I rubbed my forehead, trying to force out the images flittering through my mind. “Did she actually tell you this?”

“Tell me—tell me, you mean?” He kept his eyes straight ahead, but I saw his hands choke the wheel. “No. She wrote it out in bits and pieces. I haven’t heard her say a single word since…”

“Since the breakout?” I finished. I felt relieved in spite of everything I knew. “It’s a choice, then, not something they did to her.”

“No, it has everything to do with what they did, and it’s not a choice,” Liam said. “I think maybe the most frustrating feeling in the world is to have something to say but not know how to put it into words. To have lived through something but not be able to get it out of you before it festers. I mean, you’re right—she can talk, and maybe one day she will. After everything I’ve put her through, after what happened…I just don’t know.”

It was the most frustrating feeling in the world, second only to the inherent helplessness that came with being trapped in a camp, all of your decisions made for you. After what had happened with Sam, I didn’t say a word for almost a full year; there was just no way to vocalize that kind of pain.

The radio jumped as we lost the station’s signal, switching through a Spanish language channel, then to one with classical music, before finally settling on the dry, nasally voice of a man reading the news.

“…to inform you that initial reports indicate that four separate explosions were set off this morning in Manhattan’s subway…”

Liam’s finger shot out to switch the channel, but I changed it right back.

“—though confirmation has been slow to come out of the city, we believe these explosions were not nuclear or biological in nature, and were concentrated around midtown, where President Gray was rumored to be in hiding after the most recent attempt on his life.”

“League, West Coast, or fake?” Chubs’s sleepy voice floated up behind us.

“Our sources indicate that President Gray and his cabinet believe this to be the work of the Federal Coalition.”

“Federal Coalition?” I repeated.

“West Coast,” the boys answered together. Chubs elaborated. “Based out of Los Angeles. They’re the section of the government that survived the D.C. bombings and weren’t crazy about the idea of Gray disregarding that whole two-term limit they had set up. They’re mostly talking heads since the military sided with Gray, obviously.”

“Why is Gray in New York and not Washington?” I asked.

“They’re still rebuilding the Capitol and the White House, only it’s not going so well since, you know, they defaulted on all of their debt,” Liam said. “He spread the government out between Virginia and New York for its protection. To make sure none of the fugitive Psi groups or the League got any ideas about wiping it all out at once.”

“So the Federal Coalition…they’re against the camps? The reform program?”