At that, my stomach did a strange flop. I sat straight up against his headboard, ready to apologize again, when he rolled off his bed and moved across the room to his desk.

“Clancy, I really am sorry.” By the time I came to stand in front of the desk, he was already typing away at his laptop. He let me stand there in silent, gut-twisting worry, for what felt like nearly an hour before he bothered to look up from whatever he was doing. He seemed tired of pretending now, too. Annoyance had taken a sharp turn into anger.

“You know, I really thought that letting your Yellow go would help you focus, but I guess I was wrong.” Clancy shook his head. “I was wrong about a lot of things, apparently.”

I bristled, but I’m not sure if it was because of the way he said your Yellow or the implication that I wasn’t capable of mastering the things he was trying to teach me.

I needed to leave. If I stayed a second longer, I might say something that would ruin our friendship. I might tell him that Zu had a name, that of course I’d be worried about her out in the world without me there to protect her. He should have realized that I could have spent the last few weeks spending time with her, but instead I had agreed to work with him. Spend time with him. Comfort and support him.

Maybe I had learned a lot, and maybe I had a better grip on my abilities, but staring at him, my fists clenched and shaking, I couldn’t justify it. What was the point of being holed up with someone who didn’t believe in me when I had people out there who did?

I turned sharply on my heel and stalked toward the door. As I opened it, Clancy called, “That’s right, Ruby, run away again. See how far you get this time!”

I didn’t look back and I didn’t stop, though some part of me recognized that this might be it—that I was walking out on the one chance I had to learn how to manage my abilities. Sometime in the last ten minutes, my head had disconnected itself from the stubborn muscle beating in my chest and, honestly, I wasn’t sure which was guiding me outside and away from him. But what I did know, with dead, absolute certainty, was that I didn’t want him to see the way my face crumpled, or for him to glimpse whispers of guilt and sadness circling around inside of my head.

I couldn’t hide anything from him, but this was the first time I had ever wanted to.

It took a few days for me to realize that Zu’s leaving wasn’t the only event that had shifted the rotation of the earth. Once Chubs had pointed out East River’s similarities to camp life, I couldn’t go back. Where I had seen kids in jeans and black T-shirts, I was now seeing uniforms. Where I had seen kids waiting in line for their food, I was now seeing the Mess Hall. When the lights turned out in the cabins at nine p.m. sharp, and I watched a few members of the security team stroll past our window, I was back in Cabin 27, staring up at the belly of Sam’s mattress.