In the back Rocky stepped out from behind the other kids. His voice came, high-pitched and young. “I wanted to go. But Patrick wouldn’t let me. He and Dr. Chatterjee said I couldn’t.”

“Nobody but a ten-year-old?” Alex said. “Nobody?”

A shame-filled silence.

“Not in broad daylight,” Ben called down from the bleachers.

“He’ll be killed,” Alex said. “He’ll be killed before I see him.”

“Probably,” Ben said. “But he was gonna die anyways once that tank ran out. So he didn’t have much of a choice, really.”

I glared up at him. “These tanks were tampered with.”

“Come on, Chance,” Ben said. “Who would want to do that?”

“You.”

He looked directly at me. “I didn’t touch those tanks.”

“Then you had your lackeys do it.”

“I will talk to my guys, and if any of them messed with those tanks, they will answer to me.”

“Liar!” Grabbing her hockey stick, Alex tried to get up to charge Ben, but her leg wouldn’t hold her weight anymore. She fell over, the stick clattering away.

“If I was you,” Ben said, his eyes never leaving mine, “I’d go help your brother. And fast.” He turned his face to the window again. “Doesn’t look like he’s doing so hot out there alone.”

My rage boiled over. Firming my grip on the baling hooks, I started for the bleachers.

Eve stepped in front of me, her hands planted on my chest. “Patrick needs you.”

Every fiber in my body was pulling me up those bleachers to add to Ben’s scars. But she was right.

I turned and ran out, hammering through the double doors, darting past the lookouts, grabbing a key from the windowsill. Charging through the front door, I jumped over the steps, unlocked the padlock, and slipped through the gate. There were no Hosts nearby, but even if there had been, they wouldn’t have stopped me.

The sky brightened as I sprinted through the teachers’ parking lot, hurdling the hedges. Heading toward the hospital, I scanned the front yards for movement. Though a few weeks ago running down a street in broad daylight would have been normal, it felt bizarre now. Exhaustion and stress dragged on me. My chest was heaving, but I kept on.

I was driven by love, sure. But also by guilt.

I hurdled a flower bed, ran across the Everstons’ porch, and leapt over a tricycle on its side. Above the rooftops I could see the rise of the hospital. I shot through a side yard, darting beneath a carport, knifing my body so I wouldn’t slam into a silver Airstream trailer parked in the front driveway.

Squeezing between the trailer and a row of trash bins, I popped out into the front yard.

I heard movement behind me.