I think of my room littered with clothes, my underwear lying in the middle of my floor. “Tweezers are in the bathroom at the top of the stairs. Left drawer.” A hint of panic taints my voice, which I hope he doesn’t recognize.

If he stops at the guest bathroom, he won’t pass my room—if he’s even looking for tweezers at all. For all I know, he could be upstairs planting bugs or cameras around my room for the Swarm, who wants a tighter hold on my activity.

I listen to him rummage through the drawer in the bathroom. Then everything is still.

I hop off the arm of the couch and limp toward the front of our house. Just as I turn the corner to the hallway, I run into him. I stumble backward on my stupid injured foot. My leg buckles, and my hand flies out to brace myself against the wall. But Ryan catches me by the wrist. His grip is solid. It immediately steadies me.

He pulls me upright, one hand pressing against my right hip to balance me as if I might fall again. His hands are cool, drawing my attention to how thin my pajama pants are.

Goose pimples fan across my hip, my stomach.

I shake his hands away, grit my teeth, and hobble back to the couch. “I couldn’t hear you.” I fall into the couch and prop my leg on the coffee table.

Ryan sits on the edge of the table and lifts my foot. His hand is rough—from years of fighting, I imagine—but he’s gentle as he studies it. Maybe I should shake him away and kick him out, especially with my body overreacting every time he gets close. But with Emi’s claim that I’m lying, the Swarm could be on their way over to find out what I know. It suddenly makes being alone less appealing. As long as Ryan’s not the one here to kill me.

Ryan picks up the tweezers. “Were they showing clips of you and Cullen Henking?”

I try to avoid his eyes narrowed in concentration, the straight line of his lips.

“What are you talking about?”

“You threw a metal ball at your TV. I’m guessing you saw something you didn’t like.”

I tug at the bottom of my shirt to cover my midriff. Heat creeps up my neck at the thought of him seeing that charade with Cullen. I feel like I should defend myself, make it clear I would never actually date that pompous politician-in-training. Ryan and everyone else in Chicago must think I’m some flighty, superficial schoolgirl like all Cullen Henking groupies.

The tweezers grip the glass, which tugs at my skin. When he slides it out, my foot feels like it’s being sliced open. I clench my jaw, hoping he can’t tell how much it hurts.