“I knew you’d be happy, Lizzie,” Mike said, tossing her a grapefruit.

“We haven’t had fruit in ages,” she said, her pitch rising with every word. “I hope this all keeps for a few weeks.”

Mike led us out of the room, leaving Lizzie to coo over the pineapples and oranges. “Let’s go upstairs. He should be done meeting with the security team by now. Hayes handles hits, but Olivia—you’ll meet her—coordinates watch duty around the perimeter of the camp. If you want, I can talk to her about getting you assigned there.”

He looked down at Zu. “But unfortunately for you, my dear, everyone under thirteen has to sit through lessons.”

That caught Chubs’s attention. “What kinds of lessons?”

“School stuff, I guess. Math, a little science, some reading—depends on whatever books we were able to scrounge. It’s important to the boss that everyone gets the basics down.” Mike stopped at the top of the stairs and looked over his shoulder. “I know you never liked using them, but there are lessons on how to use your abilities, too.”

Chubs cleared his throat behind me. “I’m fine with what Jack taught me.”

“Jack…” Mike’s voice trailed off. “Man, I miss that kid.”

On our walk over, he had explained that there were five kids from Caledonia living in the Slip Kid’s camp. Mike was the only one from Liam’s old room, but there were two Blue girls, one Yellow boy, and a Green who had somehow made it all the way to eastern Virginia.

The second story of the building was more of an attic; the entire floor was one open room, but it was a nice one. Mike knocked on the door, waiting for the “Come in,” before daring to twist the handle. I heard Chubs let out a nervous squeak, and I was surprised to feel my own heart skip a beat.

The door opened to the middle of the room. To the right was a white curtain, drawn all the way over to hide what I thought was probably the living area. The window behind the curtain let in enough afternoon light to hint at the shape of a bed and dresser.

The other half of the room was set up like an office. There were two bookshelves filled with binders and books of every shape and size. An old metal desk with peeling black paint sat in between. There were two simple chairs in front of the desk, and a long table pushed to the far left wall, with all sorts of electronic equipment. A TV was on, set to one of the news channels. President Gray’s face filled the screen, flanked by two American flags. His mouth moved, but the TV had been muted. The only sound, aside from Chubs’s sharp intake of breath, was Clancy Gray’s fingers striking the keys of the sleek silver laptop.

I would have recognized him even if he had shaved his head of thick, wavy black hair—if he had tattooed his cheeks, or pierced his long, straight nose. I had spent six years staring up at every single one of his portraits at Thurmond, memorizing every mole, the shape of his thin lips—I was even intimately familiar with the peak of his hairline. But it was nothing like seeing the real thing. Those portraits hadn’t captured his dark eyes, and they certainly hadn’t been able to predict how striking he’d turn out to be as he aged.