“Vi is correct,” David said, waving his hand graciously. “When you narc on me, be in possession of all the facts! Hear me out.”

“You’re suggesting we stick one of those radioactive things in our computer and . . .”

“I would never,” he said, putting his hand to his heart. “What kind of monster do you think I am? I have with me . . .”

He opened the massive backpack, pulled out some rolled, soiled clothes, including some checkered boxers, which Stevie tried not to look at. (God, it was so hard to look away from someone’s underwear when it was stuck unexpectedly in your field of vision. Especially this underwear. Why, brain, why?) He pulled out a small stack of banged-up laptops and two tablets, plus some kind of router or base station.

“All freegan or fifty bucks at most. I’ve disabled their network connectivity. You couldn’t get online with these pieces of junk if you tried. I will put the content onto these devices, and I will set them down roughly in the range of your vision. I’ll even scroll the pages if you want. All you have to do is read, which all of you can do, very fast. I’ll wipe these things down and dump them in Lake Champlain when we’re done. I’ll strip them to parts. They never existed.”

“One problem,” Nate said. “We’re leaving in, like, an hour.”

“Which is why I showed up when I did to present my radical plan. Don’t. Go. When they come to get you, be somewhere else. Shut off your phones. Wait. Eventually, the storm will start and the coaches will go.”

The idea was so simple, Stevie almost laughed. Just don’t go. Stay.

“Imagine it,” he said. “All of us, together for the best snowed-in weekend in a mountain hideout. There’s plenty of food, blankets . . . syrup. If nothing else, don’t you want to leave Ellingham in style? What are they going to do? Kick you out for not leaving when the school shuts down? How is it your fault if you were in another building saying good-bye and lost track of the time? Not yours. There is nothing they can do to you.”

“My parents would kill me,” Nate said. “There’s that.”

“Mine too,” Janelle said, but her tone had shifted very slightly.

“Again,” David said, “we, us, right here, right now, have the ability to stop a bad, bad person from becoming president. Think about what you could be stopping—someone who uses racist policies to hurt or kill people. Someone who could do untold damage to the environment. Someone who could start an illegal war to distract from his political problems. You know, Vi, that he’s capable of that.”

Vi inclined their head slightly.

“Stevie,” he said, looking directly at her at last, “your parents help with his campaign. You could undo all they’ve done and more. And I will happily go down in a column of flame for it, except I won’t because I’m his son and I’m a rich, white asshole, so I’ll get a slap on the wrist or sent to school in God knows where, but it will be worth it. Because believe it or not, this is the right thing to do. It’s not easy. But it’s right. So what’s the bigger deal? What’s worth it?”

“How do you even know he’s doing something illegal?” Janelle asked. “Something that would stop him? Because people have tried to block him before.”

“Because he is my dad,” David said. “I know how he lives. And like I said, he likes a quick-and-dirty solution.”

The group was silent for a moment.

“Well, I’m convinced,” Hunter said.

“Can we trust this guy?” David asked.

“Too late on that front,” Hunter replied. “But I hate the dude, and I’m not going anywhere anyway.”

“I’m staying,” Vi said.

“Vi . . .” Janelle went over to her partner.

“David’s right. This is worth it, if he really has something. This is about the greater good. And me. This is the kind of person I am. I want to stay and do this, because it’s right. Stay with me.”

The wind whistled and snapped at the windows.

Janelle let out a long exhale through her nose and looked at Stevie.

“Stevie?” she said, her voice pleading.

Stevie’s body had gone numb from overload. She looked to David, at his peaked brows, the swing of his coat, the curl of his hair. Larry’s words echoed hollowly through her mind—he’s not right; he was in town; be careful . . .

“I . . . yeah. I’ll stay.”

David’s mouth twisted into a smile.

“Nate?” he asked.

Nate waved a dismissive hand. “I got nowhere to be. Might as well. I’m sure it’s only sort of illegal. What’s a few years in federal prison?”

