Reid.

Oh.

I pull back from Leah and glance at the boy in our room. “Why is he here?” I sign.

She narrows her eyes but doesn’t turn around. “Good question. Reid, why are you here?”

“Hunter wants to see you.”

“In the middle of the night?”

“The guards are gone. He wants to get out.”

And with that, Leah stills. It’s not the same kind of freezing that I experience, but I recognize it all the same. Too many possibilities, too many feelings, too many thoughts all mashed up against each other. She breathes out deeply and closes her eyes, and for once, I can’t tell what she’s thinking.

“Out out?” she asks, quietly.

“Hunter doesn’t want to leave you on your own here.”

He doesn’t think we’ll make it, most likely. He doesn’t think I’ll make it.

But we can’t.

I push myself up in sitting position, my knees up to my chest and the blanket up to my chin, and nudge Leah. She glances up at me, and I can see a spark in her eyes. A dangerous glint I’ve seen before. “We can’t,” I sign. “We’ll get in trouble.”

It was the very first thing they told us. The doors inside remain open. The doors to the outside remain closed. That doesn’t change because the guards aren’t here.

“Don’t you want to see the world again?” Leah asks softly.

“I don’t want to get in trouble.”

“If there’s no one here, no one can find out,” she says. It reminds me a little too much of the conversation we had right before we torched the warehouse. Don’t you want revenge? she’d asked me.

Someone was there. Someone did find out. Someone nearly died.

But I went along with it then. I’ll go along with it now. She knows that. She always does.

“I don’t like it.”

“I’ll take care of you.”

She always does too.

“Where will we go?”

She turns to Reid, who doesn’t—can’t—understand my question. Only Leah knows the language we speak.

“Where will we go?” she repeats. Her voice cracks, and she coughs.

He shrugs. “Wherever Hunter wants to go, I guess. Are you getting dressed?”

“Get out then,” she says. “Yes.”

He places himself outside the door, and I start my morning routine at night. Get dressed. Brush my teeth. Brush my hair. I can’t help but wonder about his answer. We’ll go wherever Hunter does. Because I recognize that feeling.

I’ll go wherever Leah does.

* * *

Reid takes us to the center’s entrance hall and the heavy-duty doors that separate us from the outside world. We’ve only ever used them once. Only to enter, never to leave. Hunter is there with his crew. Six of them in total, including Maverick and Reid. Emerson is there, crouched down and staring at the floor, alongside Grace.

Hunter lights up when he sees us. He always does. Leah says it’s because I make him think of his sister, and we should encourage that side of him.