Seb gave a small I don’t know motion with his hand. “After a week, he was gone. We didn’t see him any more after that.”

“But – is that even legal? How can they be allowed to do that? Couldn’t you have told the police when you got out?” My voice had gone high-pitched with horror.

Seb’s eyebrows shot up in surprise – and with something almost like pity, that I’d think this might be a solution. “No one would care,” he said. “We were thieves and runaways – street boys, with no families.”

I hugged my knees tightly, feeling shaken. Above us, I could still hear the others practising in the target range. The exercise machines around us looked weirdly ordinary, as if they belonged to a completely different life than the one Seb had been through. I supposed they did.

“How did you get out?” I asked finally.

He shrugged. “There was a loose piece of metal on my bed frame. I got it off, and sharpened it against the wall when no one was watching. It took months, but finally it was sharp enough. I threatened a guard with it, and I got out. Then I ran as fast as I could,” he added, his mouth twisting. “I ran so fast I could have been in the Olympics.”

I stared at him, amazed that he’d somehow held onto his sanity enough that he could joke about this, even a little bit. I threatened a guard. The words didn’t surprise me, yet I knew what a fundamentally good person Seb was – a gentle one, even. Thinking about my own life when I was eleven, I mentally shook my head at the contrast. Even with all my problems, I’d had it so, so lucky, and I’d never even known.

“Did you hurt the guard?” I asked.

Seb shook his head. “No, he was a coward. And I think I probably looked very determined. Like I wasn’t going to take no for an answer.” Faint amusement crossed his face, remembering.

“Would you have hurt him?”

The amusement faded. As his eyes met mine, I knew Seb wasn’t going to lie to me – that he never would. “Yes,” he said quietly. “I would have done anything to get out of there. And I hated humans, back then. For what they did to each other – for what they had done to me.”

My eyes went to a small scar on his arm, just where the sleeve of his T-shirt ended: a deep, dimpled hole, white against his tanned skin. About the size and shape of a cigarette burn. My heart chilled. Oh god, had they done that to him there?

Seb noticed me looking, and glanced down at the scar himself. “No – this was from my mother’s boyfriend, when I was small.” He shrugged; fingered the scar lightly. “My mother didn’t have very good taste in men.”