The countdown on the device had disappeared, and suddenly his mother was there. He slid the device into his hoodie pocket and made wide eyes at his sister before turning to his mother. She looked surprised to see them together. “I was just checking on her,” Eli said.

“That’s very sweet of you,” she said, then added, “That was the nursing home. They said Grandpa’s feeling a little short of breath. So I think I’ll run over.”

“I’ll go,” Eli said, and stood with his hands in his pocket.

“Yeah?” his mother asked.

“Yeah.”

He didn’t want the device in his house. Not now, not ever again. He went to his room and packed it up and left.

Eden

EDEN

Mark texted. Passing by your block in a few. Can I come by?

Sure, she wrote, then got up and fixed her hair and put lip gloss on. Even though it was just Mark. Then wondered why she’d bothered.

She got an alert that the storage on her phone was almost full, so she deleted a bunch of stuff in her camera since it was all in the cloud anyway, then she got rid of a bunch of text conversations, then a bunch of old voice mails.

The doorbell rang and she let him in and she said, “Everything okay?”

He said, “Yeah. Heard about what happened at your school and just wanted to be sure you were okay and that … well …” He made his eyes wide.

She had her phone in her hand and turned it off. He did the same.

“For a second,” he said, “when I heard, I wondered if it was a bomb.”

“Well, it’s what someone thought was a bomb, so yeah, it’s what started the whole thing. And it played along, like put up a countdown. Like it wanted people to think it was a bomb.”

“That’s messed up,” he said.

“I know,” she said.

“You think maybe you’re in over your head?” He dropped his backpack onto the floor and sank into the couch.

“I have a plan,” she said. “For tonight.”

“What’s the plan?”

“I don’t feel like I should say.” She sat on the other end of the couch.

“Who has it now?”

“Eli,” she said.

“Where’s he live?”

“Not sure, exactly. Why?”

He looked bewildered for a second. “I have no idea why I asked you that.” He laughed.

“It sent a selfie I took, to that guy I was telling you about.” She started to cry. “Not a good kind of selfie.”

“Oh god, Eden,” he said. “I’m so sorry. What can I do?”

She shook her head—“Nothing”—and got up and got a tissue and blew her nose and wiped away tears, and he went to her and pulled her into a hug, and it felt so good that she didn’t want to let go.