June realized she must have the wrong place. She shook her head and started to back away.

“Who is it?” asked a warm voice, a big guy with tattooed sleeves and a friendly smile.

“Delivery,” said the girl. She was reaching for the package, her fingers nearly brushing June’s, when he appeared.

“Sydney,” said the man in black. “I told you not to answer the door.”

The girl retreated into the room, the large dog trailing behind her, and the man stepped forward, his eyes, a colder, darker blue, flicking down to the package in June’s hands.

“Wrong address,” he said, closing the door in her face.

June stood in the hall, mind spinning.

She’d expected him to be alone.

People like them, they were supposed to be alone.

Were the others human, the big guy and the young girl? Or did they have powers too?

June came back the next day. Pressed her ear against the door and heard—nothing. She knelt before the lock, and a few seconds later the door swung open. The apartment was empty. No signs of the girl, or the dog, the big guy, or the stranger.

They were just—gone.

VIII

THREE YEARS AGO

CAPITAL CITY

IT was happening again. Again. Again.

Victor braced himself against the dresser, the pills from Malcolm Jones’s supply arrayed before him, that ever-present hum turning to a high whine in his skull. He searched the labels again for something he hadn’t tried—oxycodone, morphine, fentanyl—but he’d tried all of them. Every permutation, every combination, and they weren’t working. None of them were working.

He stifled a frustrated growl and swept the open bottles from the counter. Pills rained down onto the floor as Victor surged out into the apartment. He had to get away before the charge reached its peak.

“Where are you going?” asked Sydney as Victor crossed the room.

“Out,” he said tightly.

“But you just got back. And it’s movie night. You said you’d watch with us.”

Mitch put a hand on her arm. “I’m sure he won’t be long.”

Sydney looked between them, as if she could see the omissions, the lies, the space where truth had been carved out. “What’s going on?”

Victor pulled his coat from the hook. “I just need some air.” The charge was spilling out now, into the air around him, energy crackling through his limbs. Dol whimpered. Mitch winced. But Sydney didn’t back down.

“It’s raining,” she protested.

“I won’t melt.”

But Sydney was already reaching for her own coat. “Fine,” she said,

“then I’ll go with you.”

“Sydney—”

But she made it to the door before him.

“Get out of my way,” he said through clenched teeth.

“No,” she shot back, stretching her small body across the wooden frame.

“Move,” said Victor, a strange desperation creeping into his voice.

But Sydney held her ground. “Not until you tell me what’s going on.

I know you’re hiding something. I know you’re lying, and it’s not fair, I deserve to—”