“Vigilantes?” Slopper screwed up his face. “Who is that?”

Miig sighed, pushing his back against the wall. “There’s always vigilantes. They’re groups of citizens who decide to take matters into their own hands.”

“They’re bad down here.” Rania rubbed her forehead against her shoulder. “People aren’t happy the government doesn’t support mass experimentation or the collecting of Indigenous donors for the dream deficient. So they do it on their own. But how the hell did they know we were coming?”

“Never mind that now. How the hell do we get out of here?” Zheegwon bent his head to examine Tree’s restraints. “Yours are rope, the nylon kind. Better get to work…”

“We have to mind it now!” Rania was growing frantic. “Do you know how many shipments the network makes every week? We’re talking about hundreds of people. We need to plug the leak now. I need to get word back.” She looked around the space. There was nothing visible that could possibly help, not unless she planned on swimming back and needed a life jacket.

“We can only do that if we get out.” Zheegwon was steady, especially for a guy who had already suffered at hands of “regular citizens” along with his brother before Miig found them hanging in a barn with pieces cut out of them. He tried to reach Tree’s restraints with his teeth. Tree took over speaking without pause. “So, you think someone talked?”

“Someone had to have talked.” Rania shrugged, “But who would do that? I can’t think of anyone in the network…”

Wab, who was not tied up inside the cage, turned to lie on her side and cleared her throat. “French, what happened to your brother, though, for real? Could he have, I don’t know, been captured and interrogated?”

“No.” My voice was low, but everyone leaned in to listen. Obviously, they’d had their own conversation about this already. A missing kid doesn’t exactly go unnoticed. “Not a chance.”

“I’m not saying he’s a rat, I’m just thinking maybe they, like, forced it out of him,” she continued. “Maybe—”

“He’s dead.” I spat it out. “He died before anyone could get to us. Like I said, not a chance.”

Chi Boy made eye contact with her, and the twins stopped fidgeting.

“What happened?” Slopper’s mouth was agape.

“This is a good time to remember that we tell our own stories when we are ready,” Miig interjected. “This is part of Frenchie’s coming back story, a part that is painful and wholly his. All we need to know is that French knew Recruiters were on the way, and that he got us to safety, and that Mitch was not capable of sending word to any group that might have been down here, not while French was with him.”

I had to come clean. This was my family, and who knew if we’d even get out of here. I owed them the truth. At least Rose wasn’t here to hear it. I exhaled slow and loud. Here we go.