It’s late in the afternoon when I finally hear back from Dad, who’s been at work since he caught me in his office. He calls while I’m deep into researching a series of crop circles a few counties west of us, though I’m pretty sure that they’re just hoaxes and have nothing to do with actual aliens.

“Hi,” I say when I answer the phone. I’m not sure whether to expect to be yelled at or apologized to. Probably the first one.

Instead, I hear a long sigh on the other end of the line.

“Oh, thank God,” Dad says.

He sounds so relieved—what did he think had happened to me?

“What is it?” I ask.

“Where are you?”

“At home.”

“Good. Have you talked to Sarah?”

“Not since this morning.”

“Listen.” He pauses for a moment and then starts talking quieter. “Stay where you are. You can’t leave the house. I assume the agents took Sarah’s phone away from her for evidence, but if you can, get her a message telling her to stay put too. She’s a good girl. I always liked her. She shouldn’t be wrapped up in all this.”

“Dad, what’s going on?” My imagination is suddenly going wild and picturing Mogadorian ships landing all over Paradise—though I have no idea what they would even look like.

“I can’t really say. But something’s happened that’s causing the FBI to go crazy. It’s possible there might be one or two people we recently detained who are now unaccounted for. Seems like some weird stuff is going on over in Dumont where they were taken. I just want to make sure neither of you kids got any bright ideas of running away with your classmates if they wandered back through town.”

John and Sam. They’ve escaped.

That didn’t take long.

“I’ll stay here, Dad.”

Even as I say my good-byes, I’m on my computer, emailing Sarah.

Her response is an entire page of exclamation marks.

GUARD is the next person I contact. I’ve told him that one of my friends was brought in for questioning and that one of the Loric has been taken into custody. He’s happy to hear that John has escaped.

GUARD: AWESOME news. We need more good aliens out there.

JOLLYROGER182: DEF!

GUARD: I guess this means we know who the Feds are working for.

JOLLYROGER182: what do u mean?

GUARD: If the FBI was working with the Loric, he wouldn’t have had to escape, right?

I lean back in my chair. He’s right. Of course he’s right. If the FBI took John into custody and interrogated Sarah after the fact, they definitely aren’t working on our side.

JOLLYROGER182: shit

GUARD: You said it was Agent Purdy who was in on the investigation?

JOLLYROGER182: and some others. a woman named Walker too