I startle. Some guy is walking right next to me—tall, brawny, with a superhero-esque square jaw and pretty-boy blond hair. He’s around my age, maybe a year older. When he catches my flinch a glimmer of satisfaction sparks in his blue eyes.

I dislike him instantly.

He waits for me to ask the obvious questions: who is he, what’s he doing, et cetera. “What’s the signal?” I ask instead, belligerently.

Something that might someday have aspirations of becoming a smile flits around the corners of his mouth. “You’ll know it when you see it.”

I narrow my eyes and study him more closely. He looks a tiny bit familiar, but then nearly everyone does after more than a year of being stranded in a cut-off island city with the same three thousand other people. I’m pretty sure I’ve never talked to this guy before, though, which is why I’m suspicious that he apparently wants to help me. If he’s a law-abiding citizen, he wouldn’t offer to help anyone escape the cops. If he’s not law-abiding, I would’ve made his acquaintance before now.

I wait for him to tell me what he wants. The cops get closer. Ginger is almost within grabbing distance, but he’s having trouble navigating through the people behind us, who are huddled together and talking loudly.

Pretty Boy is still striding along next to me, smiling that annoying not-smile, silent. He can afford to wait. I can’t. This whole conversation—if you can call it that—is a subtle tug-of-war, and he’s going to win.

But if he really is willing to help me escape, that’s a trade I have no choice but to take.

“And what do you want in return for helping me out?” I ask at last, in a low voice so Ginger won’t overhear.

Pretty Boy doesn’t acknowledge the point he’s scored by making me speak first. “I know what you sell,” he says instead, “and I want to buy.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I lie coolly—but my brain is moving racecar-fast, trying to figure out how he knows I’m a dealer. There are rumors about me, sure, but there’re rumors about everyone in this tiny town. The only people who have actual reason to suspect me are the cops. He’s too young to be one of them, and he doesn’t look stupid enough to be a rat either. And all my current clients know better than to refer someone without asking me first.

But if he is a potential new customer and he’s desperate enough to approach me in broad daylight with the cops barely a dozen feet away … I could make some real money off him.