“I know!” Connor said. “I’m not an idiot. I just mean— I wish I could have . . .”

He didn’t finish the sentence. He wanted to think he could have done something about it, protected his brother, helped him, stopped the bad man from hurting him, even if the bad man was his father.

“It’s okay, Ash,” Solomon said. Then he turned to Connor. “Honestly, for the longest time, I didn’t remember any of this. I had blocked it out, too. I was ashamed. I felt like it was my fault, at least a little bit. Ash and I used to joke about having crushes on your dad. For a long time I thought I’d said or done something to make him think I—I wanted it.”

“Don’t say that,” I snapped.

“Don’t tell him what to say!” Connor snapped back.

A bell clanged, out on a buoy. Seagulls screaked by overhead in the ultramarine sky. The world was very beautiful, and very ugly.

I could see things differently, ever since I’d returned from (the other side) that weird dream under the giant bridge. Like the Truth was closer now. Just out of reach.

“It had been happening for about a year,” Solomon said. “The night Ash saw us—that was the last time. He got spooked, I think. He wasn’t sure what you had seen—what you’d remember. Whether you’d say anything. And then I ran away. . . .”

“Oh, Solomon,” I whispered, and my hand went to my mouth. It was stained and stinking from photo chemicals. It felt like a whole other reality, the darkroom and the photos I’d developed.

But I’d done it. Somehow. Channeled the feeling; fed it, stoked it, pushed it out through my fingertips. And I’d captured images of each member of the team taking part in his Induction Ceremony. Graffiti, arson, all of it. They were blurry, sometimes, or awkwardly cropped, but real, and convincing. When I switched on the full, bright fluorescent overhead light, the pictures hadn’t gone away. Solomon saw only portraits, but I saw. I knew.

And the photos were good, too. Some of them were great, even. They captured something real and vital and complex about each player.

Maybe—somehow—someday—when all of this is over—I could go back to Cass. I could have a future in this.

“You really didn’t remember anything?” Connor asked me, and then hastened to add, “Not that it was on you either.”

“Those days, in the hospital and afterward . . . ,” I said. “They’re still fuzzy. I remember being scared. And confused. I knew something awful had happened, but I didn’t know what. I had these nightmares, so vivid I couldn’t tell them apart from reality. Monsters running through the streets. Bloody broken glass.”

“Me too,” Solomon said.

“Did your mom know?” Connor asked, looking at his feet, at the rocks, at anything but his brother.