Back in the room, my dad has set up some of his equipment. There’s a laptop open on the bed, a program scanning news headlines running. He’s already trying to figure out our next move. It’s late, well past midnight, and I haven’t slept. Still, badly as I want to hook up with the Garde, I was hoping our next move could be a stack of pancakes at the nearest diner.

“Anything?” I ask, squinting at the laptop.

My dad isn’t paying the program any attention. He’s sitting against the wall, still clutching that cheap cell phone, looking indecisive. He glances listlessly over at the laptop. “Not yet.”

“He probably won’t call until he’s someplace safe,” I say. I reach down to ease the phone out of his hand, but he pulls it away.

“It’s not that,” he says. “There’s another phone call we need to make. I’ve been thinking about what to say the entire time you were in the shower, and I still don’t know.”

His thumb traces out a familiar pattern on the phone’s keypad, like he’s working himself up to actually dialing. I’m so locked into this idea of finding the Garde and fighting the Mogadorians that, at first, I’m not even sure who he’s talking about. When it dawns on me, I thump down on the bed, feeling as speechless as my father.

“We have to call your mother, Sam.”

I nod, agreeing, but not really knowing what I’d say to Mom at this point. The last time she saw me, I’d just been in a fight with Mogadorians in Paradise and run off into the night with John and Six. I think I yelled that I loved her over my shoulder. Not my most sensitive exit, but I really did think I’d be back soon. I never dreamed I’d be taken prisoner by a race of hostile aliens.

“She’s going to be pretty mad, huh?”

“She’s mad at me,” my dad says. “Not you. She’ll just be happy to hear your voice and know you’re safe.”

“Wait—you saw her?”

“We stopped in Paradise before heading to New Mexico. It’s how I found out you were missing.”

“And she’s all right? The Mogs didn’t go after her?”

“Apparently not, but that doesn’t mean she’s all right. It’s been hard for her with you gone. She blamed me and she’s not entirely wrong about that. She wouldn’t let me in the house, understandably, so we had to sleep in my bunker.”

“With the skeleton?”

“Yes. Another one of my memory gaps—I’ve got no idea who those bones belong to.” My dad narrows his eyes at me. “Don’t change the subject.”