“All right, then.” Agent Mellin stood, placing her phone in her blazer pocket. “Let’s have the final briefing with the Recruiters you’ll be working with and get you out there before noon.” She walked out the door, and we followed. Mitch was practically skipping, he was so excited. She kept talking as we walked. “For today’s test, you’ll have a GPS tracker. It’s installed in the lining of Agent Dusome’s bag. You’ll need to lure the targets close to the road for vehicular extraction.”

Hide, I silently screamed out the hallway windows as we passed. Hide as well as you can, then go even deeper. I imagined these three targets we were setting out to capture, like colorful birds in a skeletal tree, without cover, out in the wide open. After these weeks on the inside, it seemed that there was nowhere to hide where the schools couldn’t find you. Why did we bother to run? Why not just lie down on the soft ground and take in the stars while you could?

This feeling, this bubbling of despair, was something I wasn’t used to. The old French, even at the worst of times, even in the face of death, always had hope. Now there was a heft to life, a weight I wasn’t sure anyone could bear. How did people move underneath it? Maybe the Recruiters’ steps were so clunky out in the woods because they couldn’t bend their knees under the buckle. Maybe the schools’ structures were so bland because why bother with design when the people no longer look up?

I watched my feet as they took the steps, and then we were on the loading dock on the first floor and a van was waiting, the back doors open like a mouth.

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When we reached our drop point, we hopped out and watched the van drive off. It made me nervous how quiet it was, so dark and so silent, like a shadow moving under the trees. I listened close for any tells, anything I could remember for later. I’d have to teach the group about this new threat. There was no chrome, nothing shiny on it. Even the side mirrors and windows had been coated matte so that the sun wouldn’t bounce off their surfaces. The only sound it made was the crunch and push of tires over ground, like chewing. There was a new monster in the woods.

“’S go.” Mitch tapped my elbow, and we turned into the trees. I eyed the bag on his back as he walked ahead, looking for any sign of the GPS tracker. It felt like he was carrying a bomb. He kind of was.

I wasn’t expecting to feel anything to rival the dread marinating my limbs and pooling in my guts. I wasn’t expecting to react to the forest. I’d grown numb after so many days on the inside. But as soon as my feet left the asphalt crumble of the road, as soon as my lungs were full of green and my ears full of chirp and trill, I felt it.