Hatch lumbers off. My eyes trail after him. “Not sure I like that he’s sleeping one room over,” I whisper.

Clay’s face creases with anger and he bares his teeth. “If I had my way, he’d be taking thumb rides back home. He’s a motherless bastard.” He glances at me when he swears, but continues. “My pa says he’s worth his weight in muscle. I say he’s taken one too many kicks in that boulder he calls a head.” The veins pulse down Clay’s forearms as he squeezes his fists. “I don’t like the way he looks at you.”

Clay takes a step to the door, but I grab his arm. My fingertips trace over the skin of his wrist before I let go. My hand’s on fire.

“Wait,” I say, breathless. “What happens now?”

His eyes track from my face toward where his pa waits for him. “We got an errand and then we’re going home.”

“Home?”

“When my pa found us, he tried to sweet talk me first. Guess he knew force wouldn’t do no good. I’m a better shot than both him and his man put together and he didn’t want it to get to that. So …” He pauses and blows out his breath. “We struck a deal.”

I narrow my eyes.

Clay curls his fingers over the hem of his shirt. “My pa said I won’t have to go on raids or trade with the road gangs. Just keep order in town. I told him he’d have to take you and Ethan in.” He lets his eyes wander back to the fire before they flicked up to my face. “Everything’s worked out okay, though. You’re free and Ethan’s got a place to grow up. And all I have to do is agree never to run away again.” Clay’s eyes are distant, looking out my window onto the moonlit landscape.

I shake my head. “We can’t go home. My mama’s at the Breeder’s hospital. They have her knocked out in this room with all these half-alive girls.” How can I describe the horror? I think of her in the pitch-black room, wires hooked to her chest, the tube taped to her mouth. I wince and shake the image away. “We gotta get her out.” I look up, pleadingly into his eyes. “We gotta.”

He blinks, processing. He reaches for my hand. “Riley, I’m sorry—”

The Sheriff’s voice cuts through the room. “Clay!” his father bellows. “Get your ass in here!”

He shoots a look down the hall. His hand, hovering inches from mine, drops to his side. “I’ll be back,” he says, turning.

“Clay, wait.”

He glances back with a look I don’t quite understand. His heavy footsteps echo down the hall as he walks away from me.