The residents were allowed out of their rooms for dinner. It was, by and large, an outwardly silent meal. There were several caretakers and techs present, circling like sharks. They were clearly on edge, more than ready to strike or zap anyone who gave them lip. Yet in that quiet, running secretly behind it, was a nervous elation so strong that it made Frieda Brown feel slightly drunk. There had been an escape. All of the kids were glad and none of them wanted to show it. Was she glad? Frieda wasn’t so sure. Part of her was, but . . .

Avery was sitting beside her, burying his two hotdogs in baked beans, then digging them up. Interring them and exhuming them. Frieda wasn’t as bright as Luke Ellis, but she was plenty smart, and knew what interring and exhuming meant. What she didn’t know was what would happen if Luke tattled about what was going on here to someone who believed him. Specifically, what would happen to them. Would they be freed? Sent home to their parents? She was sure it was what these kids wanted to believe—hence that secret current—but Frieda had her doubts. She was only fourteen, but she was already a hardened cynic. Her cartoon people smiled; she rarely did. Also, she knew something the rest of them didn’t. Avery had been taken to Mrs. Sigsby’s office, and there he had undoubtedly spilled his guts.

Which meant Luke wasn’t going to get away.

“Are you going to eat that shizzle, or just play with it?”

Avery pushed the plate away and stood up. Ever since coming back from Mrs. Sigsby’s office, he had looked like a boy who had seen a ghost.

“There’s apple pie à la mode and chocolate pudding for dessert on the menu,” Frieda said. “And it’s not like home—mine, anyway—where you have to eat everything on your plate to get it.”

“Not hungry,” Avery said, and left the cafeteria.

But two hours later, after the kids had been sent back to their rooms (the lounge and canteen had both been declared off-limits this evening, and the door to the playground was locked), he padded down to Frieda’s room in his jammies, said he was hungry, and asked if she had any tokens.

“Are you kidding?” Frieda asked. “I just barely got here.” She actually had three, but she wasn’t giving them to Avery. She liked him, but not that much.

“Oh. Okay.”

“Go to bed. You won’t be hungry while you’re asleep, and when you wake up it’ll be breakfast.”

“Can I sleep with you, Frieda? Since Luke’s gone?”

“You should be in your room. You could get us in trouble.”

“I don’t want to sleep alone. They hurt me. They gave me lectric shocks. What if they come back and hurt me some more? They might, if they find out—”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

She considered. She considered many things, actually. An ace considerer was Frieda Brown of Springfield, Missouri. “Well . . . okay. Get into bed. I’m going to stay up awhile longer. There’s a show on TV about wild animals I want to see. Did you know some wild animals eat their babies?”

“Do they?” Avery looked stricken. “That’s awful sad.”

She patted his shoulder. “Mostly they don’t.”

“Oh. Oh, good.”

“Yes. Now get into bed, and don’t talk. I hate people talking when I’m trying to watch a show.”

Avery got into bed. Frieda watched the wild animal show. An alligator fought with a lion. Or maybe it was a crocodile. Either way, it was interesting. And Avery was interesting. Because Avery had a secret. If she had been a TP as strong as he was, she would have known it already. As it was, she only knew it was there.

When she was sure he was asleep (he snored—polite little-boy snores), she turned out the lights, got into bed with him, and shook him. “Avery.”

He grunted and tried to turn away from her. She wouldn’t let him.

“Avery, where did Luke go?”

“Prekile,” he muttered.

She had no idea what Prekile was, and didn’t care, because it wasn’t the truth.

“Come on, where did he go? I won’t tell.”

“Up the red steps,” Avery said. He was still mostly asleep. Probably thought he was dreaming this.

“What red steps?” She whispered it in his ear.

He didn’t answer, and when he tried to turn away from her this time, Frieda let him. Because she had what she needed. Unlike Avery (and Kalisha, at least on good days), she could not exactly read thoughts. What she had were intuitions that were probably based on thoughts, and sometimes, if a person were unusually open (like a little boy who was mostly asleep), she got brief, brilliant pictures.

