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?”

“About as soon as they moved Caleb over here.” Now that they were alone, the full magnitude of what had occurred, or almost occurred, could be read in Dale’s face. He looked like a man who had fallen from a great height only to discover that he was, miraculously, uninjured. “Flyers, I thought I was going to have to let them in. You should have heard the things they were saying before you got here.”

From inside the lockup came the sound of Caleb’s voice. “Lish? Is that you?”

Alicia pointed her voice to the windows. “Just hang tight, Hightop!” She fixed her eyes on Dale again. “Go and get some other Watchers. I don’t know what Jimmy was thinking, but you need at least three out here. Peter and I can stand guard till you get back.”

“Lish, you know I can’t leave you here. Sanjay will have my ass. You’re not even Watch anymore.”

“Maybe not, but Peter is. And since when did you start taking orders from Sanjay?”

“Since this morning.” He gave them a puzzled look. “Jimmy says so. Sanjay declared a … what do you call it? A civil emergency.”

“We know all about that. That doesn’t mean Sanjay gives the orders.”

“You better tell Jimmy. He seems to think so. Galen too.”

“Galen? What does Galen have to do with anything?”

“You haven’t heard?” Dale scanned their faces quickly. “I guess you wouldn’t have. Galen’s Second Captain now.”

“Galen Strauss?”

Dale shrugged. “It doesn’t make sense to me, either. Jimmy just called everyone together and told us Galen had your slot, and Ian has Theo’s.”