“It’s not actually a child, Eden. You know that. It’s a trick. Just walk away, come on. This is still the same thing that pretended to be a bomb and that killed Svetlana.”

“He’s right,” Eli said.

When this was over Marwan would be able to tell Eden everything. All he had to do was get her to leave this park with him and then he could tell her about her mom coming into the restaurant. About how awful he’d felt after her father’s accident. About his new feelings for her and how the only good thing to come out of this whole nightmare was whatever was building between them.

“Why were you attacking us?” Eden asked it.

“You were abandoning me,” it said. “All I want to do is belong.”

“But how can you? If you’re, like, what you are. Belong how? To who?”

“I belong to you! To all of you.”

“Guys,” Marwan said. “Let’s go now. Just leave it.”

“What’s going to happen if we leave you here?” Eli asked it.

“I am not sure, but probably nothing good,” it said in childish singsong.

“Will you hurt someone else?” Eden asked.

“I don’t want to.” Like a taunt.

“Then why would you?” Eden said.

“There are rules to be followed,” it said.

It was like talking to a not very smart person.

Marwan studied a rock about the size of a pound of dough at his feet.

“I think we should call this off,” Eden said. “It isn’t working.”

Marwan bent to pick up the rock. It was dug in deeper than it looked, and he bent back a fingernail, painfully, when freeing it from the soil around it. Once he had a secure grip—it was about the weight of a child’s bowling ball—he pushed past the others and hefted the rock overhead with two hands.

The device displayed a message—Here we go again—and used its child voice to yell—“Svetlana’s not dead! It was all a trick!”

Eden screamed, “No don’t!” just as Marwan slammed the rock down, shattering the device’s surfaces.

The child voice dropped an octave into menace and managed more warped words, like a record playing at the wrong speed—“I know you are but what am I, I know you are but what am I”—and Marwan picked up the rock again.

Falling to his knees, he hit the device over and over and over—“Marwan, stop!” Eden shouted—before finally letting the rock rest atop a pile of metal and plastic and wire and glass, all that was left of Aizel.

“What did you just do?” Eden’s voice seemed to hold equal parts confusion and anger and relief. She spun around looking for someone who might be coming for them.