It’s on, I thought through the haze of panic, searching for something else to smash it with. It’s recording.

I didn’t remember calling for her, but Zu appeared at my side in an instant, stuffing something under the front of her oversized sweatshirt. She must have recognized it, too, because before I could even get another word in, she was pulling off one of her yellow rubber gloves and reaching toward it.

“Don’t—!”

I’d never seen a Yellow use their abilities before. I’d suffered the aftereffects, of course—power outages across the camp, White Noise when the camp controllers thought one of them had done it on purpose. But they had been gone so long at Thurmond that I had stopped trying to imagine what it must have been like for them to speak the mysterious language of electricity.

Zu’s fingers had only brushed against it, but the camera began to let out a high-pitched whine. There was a bolt of white-blue that seemed to leap from her bare finger to the camera’s outer shell. That same crackling line whipped down over the plastic, causing it to smoke and warp under its heat.

Without warning, all of the lights in the RV flashed on, glowing so molten hot that they shattered. The vehicle began to cough and sputter, shaking under our feet, as its engine found itself miraculously revived after a long sleep.

Zu jammed her hand back into its glove and crossed her arms over her chest. She squeezed her eyes shut, as if willing it all to stop. But we didn’t have time to wait around and see if it would. I moved toward the door, grabbing the front of her sweatshirt to all but drag her out of the RV. She was still stumbling as I pulled her around to the end that faced the road, and Black Betty.

“Come on,” I said, not letting her slow. The brightness was gone from her face, blown out like a candle. “It’s okay,” I lied. “We just need to get the others.”

There was a camera installed in the front windshield of every trailer in that front row; I spotted them one by one as we ran back toward Betty. There was no point trying to get rid of them now. Whoever was going to see us had likely already seen us. We just had to get out of there, and fast.

They could be old, I tried telling myself, throwing Betty’s door open. They could have been installed years ago, in case of robberies. Who knew where the video they recorded was being sent? Maybe nowhere at all.

And at the same time, my heart was beating out a completely different track. They’re coming, they’re coming, they’re coming.

I thought about yelling for the others, but they could have been anywhere in the park. I climbed into the van after Zu and did the only other thing that seemed to made sense in that moment: I banged the heel of my palm against the wheel. The high whine of Betty’s horn shook the sleepy landscape awake. A cluster of birds flew up from the nearby trees, hitting the sky at the same moment I began beating out a faster, more insistent rhythm.