Was it low tide? High? Was a person expected to know these things? Did Marwan?

The sun shifted and sparked a skyscraper across the river—creating a sort of second sun. Eden had to squint and adjust to the new light.

“There,” Marwan said, standing and turning to her. “The park’s super busy so technically it’s sort of attended, just not by us. It’s not in a bag. I don’t think it’ll get wet at this distance. Someone will maybe find it in the next fourteen hours, so technically it’s changing hands. We’re covered.”

“I don’t know about this,” Eden said, wanting to be rid of it, sure, but … “What if Eli’s right, and it’s not from school, and it’s this really expensive thing?”

His deep brown eyes were calm. “Well, whoever owns it shouldn’t have trusted us with it. And anyway if they’re watching, they can just come and get it.”

He walked back up to the angry tree, then started to walk off, pushing his bike up the hill. She sort of couldn’t believe he was leaving it—and her—again. And she hated that he rode a bike; nobody in their right mind should bike in this city. He stopped and turned around.

“You coming?” he called out to her.

Eden hesitated.

Knowing it was there would haunt her.

But if she threw it into the water like Marwan had wanted to, maybe it would float away and wash ashore somewhere in the Bronx or on Roosevelt Island and become someone else’s problem. Or maybe it would sink and that would be the end of it. Maybe in a few months or years they’d see a commercial for some new tech company’s home device and they’d recognize it and look back and laugh about it—about how they’d all been a little spooked.

“Eden,” Marwan called out. “Please just leave it.”

She nodded.

He walked with her to the train—several long avenues—in silence.

They stopped to part ways on the sidewalk by the station steps.

Someone had spray-painted a blue stencil of the earth and the words Save Yo Planet on the sidewalk.

Their phones both dinged.

The message was from an unknown number broken up with weird dingbats and symbols: WHY DID MARWAN DO THAT TO ME?

Eden saw in his eyes that Marwan had gotten the same message.

“I’m not falling for it,” he said. Then, “My phone is really hot.”

The device was texting them?

He passed his phone to his other hand. “Like crazy hot.”

Eden reached out and touched it; it was burning up, like it had been left in the sun for hours. “Weird,” she said. “Maybe power it down?”

He looked at it for another long second while Eden waited. “I’m locked out.”

“What?” she said.

“My fingerprint isn’t working. Neither is my pass code.”