She doesn’t deny it. She looks at me, letting me connect the dots.

“You gave me the phone to spy on me.”

Emi doesn’t flinch. “That’s not entirely true.”

At least she doesn’t lie.

“I also wanted to make sure you were safe and give you a way to get ahold of me if you needed it.”

“You saw me make a Twitter account. Pretend to be part of the Swarm.”

She stares at me in a way that looks apologetic. I never considered she’d have access to my Internet history when I looked up each of the men from the Lakefront Project and their kids, all of whom were in the Swarm. “Did you figure out how the kids are connected?” I think of Ryan. If he were alive, she could’ve incriminated him and every other kid forced to participate. Like Amy London.

Emi nods.

I couldn’t handle Ryan being the center of a media frenzy, getting dissected. “If you expose them, I’ll find a way to discredit you.”

“I have no interest in revealing them.”

Streetlights along Lake Shore Drive blur by. My head buzzes like the leftover high of sucking too much helium. My eyes burn. It’s only a matter of time before my lungs start tightening and the rest of my body shuts down. Like it always does.

I sink farther into the chair. “Where are we going?”

Emi switches from serious mode to game plan mode. She grabs her purse from the front seat and takes her black diamond earrings off. “You and your mom will be staying at the Peninsula tonight.”

“I want to go home—”

Emi interrupts. “It’ll be safer until Richard is in custody, which should be after we go live.” She drops her earrings into her purse. “You have a suite.” She puts a pearl earring into each ear. “The suite will be blocked off from the rest of the hotel. You and your mom have a separate entrance with tight security.”

Of course Emi would arrange for a separate entrance leading up to a prestigious hotel room. Everything she does is over the top.

“I have a friend there,” she says, like she knows what I’m thinking.

“Must be some friend.”

“You’re about to be the girl who saved the city from the Death Mob’s tyranny. There will be plenty of people willing to help you out.”

“Is that why you want to be the reporter who breaks the story?”

She stops moving. “You have no idea what’s happening right now, do you?”

I look away feeling tired, spent.

“Your video went viral. By now, the whole world has seen your footage from inside the Swarm. It’s global news. Three of the five Initiators have already been identified.”

Something flutters inside me. “The one with the spikes in his lip?”