Within a few minutes they were at the entrance to a park, where marshes stretched out toward the lights of the airport. An airplane appeared from the clouds, then disappeared into them again.

Eden had made a good choice. It’d be a huge hassle to come back out here to check on the thing. Eli knew he’d maybe be tempted but didn’t want to be.

It was about to be over.

“Here,” she said when the driver stopped the car in the parking lot. She handed him cash for the fare. “If you wait for us and bring us back, there’s another twenty for you on top of the fare.”

“How long?” the driver asked.

“Not long,” she said. “Fifteen minutes max?”

“Fine,” the driver said, and the three of them got out. “I’ll be parked over there,” he said, indicating the far side of the lot.

Eli followed Eden as she started down a jogging path. If she was nervous, she wasn’t acting it.

“How far are we going?” he asked her, Marwan trailing behind him.

“Just far enough that it’ll sink in soup, basically, is what I’m thinking.” She indicated her big rain boots. “I wore these. To help really push it in.”

Eli didn’t have boots like that and now feared the fate of his sneakers. Did they even make guy versions of boots like that? Hers were black with colored polka dots and seemed entirely too cute for this endeavor.

The air smelled like oil and mud and grass. Eden led them off the path and into some reedy plants that bent easily under their feet. Tall stalks had caught bits of litter bound for the water and held them up like gifts—a Snickers wrapper, the paper from a Filet-O-Fish, a disintegrating UPS slip, a tissue with blood on it or maybe just lipstick.

She turned, finally, and the wind blew her hair into her face and she pushed it away and she was backlit by lights from a distant plane on a runway. She looked like an entirely different person than she’d been when they’d all arrived at Mr. M’s room last week. Like there’d been a seismic shift in her bones that had altered her facial features tectonically.

A week ago he’d barely even talked to Eden or Marwan; now here they were ending the thing that had brought them together. It shouldn’t be sad, but Eli felt a little sad anyway; that something exciting had happened in his life and now it was over. He felt guilt at the thought because, well, Svetlana.

“This looks good to me,” Eden said, and she held out a hand.

Eli took the device out and studied it.

It was blank, quiet, and yet he felt sure it was aware.

Plotting.

He wanted to check on his sister, but there was no reasonable way to do that.