They had parked Jo’s car in the lot of an abandoned Waffle House and walked on foot, 1:00 a.m., to the Moore farm. Head to toe in black. Heavy gloves. Knit masks tight and hot on their heads. At the base of the mountains hardly any houses. No light on at the Moores’; easy to slip to the back, skinning beneath the windows. Do they have guns? Leni whispered. Of course they have guns, Jo scoffed, they all have fucking guns. Leni rolling in her lips, half a step back. Looking over her shoulder. Jo stopped at the gate, bolt cutters poised. Look, do you want to do this or what? It was Leni who’d sat in class with James Moore while his uncle gave a presentation about genetics and mink farming, highlighting their own fur production at a facility only fifteen miles from the school; Leni who’d cried while describing the picture of Ryan Moore and his nephew beside a pile of fresh silver pelts; Leni who said they should do something about it. But it was Jo who had thought of this—no petitions, no letters, no protest. Direct action. Do you? Jo asked again. No, I do, Leni said, wiping her mouth on her sleeve. I’m fine. Sorry. Jo glancing at Xie; he looked back, adjusting his gloves, pure acid in his gut. They cut through the chain. Slither of metal against metal. Behind the gate a huge concrete lot covered in straw and shit. God, Leni breathed. Whisper of fur in the dark. Slow steps closer. The mink curled in mesh-wire cells no more than ten inches wide, stacked on row after row of wooden platforms stretching a hundred feet or more to the back of the farm. They’d seen the aerial maps, had known what to expect, but it stopped them anyway, for a moment, to see in the flesh just how many animals there were. Jo put her hand against the front of a cage; the mink shifted inside, hissing. Smooth shine of eyes. Hi, babies, Jo whispered. We’re not here to hurt you. Slow hard press against the metal clips at the top of the box and the door sprang open, nearly hitting her chin. Come on, she said, reaching for the mink, go! The mink hurtled up the arm of her glove before leaping to the ground, scattering straw, claws against concrete. Xie and Leni running, each to the head of a row, snapping back the clips. Even through the gloves you could feel how soft those bodies were. Silver ghosts swarming beneath the gate. Xie’s hands so fast on the clips, trying to balance speed against silence. Sneakers slipping on straw, on shit, breath wet in the mask. He couldn’t see the girls but he heard them, felt them, moving in the same rhythm, the three of them a single machine. In the last row a mother and her babies, five or six, teeth bared; they would not leave their cage and Xie shook it, hard, trying to rattle them free, stifling a shout as one leapt at his face, the cage rocked free of its stand. He fumbled to right it but it fell, too loud. Fuck. Jo pointing to her watch, eight minutes up, Leni already sprinting to the road and Jo following but at the gate Xie stopped, turning to make sure they’d emptied every row, flashlight jumping in the dark. Faint scent of fur and the most. Beautiful sight. Pockets of night in the open mouths of the cages. The barn a black shadow against the mountains. Breeze stirring the straw. The almost alien sensation of joy: We did it. And then he was down, cheek straight to the concrete, Moore’s hard breath in his ear. Don’t move, motherfucker. Spit of blood catching in the black hairs of Xie’s mask, rattle of air and groan. Pain somewhere in the distance, waiting for him to feel it, but he felt nothing. Run, he thought, closing his eyes. Run. Run.