All eyes were on Janelle now. She shifted from foot to foot and rolled her shoulders back, struggling with herself.

“God help me,” she said. “Fine. Okay. Fine. Let’s do this. Because someone with some sense should be here.”

“Right.” David rubbed his hands together and smiled. “Time to go underground.”

11

“OKAY, CAMPERS,” DAVID SAID, PUTTING EVERYTHING BACK IN HIS BAG. “Pix is going to be back any minute, so we need to go. Time to hide.”

“Where?” Vi asked.

“The gym,” he said. “Already scoped it out. It has the least security and it’s probably going to be the first building they lock up and the last place they’d look for anyone. We’ll go around the back way, through the woods. We’ll stay there until everyone’s gone. Let’s go.”

“Now?” Nate said.

“Now,” he said.

“What should I do?” Hunter said, looking around. “I’m allowed to be here.”

“You can do whatever you want. Just don’t narc.”

“Wait,” Janelle said. “If we’re going to strand ourselves here, we’re going to do it safely. Everyone brings a flashlight and an extra layer, water, snack bars . . .”

“We have to go . . . ,” David said.

“Snack bars,” Janelle repeated slowly. “There’s a box in the kitchen. I’ll go and get it.”

“We don’t need those. We’ll be back—”

“We need”—Janelle fixed him with a stare that could have blown a hole in a wall—“food, water, flashlights, and extra layers.”

Everyone was given a few minutes to run to their respective rooms. Stevie hastily shoved stuff into her backpack—her computer, the tin, her medication, and her copy of And Then There Were None. She wasn’t sure why she grabbed the last item, but she knew it had to come along. She pulled on her coat—the heavy one she never really used—and shoved gloves in her pockets. Janelle was gathering things as well but seemed to be moving at a much slower pace, picking through her scarves, putting a sweater into her bag, then her computer, looking at her phone. Vi rocked from their heels to their toes impatiently.

“Thanks for the help, Freckles,” David said to Hunter. “We’ll meet you when the coast is clear. Keep Pix distracted for a few minutes when she gets back, okay?”

“Are you seriously going to call me Freckles?” Hunter replied.

“Give me all your IDs,” David went on. “The security posts can ping them as you pass. I don’t want them showing up when I turn the system back on.”

Again, Janelle looked very hesitant, but things were moving now. They passed over the cards. David dropped them into Janelle’s bath caddy.

“The security system is about to go down. Ready? Three, two, one.”

He put his phone back in his coat pocket. It was impossible for Stevie to ignore the fact that security-shutting-off David was sexy.

“It’s off. Time to move.”

They pushed open the door and stepped out into a world of gently falling snow. The sky was an extraordinary color, a kind of pink steel. It had barely been an hour, but already about two inches had gathered on the ground and the trees, and this was not even the storm itself. Stevie could hear the coaches and the voices of fellow students carried on the wind, as people said good-bye and cried and began to go.

A little flash ran through her mind—this had happened here before. In April 1936, the morning after the kidnapping, when Albert Ellingham ordered all the students to be evacuated because of the events of the night before. Just like this. Perhaps Ellingham was never meant to be. Perhaps it was always designed as a place that had to be abandoned because of death and danger.

“We’re going the long way around,” David said, waving them toward the back of Minerva.

The group walked past the circle of stone heads, then veered toward the woods, away from the yurt. They kept along the line of the woods, tramping over rocks and sticks. They passed a statue of a man in a classical stance. This was the statue Ellie had climbed on their first night here, as they went to the party at the yurt. She had painted THIS IS ART on his torso. It had been scrubbed clean, but Stevie suspected that if she got up close, she would be able to see the outline of the letters.

Every contact leaves a trace.

David went ahead, leading the way. Vi and Janelle, normally entwined and constantly talking, now walked side by side in silence. Janelle’s gaze was fixed firmly and miserably ahead; Vi had their chin up defiantly.

“I’m trying to figure out if this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done,” Nate said as he kept up the rear with Stevie. “I don’t think it is, and that worries me.”