I’d still prefer to leave Nightlight the old-fashioned way, even if it means lying about being Avery’s father—but something switched in me when the Reverend said he wouldn’t let me leave. However I make it home, I’d feel safer doing it with some evidence in tow. Something I could shut down Nightlight with, or at least prove the Reverend did something—anything—illegal. When I leave Nightlight, I need this to be the last time I ever have to deal with him.

“How do you know Ricky’s file is still here?” Molly asks. “If it’s missing, they probably got rid of it.”

“Maybe they did, but we don’t have anything else to go on.”

Then Marcos, that lovely tall boy with the slicked-back hair, swirls 180 degrees, halting us in our tracks. Sweat rains down Marcos’s cheeks under his black-rimmed glasses as he growls, “BE QUIET. And I don’t mean talk quieter, I mean zip it. Darcy got herself a week in the bunker for poking around in old camper files, and the bunker sucks—believe me. Y’all want to escape or snoop or whatever, fine. I can’t stop you and I’m done trying. Just let me get back to class without you getting us caught first.”

Marcos could beat me up if he had it in him. I’ve had a few bullies in my time who were nowhere near as big as Marcos, but they could still pummel the shit out of me. One of them—Jason—used to be my best friend in second grade. I didn’t realize it then, but Jason was the first boy I fell in love with. Years later, he called me a fag for looking at him too long during P.E.

Goddamn, is that why I feel like puking whenever I get close to Ario or Marcos?

I haven’t thought about Jason in years, not until this exact minute staring at Marcos Carrillo’s terrified, furious face in the jungle. And how easily his smiling could turn violent for me. “No more talking,” he whispers. “Got it?”

“Whatever you say, Buddy Holly,” I say, desperate to lighten this tension between us.

“You making fun of me?” His tone steps unexpectedly into a puddle of hurt. Self-consciously, he fiddles with his fifties-style rimmed glasses and continues, lunge after lunge, away from me into the forest.

“No, I wasn’t making fun! I’m just trying to be cute—”

Behind me, Molly smacks my arm like she spotted a wasp. “What are you doing?” she demands. “We’re in a ton of trouble here, and you’re trying to hook up with this guy?”

“I have a boyfriend,” I say, shaking Ario’s recorder defensively, as if that was even her point, as if I wasn’t blatantly flirting with Marcos.