“Yeah. ‘The.’ After Braedan got exiled for possessing reflective material, I made it my personal mission to hunt down every black market dealer on the island. I went undercover, again and again, to locate the proof my mom needed to arrest them.”

“And exile them,” I say, anger quickening in my gut. “Sam Garcia, did you arrest him too? He was underage. Seventeen. And your mom made him walk Valkyrie Bridge.” I remember the way I felt when the officers started dragging him toward the fog, when I saw the panic in his eyes. Not that I’d liked the guy, or even known him—but no one deserved what he’d had to face. Or what we’re facing now.

Elliott’s arm is resting next to the window. His hand curls into a fist. “His business put the whole island in danger.”

“You didn’t hunt him down, hunt any of us down, because we put the island in danger,” I accuse, my fingernails digging into the steering wheel’s leather. The speedometer starts creeping up again, and I have to force myself to slow back down to fifty. “You did it because you wanted revenge for your brother. Because you wanted to make your mom proud of you, wanted to protect her from us just like you ‘protected’ her from that politician—even though she, not the mirror dealers, was the one who fed Braedan to the Beings. Do you still want to make her proud, now that she’s exiled you, too?”

“Shut up,” he warns, his voice low, his eyes on the road.

“No,” I say more loudly, the anger sparking and brightening. “You helped her put dozens of people on that bridge. Your blind loyalty to her makes you just as bad as any dealer—”

“No,” Elliott snaps, and stabs a finger at the window. “Shut up, and look.”

There’s another green road sign just ahead. I glance at it—and slam my foot on the brakes.

The car fishtails. The smell of burning tires filters into the Camaro. We come to a stop a few yards past the sign.

My hands are clamped like a vise on the wheel. My foot is still on the brake pedal, bearing it all the way to the floor. I turn my head and look outside: towering pencil-thin pines, clumps of tufted wire grass, two-lane asphalt highway, fog. Nothing unusual.

Except for that sign. I only had a second to read it, but it was enough.

Elliott and I look at each other silently. After a long moment, I shift gently into reverse, take my foot off the brake, and ease the car backwards. The back of the sign approaches. I keep going until we can see the lettering on the front. I read it.

YOU DID IT BECAUSE YOU WANTED REVENGE FOR YOUR BROTHER, the sign reads, in reflective white lettering on the green background.

CHAPTER SEVEN