleece sleeves as they drew back and forth, the rapid beating of her heart, the unsteady, nervous inhalation of air.

“They’re not who they say they are,” she said, disappearing through a creaky door into the bathroom. “You should have seen the way that Dan killed that kid—he didn’t care at all. He seemed proud of it.

“And remember what Laura told you about how she got caught? She was hitchhiking, alone, and was in a car accident at a bridge collapse, down on I-70. And the military records said Dan was caught up by Price. But when I told Dan that I was with Laura, he seemed surprised she was alive. He said, ‘I didn’t think she survived.’ How would he know that she was in an accident unless he was with her?

“They’re lying, Jack,” Aubrey continued. “I don’t know about what, but something isn’t right. I don’t think we want to be with them. But I don’t know how to get away. I mean, I can, but can I get you away? They’d both have to be asleep.”

Jack turned to Laura and Dan. “I’m going to grab a drink. You guys want anything?”

“I’ll take anything—donuts or chips or something,” Dan said. “I’m so sick of those MREs.”

“Just a bottle of water for me,” Laura said. “Power bars, if they have them.”

Jack stepped out of the car.

“I don’t know who they are, Jack,” Aubrey said. “They might be terrorists. Think about it—they knew each other from before, they’re both superpowerful. And that Alec guy. I don’t know what the deal is with him, but when I was with him I swore I knew him. I swore we were old friends. I don’t know if that’s some kind of power, but it fits the whole profile, doesn’t it? Three terrorist teenagers, all together and aware of their powers before the government cracked down.”

Jack was in the store now, looking through the bottles of soda. The selection was small, as if they hadn’t had a shipment in weeks, and the drinks cost nearly six dollars a bottle.

“Anyway,” Aubrey said. “I just think we need to be careful.” He could hear a smile in her voice. “Now quit listening, Jack. I’m in the restroom.” She laughed.

Jack put the food on the counter and waited for the cashier to ring it up.

“You can’t talk like that,” Laura whispered. “He can hear you.”

Dammit. He’d missed something.

The cashier began making small talk about a storm coming in off the Pacific. Jack replied awkwardly, trying to listen to the car.

All he could hear now was the electric clicks of typing on the smartphone. They were hiding information from him.

Aubrey emerged from the bathroom just as Jack took the bag of snack foods from the counter. It had cost a whopping thirty-eight dollars, but Jack guessed it didn’t matter. They were still spending money from someone else’s wallet.

“I agree,” Jack said, as they walked out of the convenience store. “They’re writing on the smartphone so I won’t hear. We have to get away from them.” He paused to kiss her again before reaching the car. He looked into her eyes. “We have to wait for them both to sleep. They’re too powerful for us.”

Jack cracked open a packet of Tylenol and took the pills with a swig of Mountain Dew. The pure sugar was almost overwhelming, but the store was out of bottled water.

“You want me to drive?” Aubrey asked.

“How are your eyes?”

“As good as they get. I can take over for an hour or so.”

They climbed back in the car.

“Where are we going?” Aubrey asked immediately, opening the paper map that had been in the glove compartment.

Dan turned to Laura. “Where’s the closest stash?”

“Take I-5 into San Diego,” Laura said. “I’ll give you directions from there.”

Jack leaned back in the passenger seat, watching the road ahead of them in the darkness. Aubrey seemed to be doing fine with driving, so he didn’t mind relaxing his head a little bit. He lowered the headrest as far as it would go and slumped in his seat.

He could hear the clicking in the backseat. It wasn’t stopping.

They had to do something.

His view outside was blocked by a little glare from inside the car. He could see through it, but it was annoying.

He shifted his head to figure out what it was. The skin along his scalp throbbed as he moved.

And there it was, as plain as day.

The screen of the smartphone was reflecting off the back window and onto the front window. He didn’t even have to transpose the letters—it was being written out for him as clear as if the phone were in his own hands.