“So you just leave them for the Church?” Like he’d left Melanie. And suddenly I realized he would have left her even if we could have somehow taken her.

“We have no other choice.” He poured more stew into both bowls, and I got the feeling he was using that task to avoid having to look at me. “It’s hard enough to get from town to town with just the five of us.”

“How did you get into New Temperance?” Passage through most town gates required identification and paperwork, and kids couldn’t leave town limits—any town limits—without an accompanying parent or Church official.

And, of course, citizens were highly discouraged from venturing into the badlands.

Finn’s grin was back. “We might have stowed away in a cargo car with a shipment of Church cassocks. Which is why we can’t collect every orphan we meet. But you’re an exorcist. We need you.” He pushed my bowl toward me, and the spoon sank until only an inch of white plastic stuck out of the stew. “And if the Church had gotten to you first, no one ever would have heard from you again. Including your sister.”

My hands tightened around the edges of the blanket as I realized how differently the whole thing might have played out if he’d come in just a little earlier. “Did you know about…? Did you know I could…?” I took a deep breath and started over. “Did you know I was an exorcist?”

“This morning? Not for sure. I just knew that degenerate was stalking you, so you could be the one we came for.”

My heart thumped too hard. What the hell did that mean?

Finn stirred his stew aimlessly. “But then you disappeared, and I spent half the day watching your school, waiting for you to come out so I could find out if you were the one.” He leaned as far forward as he could without sliding off his cushion. The lantern lit his face from below, lending a threatening cast to his eager expression. “The degenerate from this morning was only the first. More will find you, and you can’t take them all on by yourself. You need us, Nina. You need us every bit as much as we need you.”

Chapter Nine

My fist clenched around the edge of the blanket. “Why are degenerates hunting me, Finn?”

“They have your scent. How old are you?”

“Seventeen, next week.” Fear dropped adrenaline into my bloodstream.

“Degenerates can sense an exorcist nearing maturity, and when we saw them converging on this area from all over the badlands, we knew you’d be here. We didn’t know who you’d be, or whether you’d be in New Temperance or Solace, so we split up to widen our search. We’re here to keep the degenerates from killing you and the Church from taking you.”