"Strange how?" Sawyer asked, wondering what it would be like to see people bathed in various colors of light.

"Sparkly. Like she's expending an unusual amount of energy. Tessa?"

"Just a little experiment," Tessa said. She drew a breath and let it out slowly, as though relieving some strain, then looked at the serious faces around the table. "Aside from Sawyer and Hollis, do any of the rest of you see anything unusual about me?"

DeMarco said, "Only if you mean the dog. And I didn't see that until the chief thought about it."

"Still creepy," Sawyer told him.

"Sorry. You were thinking loudly."

Sawyer wasn't quite sure how to deny that, so he didn't try.

Bishop frowned at Sawyer for a moment, then looked at Tessa. He went utterly still, his eyes narrowing. Then, softly, he said, "I'll be damned."

"Huh," Quentin said. "Maybe we do have a plan. Or at least a better start to one."

AMY LET OUT a long, guttural moan and began to sway. Before she could topple over, Father smoothly took her candle and Ruth appeared out of nowhere to catch her. Held in the older woman's arms, Amy continued to jerk and moan for seconds longer. Her face was flushed, her slack mouth wore a blissful smile, and she ran shaking hands down over her body from breasts to thighs in a gesture so sensual it made Ruby's stomach lurch sickly.

Still chanting, Father placed Amy's candle in the tall copper holder closest to her circle. And while he did that, Ruth was silently arranging Amy's limp body on the floorfaceup, her head on the little velvet pillow and her arms spread wide, feet together and just touching the base of the copper stand holding her candle.

Amy's lips began to move as she resumed chanting.

Theresa was next, and though Ruby tried not to watch it all happen again, she was unable to look away. Her heart was thudding as if she'd been running and running, and her mouth was so dry it was difficult to keep chanting, and she was desperately afraid that her shell was not going to be enough to protect her this time.

When Father was done with Theresa, Ruth laid her out on the floor in the same way, arms wide, toes touching the candle holder, and Theresa also resumed the chant, her voice languid.

Always before, Father had come to Ruby next, but this time he went to Mara instead. And her experience was visibly different from that of the other girls. Father took more time with her, and it seemed to Ruby that Mara was slower to respond to whatever it was he was doing to her. Maybe because she was only eleven and this was her first time.

Ruby and Brooke had talked about their first times, and both agreed that it was weird and scaryand not at all pleasant. Their skin tingled, their scalps crawled, and it was difficult to breathe. But both of them had shells, and they hadn't been at all sure what a first time was supposed to feel like.

They had simply copied what the other girls did, how they behaved, and they pretended to enjoy their Becoming. Father had seemed satisfied by that.

But Ruby was alone now, the only one of the girls with a protective shell, and she wasn't at all sure it was going to protect her this time.

All she did know was that she was next.

She was last.

And when Father turned toward her finally, there was something in his face she had never seen before, an odd smile, a curious light in his eyes.

Then she saw something in his true face, in that mask over the dark and hungry thing she had seen earlier, that thing she felt sure could swallow the world.

It was knowledge, awareness.

He knows.

"Ruby," he said softly. "You've been naughty, my child. I'm afraid you must be punished." And he stepped around behind her.

"I think the so-called plan stinks," Sawyer said.

Hollis looked at him with slightly lifted brows, then glanced at Tessa. "You know, I think I'll take my laptop up to my room. Check in at the office. Do a few other things to kill a little time. Or maybe I'll take a nap, because it's been a really long and eventful day."

"Don't go on my account," Sawyer called after her.

Tessa leaned back against the kitchen counter, waiting for the coffeemaker to finish its work, and said mildly, "We really don't have a lot of options, you know. When it comes to a plan."

Despite her seeming calm, he knew she was tense and on edge. He could feel it. Almost as if he had a hand on her. Which he very badly wanted. Even though he knew that, once again, his timing was, to say the least, off. "We're assuming too much," Sawyer said, doing his best to keep his mind on business. And even as he forced himself to remember that, all the risks of what they were going to attempt flooded in and nearly stole his breath. Christ, we're all out of our minds. "For starters, we're assuming that the weird energy inside the Compound is going to affect every psychic's abilities."

"Because energy fields do affect us. And that one certainly affected me. It's affected DeMarco. And it affected you."

"I'm still not so sure about that."

"I'm sure. And so is Bishop."

"Yeah? And what makes you both so sure I can control it?"

"You'rewhat? Thirty-eight?"

"Thirty-six."

Tessa nodded. "And became an active psychic in your teens."

"I started shorting out electronics is what I did."

"It's all about energy, Sawyer. You've spent about twenty years learning how to dampen down your own energy field. That can be a very valuable ability, especially when it's enhanced by what's going on in the Compound."

"Yeah, right. Assuming it works like that. Assuming I can do what I need to do at will. And there's no guarantee of either."

"No guarantee anywhere." Tessa shook her head. "But the one thing we're all agreed on is that we can't just wait around for Samuel to make his next move. Because someone is likely to die and because he's not likely to suddenly begin leaving evidence lying around for one of us to find."

"Besides, like Bishop said, the law can't touch him. The courts wouldn't know what to do with him. But we know how dangerous he is. We know he's either going to continue to get more powerful until he reaches some kind of critical massor he's going to explode trying to get there and kill an awful lot of people."

"So we have to destroy him. Yeah, I got that. Fairly ruthless, your Bishop."

"He isn't mine. And the thought of doing something like that isn't an easy one for me. But in this case, I happen to agree with him. We have to make absolutely certain that Samuel can't hurt anybody ever again. With his mind, at least."

"Because he's dangerous. And because you're worried about Ruby."

"I'm worried about all of them. But, yes, Ruby especially." Tessa rummaged in the cabinets for coffee cups. "I hope she doesn't mind that I left Lexie up at the mountain house."

"Bishop was right; the farther she is from the compound, the safer she's likely to be. Plus she's not being a drain on your shiny new ability to hide things." Sawyer paused, then added, "Interesting that she took right to Bishop."

"Yeah, Hollis says he has that effect on animals and kids. They trust him instantly. Says something good about his character."

"Or about his abilities." Sawyer shrugged when she looked at him. "Well, it could be that, you know. Bishop's a telepath, so he could be using a shortcut to win their trust."

"Cynic."

"Realist." He watched her pour coffee, then added wryly, "Though how I can call myself that after a day of talking about psychic abilities andwhat's the plural of apocalypse?"

"I don't know. Apocalypses?"