“They’re gloves, Johnny,” Nine says, not taking them off. “You ever heard of an ancient ritual that involves burying a pair of stylish-ass gloves? Come on.”

John shakes his head, giving up. His eyes linger on Henri’s ashes until Marina closes her Chest, and then his gaze drifts towards the Skimmer. “I wish I could come with you. I’d like to be there for . . . for both of them.”

Eight’s body is already on board the Skimmer, strapped securely to one of the seats.

“After,” Marina says, and she reaches out to squeeze John’s hand. She’s still walking around with a lot of sadness—we all are—but I’m slowly seeing signs that the old, gentle Marina is melting all that ice. “Eight would understand. Once we’ve won, there will be time for us to pay our respects properly. All of us, together.”

Nine stops screwing with his new gloves and gets serious for a moment, looking at Marina. “I’d like that,” he says.

“Ready?” I ask Marina.

She nods and uses her telekinesis to float her Chest into the Skimmer’s entrance. “Be safe, all of you.”

One by one, Marina hugs the boys, and I do the same. Sam is last for me, and when he wraps me up in a big hug, I get the same feeling that I did before when we were all assembled in the Mogadorian tunnels, that everyone is watching us and tittering about how precious we are. I bristle a little bit, but before I know it the hug has lasted way longer than the others’, and our friends have drifted a few steps away as if to let us have a discreet moment.

“Six—,” Sam says quietly against my ear, and I pull back enough to look at him, cutting him off.

“Don’t make this weird, Sam,” I whisper, and tuck a loose strand of hair behind my ear, glancing surreptitiously towards the others.

So, we spent last night together. Maybe that wasn’t the wisest move on my part. I love Sam, in my way, and I don’t want to string him along or hurt his feelings. I’m just still not sold on having any kind of relationship until this is all over, especially with how stupid and complicated things got with John after just some flirting. But, after everything that happened in Florida, I needed something good for a change—something warm and safe and approaching normal—and that was Sam. I thought he understood that I didn’t want to get into some dopey John/Sarah-style, star-crossed-lovers thing with him. But here we are, having a moment, and blunt as I’m trying to be, I’m not exactly pulling away either.

“I’m not making it anything,” Sam says, screwing up his face at me. “I just—I don’t get why you didn’t want me coming with you.”

“You’ll do more good here, with your dad,” I tell him. “And you’ll need to keep John and Nine in line.”

“The last time I went on a mission with John, he left me inside a mountain,” Sam says, not buying it. “Come on, Six. What is it really?”