“Everyone, I know you’re upset, and if you ask me, you have a right to be. But Caleb Jones is one of us, as much as any of you.”

“That’s easy for you to say.” Milo was standing with Sam and Belle now. “You were the one outside.”

A murmur of agreement flickered through the crowd. Alicia eyed at the man coolly, allowing the moment to pass.

“You have a point there, Milo. If not for Hightop, I’d be dead. So if you were maybe thinking about doing something to him, I’d think long and hard.”

“What are you going to do?” Sam sneered. “Stick us all with that cross?”

“No.” Alicia frowned, not seriously. “Just you, Sam. I thought I’d take Milo here on the blade.”

A nervous laugh from a few of the men; but it just as quickly died. Milo had taken a step back. Peter, still at the edge of the crowd, realized his hand had dropped to his blade. Everything seemed to depend on what would happen next.

“I think you’re bluffing,” Sam said, his eyes held tightly on Alicia’s face.

“Is that so? You must not know me very well.”

“The Household will put him out. You wait and see.”

“You could be right. But that’s not for either of us to decide. Nothing’s happening here except you upsetting a lot of people for no reason. I won’t have it.”

The crowd had grown suddenly silent. Peter felt their uncertainty; the momentum had shifted. Except for Sam, and maybe Milo, their anger had no weight. They were simply afraid.

“She’s right, Sam,” Milo said. “Let’s get out of here.”

Sam’s eyes, burning with righteous anger, were still locked on Alicia’s face. The cross had yet to move from Alicia’s side, but it didn’t have to. Peter, standing behind the two men, still had his hand on his blade. Everyone else had moved away.

“Sam,” Dale said, finding his voice again, “please, just go home.”

Milo reached for Sam then, meaning to take him by the elbow. But Sam jerked his arm away. He appeared rattled, as if the touch of Milo’s hand had nudged him from a trance.

“All right, all right. I’m coming.”

It wasn’t until the two men had disappeared into the maze of trailers that Peter allowed himself to expel the breath of air he realized he’d been holding in his chest. Just a day ago, he never would have imagined that such a thing was possible, that fear could turn these people—people he knew, who did their work and went about their lives and visited their children in the Sanctuary—into an angry mob. And Sam Chou: he’d never seen the man so angry. He’d never seen him angry at all.

“What the hell, Dale?” Alicia said. “When did this start?”