Lennon nodded. He’d visited once, with his dad.

“They’ll let you through the gate that takes you to the other side of the wall. There, they’ll administer a test to see if you’re positive for the virus.”

Lennon’s stomach clenched. “And if I am? Will they make me go back in?”

“They didn’t say. They did say that there will be a hazmat suit waiting, and you’ll need to put it on before they let you through the next gate. But there will be someone there to do the test and help you. Then you’ll be quarantined, though they didn’t tell me how long. I imagine at least a month, to be on the safe side. Okay?”

He tried not to look nervous as he nodded. “Okay.” He could picture the place that the doctor was talking about. There was a chain-link fence around the northern gate, a secondary precaution in case anyone ever escaped through during shipment deliveries. It was about twenty feet from the wall, with signs that said DO NOT APPROACH—YOU WILL BE SHOT. It was not an empty threat.

Dr. Lopez reached for the phone. “I think they’re going to patch your father in as well. He asked to speak with you.” He seemed to think that Lennon would be pleased to talk to his father.

In reality, Lennon would have preferred to just stick with the FBI.

He’d had numerous conversations with his father about the threats against the family. The senator had suggested more extreme security measures for Lennon, as most of the vitriol being spewed at them was aimed at him. He delighted in pissing off the Howard family, and he was really, really good at it.

He already had a security team that didn’t even let him go to the bathroom by himself. He’d declined more, and told his father that scaling back his public events—or showing up under heavy guard—was the wrong move this late in the campaign.

It’ll look like we’re scared, Lennon had argued.

We should be scared, his father had countered.

So. Lennon had been wrong, and his father was right. As usual.

He shouldn’t have joined the campaign at all. His parents had been hesitant about it, happy to let his sisters—his cheerful, perfect sisters—take on that role instead. The son who had set a family record for arrests wasn’t the type of guy you wanted on your presidential campaign.

Of course, the family arrest record had been zero before Lennon, so it wasn’t much of an accomplishment. He’d set the bar high for future generations, though.

But their hesitance had made him want to do it even more. He was sure he would be good at campaigning, and it wasn’t like he had anything pressing to do, anyway. It had been strongly suggested that he should take a hiatus from Yale (Perhaps you should reconsider whether this is the best choice for you, the dean had said wearily), so it was the perfect opportunity.

They’d agreed, and Lennon had been so smug when he became the star of the campaign. All the papers said he’d follow in his father’s footsteps and run for president one day. Yale was going to be begging for him to come back next year.