Smiling to herself, she carried her tray with a few helpings of vegetables and sliced turkey to a table by the windows where Sarah sat with Alisha.

“Room for a third?” she said.

“Please,” Sarah said, indicating one of the two empty chairs.

Campers filled a third of the room, boys and girls mostly segregated, likely by choice, into adjacent tables, many of them surreptitiously eyeing one another. Lily flashed back to what those obligatory school and family social affairs had been like where her girlfriends would be watching the boys, and she more likely would be watching them. She shook her head. “I would not want to be a teenager again for anything.”

Sarah and Alisha both laughed.

“How is everyone doing?” Lily asked.

“About half the kids are returners,” Sarah said as she sipped a carbonated water. “They’re helping the newbies get acquainted and oriented, and so far pretty much everybody’s happy to be here.” She laughed. “It’s the young ones who usually panic the first night away from home—along with their parents. These are teenagers and far too cool for that.”

“They might act cool, but I’m not sure everyone is pleased to be here,” Lily said. “I ran into Ms. Langford—who said to call her Ford—this afternoon. What is her first name, by the way?”

“Giovanna,” Sarah said. “And she is definitely not happy to be here.”

“Is it some kind of disciplinary thing?” Lily asked.

“Not according to her mother,” Sarah said. “Mostly, I think, from a few veiled references her mother let slip, her family is concerned she’s been moving outside her social circle, and they wanted to break those connections.”

Alisha sighed. “As if that ever really works. Trying to keep people away from their chosen friends generally just makes them work harder to see them.”

“I suppose if she’s here, at least, that’s not going to be possible,” Lily said.

“Unless she goes AWOL,” Sarah muttered.

“What about her security? Is she staying?” Alisha asked.

“That remains an open question,” Sarah said. “I think Julia Latoya and Chase will have to work that out. Or their bosses will. Technically, they’re all part of the same law enforcement department, as the DEC falls under the banner of state police.”

“That might explain why the change in assignments to base Chase here,” Alisha said. “Giovanna’s father probably wanted female security for her.”

Sarah sat back in her chair, her expression resigned. “That would make a lot of sense. I feel sorry for Chase. It’s an assignment she definitely is not going to want.”

Lily nodded in sympathy. “I got that feeling too.”

Sarah looked at her quickly, and Lily flushed. Why she didn’t know. “I talked with her a few moments after the meeting earlier.”

“I see,” Sarah said in a way that made Lily wonder what Sarah thought she understood. “Chase isn’t one to do a lot of talking.”

Still not sure what Sarah meant to imply, Lily said neutrally, “She mentioned she much prefers being out on patrol to anything else.”