She lay on her back, looking up at the ceiling of her room, thinking.

17

Ten o’clock. The Institute was quiet.

Sophie Turner, one of the night caretakers, was sitting at the picnic table in the playground, smoking an illicit cigarette and tapping her ashes into the cap of a Vitaminwater bottle. Dr. Evans was beside her, with a hand on her thigh. He leaned over and kissed her neck.

“Don’t do that, Jimmy,” she said. “Not tonight, with the whole place on red alert. You don’t know who’s watching.”

“You’re an Institute employee smoking a cigarette while the whole place is on red alert,” he said. “If you’re going to be a bad girl, why not be a bad girl?”

He slid his hand higher, and she was debating whether or not to leave it there, when she looked around and saw a little girl—one of the new ones—standing at the lounge doors. Her palms were on the glass, and she was looking out at them.

“Goddammit!” Sophie said. She removed Evans’s hand and squashed her cigarette out. She strode to the door and unlocked it and jerked it open and grabbed Peeping Thomasina by the neck. “What are you doing up? No walking around tonight, didn’t you get the message? The lounge and canteen are off-limits! So if you don’t want your ass slapped good and hard, get back to your—”

“I want to talk to Mrs. Sigsby,” Frieda said. “Right away.”

“Are you out of your mind? For the last time, get back—”

Dr. Evans pushed past Sophie, and without apology. There would be no more touchie-feelie for him tonight, Sophie decided.

“Frieda? You’re Frieda, right?”

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

“I can only talk to her. Because she’s the boss.”

“That’s right, and the boss has had a busy day. Why don’t you tell me, and I’ll decide if it’s important enough to tell her.”

“Oh, please,” Sophie said. “Can’t you see when one of these brats is scamming you?”

“I know where Luke went,” Frieda said. “I won’t tell you, but I’ll tell her.”

“She’s lying,” Sophie said.

Frieda never looked at her. She kept her eyes on Dr. Evans. “Not.”

Evans’s interior debate was short. Luke Ellis would soon have been gone for a full twenty-four hours, he could be anywhere and telling anything to anyone—a cop, or please God no, a reporter. It wasn’t Evans’s job to pass judgement on the girl’s claim, farfetched as it was. That was Mrs. Sigsby’s job. His job was not to make a mistake that ended him up shit creek without a paddle.

“You better be telling the truth, Frieda, or you’re going to be in a world of hurt. You know that, don’t you?”

She only looked at him.

18

Ten-twenty.

The Southway Express box, in which Luke slept behind the rototillers, lawn tractors, and boxed outboard motors, was now leaving New York State for Pennsylvania and entering an enhanced speed corridor along which it would travel for the next three hours. Its speed rose to 79 miles an hour, and woe to anyone stalled on a crossing or asleep on the tracks.

In Mrs. Sigsby’s office, Frieda Brown was standing in front of the desk. She was wearing pink footie pajamas nicer than any she had at home. Her hair was in daytime pigtails and her hands were clasped behind her back.

Stackhouse was in the small private quarters adjacent to the office, cat-napping on the couch. Mrs. Sigsby saw no reason to wake him. At least not yet. She examined the girl and saw nothing remarkable. She was as brown as her name: brown eyes, mouse-brown hair, skin tanned a summer café au lait. According to her file, her BDNF was likewise unremarkable, at least by Institute standards; useful but hardly amazing. Yet there was something in those brown eyes, something. It could have been the look of a bridge or whist player who has a hand filled with high trumps.

“Dr. Evans says you think you know where our missing child is,” Mrs. Sigsby said. “Perhaps you’d like to tell me where this brainwave came from.”

“Avery,” Frieda said. “He came down to my room. He’s sleeping there.”

Mrs. Sigsby smiled. “I’m afraid you’re a little late, dear. Mr. Dixon has already told us everything he knows.”

“He lied to you.” Still with her hands clasped behind her back, and still maintaining a surface calm, but Mrs. Sigsby had dealt with many, many children, and knew this girl was scared to be here. She understood the risk. Yet the certainty in those brown eyes remained. It was fascinating.