“Nandita didn’t find me in a Walmart,” said Ariel through the window. Marcus had lulled himself with the sound of his own talking, and Ariel’s voice startled him out of his reverie. The curtains were closed, her voice muffled, but the words were clear. “She came to my house. My parents had been dead maybe twenty-four hours. She came and she took me away.”

Marcus furrowed his brow, trying to piece together the puzzle. “You think she may have known that you were there? That she came for you specifically?”

“I think she never let me say good-bye.”

Marcus turned to look at her, but the curtains were still drawn tight across the window. “I’m sorry,” he said. And then, because there wasn’t anything else to say: “That sucks.”

Ariel didn’t respond.

“The Partials are looking for her,” said Marcus. “They’re looking for Kira because of what she did a few months ago, I think, but they’re looking for Nandita because they think she knows something. She does know something—Ariel, I saw a photo, of Nandita and some dude with Kira in the middle. They were at a ParaGen complex. Whatever she knew, it had something to do with Kira, and the Partials have mounted a full assault on us in an attempt to find out what it is. If you know what any of this means . . . please, you have to tell us.”

There was no response, not for a while. Marcus could hear Ariel’s shallow breathing behind the curtain, and waited. It wasn’t like he had anywhere else to go.

“Nandita was a scientist,” said Ariel finally. “She did experiments.”

“On Kira?”

“On all of us.”

The inside of Ariel’s house was, Marcus discovered, full of planter boxes. “I didn’t know you were a gardener,” he said, his eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness. With so many Partial patrols out combing the island, Ariel had covered each window as thickly as possible.

“I grew up with Nandita,” she said. “Gardening’s one of the only things I know.”

“Is that why you hate her?”

Ariel’s voice dropped. “I told you why I hate her.”

“The experiments,” said Marcus. He looked at her. “Are you ready to talk about them?”

“No,” she said, looking off into the street. “But that doesn’t mean it’s not time to do it.” She closed the door, plunging the room into blackness.

Marcus let his eyes adjust, and focused on Ariel’s silhouette. “What kind of experiments? Why didn’t the other girls say anything about this?”