Fort sighed deeply and moved to get in line for food, ignoring the question. He grabbed a tray and slammed it down on the counter, not even sure who he was most angry at: Gabriel for asking more questions, Agent Cole for catching him, or himself for betraying his friends in the first place.

Himself. Definitely himself. With Agent Cole a close second.

After choosing something that he hoped was oatmeal, Fort slumped into a seat next to Gabriel, where he could still see his friends. Only Cyrus seemed to be looking, and he waved at Fort like he wanted to say something, but Rachel grabbed his hand and pulled it back down to the table.

Great.

“Listen,” Gabriel said. “I get that you don’t want to tell me what happened, and I accept that. But here’s what you don’t realize: I’ll stop asking about it if you tell me. That’s called a win-win.”

Fort dropped his head into his hands, groaning softly. “You know what? Fine. Here’s what happened: I did something… not so great. I lied to them about it so that they wouldn’t be in dan—in trouble too. And now they’re a little upset about it all. Understandably.”

Gabriel nodded, then dug into his own cereal. “And which part involves our room getting searched?”

Fort didn’t look up. “That’s somewhere in there too.”

“Are they going to find anything?”

“No,” Fort said, probably too angrily. “Because there isn’t anything to find, okay?”

“Smart,” Gabriel said. “But back to the death looks from behind me, it sounds like, if I’m hearing your incredibly vague description right, you were trying to protect your friends. Considering what’s going on in our room, you had good reason to. What’s the problem, then?”

Fort frowned. “The problem is that I didn’t tell them the truth. I lied to them.”

Gabriel took another bite. “Would they have gotten pulled away by agents too, if you’d told them the truth?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I wasn’t going to take that chance.”

“Then I still don’t see the problem,” Gabriel said, flying through his cereal. “You were trying to protect people you cared about, so don’t sit there and tell me you did anything wrong. You watched out for your friends, and they’re only mad because they wanted to watch out for you, too. But you did the right thing here. You kept them safe, even if it meant them getting mad at you. That takes guts.”

Fort frowned. “I guess. But—”