He sees a little bit of his old self in Argent. Was Connor ever this much of a creep? No—he couldn’t have been. And besides, he got past it, but Argent never did. Argent is maybe twenty, but he’s still wallowing in the loser mud hole, letting it turn into a tar pit beneath his feet. The anger that Connor feels toward Argent dissolves into the liquid of his thoughts, spreading into a thin, wide layer of pity.

Argent takes another hit and reels. “Oh man, this is good stuff.” He looks bleary-eyed at Connor. The combination of tranq and weed have made Connor emotional. He knows it’s about his own past, but Argent takes it as a connection between them.

“We’re the same, Connor,” he says. “That’s what you’re thinking, right? I coulda been you. I can still be you.” He starts giggling. “We can be you together.”

The giggle is contagious. Connor finds himself giggling uncontrollably as Argent makes him take another hit.

“Gotta show you this,” Argent says. “You’ll get mad, but I gotta show you anyway.” Then Argent pulls out his phone and shows him one of the pictures he took with Connor yesterday.

“Good one, right? I put it up on my Facelink profile.”

“You . . . did what?”

“No big deal. Just for my friends and stuff.” Argent giggles again. Connor giggles. Argent laughs, and Connor finds himself laughing hysterically.

“Do you know how bad that is, Argent?”

“I know, right?”

“No, you don’t. The authorities. The Juvenile Authority. They’ve got facial tracing bots on the net.”

“Bots, right.”

“They’ll take down this house. I’ll get taken in. You’ll both get five to ten for”—Connor can’t control his laughter—“for aiding and abetting.”

“Ooh, this is bad, Argie,” says Grace from the corner.

“Who asked you?” Argent says. Being wasted doesn’t temper his treatment of his sister.

“We gotta get out of here, Argent,” Connor says. “We’ve gotta go now. We’re both fugitives now.”

“Yeah?” Argent still doesn’t quite grasp it.

“We’ll be on the run—you and me.”

“Right. Screwing with the world.”

“It was fated, just like you said.”

“Fated.”

“Argent and the Akron AWOL.”

“Triple A!”

“But you have to untie me before they come to take us out!”

“Untie you . . .”

“There’s no time. Please, Argent.”

“I can really trust you?”

“Did we or did we not just do tranq together?”

That’s enough to clinch the deal. Argent puts the pipe down, then goes behind Connor to undo his hands. Connor flexes his fingers and rolls his aching shoulders. He doesn’t know whether the numbness in his arms is from being tied up or from the tranq.

“So where do we go?” Argent asks.

Connor’s response is a glass pipe to the head. The pipe catches Argent just above his jaw and shatters, cutting the left side of Argent’s face in at least three places. Argent’s legs slip out from under him, and he hits the ground, groaning—still half-conscious, but unable to get up. His face gushes blood.

Grace stands staring at Connor, dumbfounded. “You broke great-grandpa’s bong.”

“Yeah, I know.”

She doesn’t go to help Argent. Instead she just looks at Connor, unsure whether she’s just been betrayed or liberated.

“Is it true what you said about the police coming after us?” she asks.

Connor finds he doesn’t need to answer. Because he can hear cars screeching to a halt outside and the steady beat of a helicopter overhead.

7 • Grace

Grace Eleanor Skinner fears death as much as anyone else. She fears pain even more. Once, a long time ago, Argie had made her go up to the high-dive platform while they were on vacation. She had squandered her willpower, mustering the guts for waterslides and such, but once she had made the climb to the ten-meter platform, she found herself weak. The pool below looked small and very far away. Hitting the water would hurt. As she stood on the edge, toes curled on the concrete lip, Argie had heckled her from down below.

“Don’t be a stupid wimp, Gracie,” he yelled for all to hear. “Don’t think about it—just jump.”

Behind her, others were getting impatient.

“Gracie, jump already! You’re making everyone mad!” In the end, Grace had backed away and gone down the ladder in shame.

That’s what this feels like today. Only now the threat is far more real. Argie’s words from that day come back to her. Don’t think about it—just jump. She follows the advice this time.

She pushes open the cellar door and bursts forth into the light of day. This is a game, she tells herself. I win games.

There are sharpshooters in the yard, but they don’t see her at first. Their rifles are trained on the house, and the cellar is at the far back of the yard. They haven’t gone in yet. The force is still positioning.

“Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” she yells, running out into the weedy yard, pulling the sharpshooters’ attention. Immediately all the rifles turn to her. She doesn’t think they’re loaded with tranqs.

“Don’t shoot,” she says again. “It’s this way. He’s over here. Don’t shoot!”

“On the ground!” one of the sharpshooters orders. “On the ground now!”

But no. Rule one—never allow capture unless it gives you an advantage.

“This way! Follow me!” She turns around, hands still flailing in the air as she runs back to the cellar. She half expects to be shot, but the other half wins; they don’t fire. She races down the stairs into the cellar and waits. In a moment, the sharpshooters are there, covering one another, aiming at her and into the dim light of the cellar like soldiers in hostile territory. Although her heart feels like its exploding and she wants to scream, she says calmly, “You don’t need guns. He’s unarmed.”

The marksmen still hold their ground, covering for an officer in a suit who follows them down the stairs.

“I knew it was a bad idea,” Grace tells him. “I told Argie, but he wouldn’t listen.”

The officer sizes Grace up quickly, dismissively, just as everyone does. He guesses she’s low-cortical and pats her shoulder. “You’ve done a good thing, miss.”

More officers come into the cellar, making it crowded.

The figure tied to the pole is limp and semiconscious. The lead officer grabs his hair to lift his head and looks into his face.

“Who the hell is this?”

“My brother, Argent,” Grace says. “I told him not to steal all this stuff from the supermarket. I told him he’d be in big trouble. I knocked him out and tied him up. I had to hurt him, see, so he wouldn’t get shot. He’s not resisting, right? So you’ll go easy on him, won’t you? Won’t you? Tell me you’ll go easy on him!”

The officer is no longer kind to Grace. Instead he glares at her. “Where’s Lassiter?”

“Who?”

“Connor Lassiter!” Then he pulls out the picture of Argent with the Akron AWOL that he must have downloaded off the net.

“Oh, that? Argie made that up on the computer. It was a gag for his friends. Looks real, don’t it?”

The other officers look to one another. The lead man is not pleased in the least. “I’m supposed to believe that?”

Grace shakes her brother’s shoulder. “Argie, tell them.”

Grace waits. Argie might have a lot of faults, but he’s pretty good at self-preservation. Like Conner said, “aiding and debating”—or whatever it’s called—is a serious crime. But only if you get caught.

Argent glares at Grace through his blood-clouded eyes. He radiates a sibling hatred that could kill if it were set free. “It’s the truth,” he growls. “Gag photo. For my friends.”

It’s not what the officer wants to hear. The other men chuckle behind his back.

“All right,” he says, trying to seize what’s left of his authority. “Untie him and get him to a hospital—and go through the house anyway. Find the original file. I want that picture analyzed.”