Special Agent Walker turns to me. I slowly pull my arms out from behind me, the broken handcuffs dangling from my wrists. I wiggle my fingers and casually place both hands behind my head and start whistling.

She narrows her eyes and arranges her face in the most intimidating glare she has. ‘Do you know what happens to kids like you in prison?’ she asks.

‘They escape? Like I did last time?’ My eyes are wide and innocent.

I hear Nine howling with laugher at my performance from under the pile of officers. I have to admit, Nine does bring a weird kind of fun to the proceedings. My smile breaks wide now. I know these men are just trying to do their jobs. They think they’re keeping their country safe. Right now, though, I hate them. I hate them for slowing us down and I hate this woman’s tough-guy act. I hate that they have Mog cannons. But most of all I hate them for working with Sarah to capture Sam and me last week. I wonder what they promised her to get her to turn me in. Did they play on her sympathies? Convince her she would save me, by letting them take us? Did they say she could visit me, while I paid the price for my socalled mistakes? I look over at Bernie Kosar, but I don’t see the moth anymore. That’s when a fat brown and white cockroach scurries up my leg and burrows into my jeans pocket.

Nine will go along with this for a while longer, BK tells me. But I don’t know how much longer. Find out everything you can, quickly.

The lead guy claps his hands to get the attention of the other men. ‘Okay! Let’s get these guys out of here before our friends show up.’

‘Who are your friends?’ I ask him, though I’m already pretty sure that for some reason the U.S. government and the Mogadorians are working together. That’s the only explanation for why they’d be using Mog weapons against us. ‘Who don’t you want to show up?’

‘Shut up!’ Special Agent Walker yells. She pulls out a cell phone and dials a number. ‘We’re bringing him in, plus another one,’ she says into the phone. ‘Two Chests. No, but we’ll get them open. See you soon.’

‘Who was that?’ I ask. She ignores me as she puts her phone away.

‘Hey, buddy, I thought you wanted to buy a vacuum,’ Nine says to me. ‘I really need this sale. My boss is going to kill me if I come home with a full box of Hoovers again.’