Izabel kissed her on the forehead as she let go of her, and then she immediately worried she’d crossed a line they’d never discussed.

    Chapter Twenty-Five

Jana fell asleep despite herself. The night was quiet. No rain or wind. When Cami began talking, it stood out clearly, but still everyone slept.

“He is out again,” she said. “He is near where you live.

“I don’t want to talk about him. I want to know if you’ve ever broken something.”

Jana began to wake up.

“Broken how?

“Like dropped something and it broke into pieces.

“No, I haven’t. Cami, this is important.”

Jana rushed to Izabel and Kaito’s room. She shouted, “She’s doing it again,” but she didn’t stay as they woke up.

Back in Cami’s room, Jana heard, “He is only one street away, one closer to where the sun rises.”

Jana grabbed her mask, ran to Izabel’s purse, grabbed the gun, and ran out the doors of the dome.

Izabel ran out of her room when she heard the sound of the doors. She heard Cami still talking. Kaito was a step behind her.

“Call Paz,” she told him.

“Where’s Jana?” he asked.

“I’m going to get her—call Paz.”

Izabel put her mask on and ran out the door. “Jana!” she yelled. Her voice was easier to hear than she thought it would be.

“He’s only one street away,” Jana yelled back. She was fast, cutting between houses. Izabel could just make her out in the dark. She saw the gun in her hand.

Izabel followed her. The concrete was rough against her bare feet. “We can’t be out here this long in these masks. You know that. Jana!”

And then Jana froze, ahead of Izabel, in the middle of the street. She raised the gun.

“What are you doing?” Izabel said, out of breath. But then she saw him, too. He was between two houses on the other side of the street, not moving. He had heard them. He was looking back at them.

“I’m going to kill him,” Jana said.

“If you miss, you’ll rip through a house and kill a family yourself,” Izabel said, finally reaching Jana, standing behind her.

Jana lowered the gun a little, then raised it again. “I have to try.”

Izabel started coughing and couldn’t stop, but she shook her head. Jana and Izabel both started to cry because of the pollen.

“We’ve been out here too long,” Izabel got out between coughs.

Jana stomped her foot quickly as if she were stamping out a small fire. She put the gun in Izabel’s hands. “Then you do it,” she said.

But once Izabel had the gun, she picked Jana up off the ground and ran with her.

Jana began kicking. She screamed, “We have to go back! He was right in front of us!”