For weeks I’ve dreamed of this moment. Dreams so palpable, so real that I awoke convinced my son was back home, and I’d find myself staggering into his empty bedroom and realize that the real nightmare was in being awake.

Now that it has finally happened, now that I can feel Noah’s heart pounding against my own, all the pain and grief starts to melt away, and it is as if I’m finally, truly, wide-awake to the world. Strangely, my rage at those who stole him melts away, too. It’s as if there’s only room enough in me for love. Maybe that will change over time, but right at this moment, this wonderful, wonderful moment, all I feel for Irene Delancey and her Ruler friends is pity.

They are so utterly pathetic. Worshipping a mean old man who encouraged them to be selfish, is there anything more sad?

Cupping her hands to her bleeding nose, Irene looks at me imploringly. “We have to get out of here,” she whimpers. “She’ll find us.”

“Evangeline?” asks Shane. “Is she the one?”

I hadn’t even noticed that he’d come into the room. He’s been standing apart, letting me hug Noah, who is clinging to me as if he never intends to let go, his wet face buried against my neck, his legs locked around my hips just as he used to do when he was three or four and still wanted to be carried.

“Something has happened to her,” Irene says. “She was always dangerous, but lately it’s gotten worse. I think she must be delusional. All of her Sixes have seen Noah, so why does she think she can make him disappear? Everybody already knows he’s here, she can’t just make him disappear. It doesn’t make sense.”

Shane goes into the bathroom, returns with a cold cloth. “You may need to have that cauterized,” he says. “This will help with the swelling.”

“I never wanted to do this,” she says, pleading with me. “You’ve got to believe me.”

Her nose may be broken, but there seems to be no way to stop her from babbling on, making her excuses. How her husband got in trouble with the Rulers for cheating on his share-in, and how Evangeline and her horrible boyfriend were about to ruin them-leave them virtually penniless, imagine!-and the only way out was to do what they demanded. Take the job in Humble, befriend the child, bring him to Conklin. She’d never known that the police chief would be killed in front of the children, or that the school would be blown up, honest! And she’d only agreed to continue as Noah’s tutor to make sure he was okay, blah blah blah.

“Let me get this right,” I say. “You’re given a choice-lose money or kidnap an innocent child-and you choose to kidnap the child? That’s your defense? That’s the best you can come up with?”

Noah, clinging to my neck, whispers, “She’s lying, Mom. She’s a liar, liar with her pants on fire.”

“I know that, sweetie. Hush now. It doesn’t matter. We don’t have to listen to her anymore. Not ever again.”

“No,” agrees Shane. “But she’s right about one thing. We do need to get out of here, and fast. If I’m not mistaken, the entire building, or most of it, has been evacuated.”

I’m really too busy comforting Noah to pay close attention to what he’s saying, but I can see from his expression that he’s very worried, that in his mind we’re still in immediate danger.

“You were yelling loud enough to rattle the walls,” he points out. “No security response? There’s only one explanation-nobody comes to see what’s going on because they’ve already left.”

“Evangeline is still here,” Irene says, talking around her clotted nose. “She and her Sixes. At the top level, in the private residence. They’re holding vigil for Arthur.”

“But the guards are gone,” Shane says, pondering. “Rats deserting the ship.”

He decides we can’t wait for the Hostage Rescue Team to breach the building. The fastest way out is the way we came in-through the tunnel.

“Follow me,” he urges. “No sneaking around, we’ll run for it.”

“Don’t leave me!” Irene begs, following us out the door, into the deserted hallway.

Shane is right. I was yelling to raise the dead, that should have attracted attention. And if the building has been abandoned by the security chief and his men, there has to be a reason.

“Mom?” says Noah, releasing his grip on my neck. “Put me down. We can run faster that way.”

Holding his hand, we run for the stairs. Shane in the lead, his long legs eating up the yards, and Irene whimpering and stumbling as she tries to keep up.

Part of me is frightened-who wouldn’t be?-but part of me can’t help noticing how fast Noah can run. He’s nimble and balanced, physically healthy. So they must have fed him okay. My mommy gut tells me he hasn’t been damaged beyond repair. Whatever else he’s been through, whatever mental traumas he’s suffered, we can deal with all that.

He clings to my hand, though, and won’t let go, as if he can’t bear to lose physical contact. I expect he’ll be back sleeping in my bedroom for a while, as he did after his father died. That’ll be okay. That’ll be fine. And if he doesn’t want to sleep in my bedroom, I just might move into his. For a little while. Just until I get used to the idea that he’s safe, that no one will come to take him away in the middle of the night.

Making plans, even as we run for our lives.

The custodian’s closet is just as we left it, door unlocked. Shane is the first inside, and he doesn’t even bother to flip on the lights, he drops to his knees, pushing away mops and buckets, searching the area of floor where the hatch had popped open.

“Got to be here somewhere,” he mutters. “A pressure switch.”

The lights come on. I assume it was Irene because I don’t even know where the switch is, and besides, Noah has climbed back into my arms and I quite literally have my hands full. But it isn’t Irene, she looks as startled as me, and then in an instant her face drains white with fear. Not just fear-terror.

“Nobody move.”

Standing in the doorway is the handsome guy with the killer eyes. The man with the mustache. The man who stopped me on the stairs and let me go. The man they call Vash, which is short for something else, I can’t remember what, now, exactly. Doesn’t matter what his proper name is, he’s pointing a funny-looking gun at Shane, who remains on his knees in the middle of the crowded custodial closet. Looking, and this scares me, very spooked, if not exactly frightened.

“Nobody move,” Vash repeats with a humorless chuckle, as if applauding his own cleverness. “They say that in American westerns, yes? Okay, Mr. FBI man, you got gun in belt, I can see that. Pistol you stole from BK vehicle, you naughty boy. You think you draw fast like in westerns, blow bad guy away. No, no, no.”

“Go ahead, tase me,” Shane says, not making a move for the pistol. “See what happens this time.”

Vash laughs. “I already see. Two times, already. Third time, you pee pants for sure.”

“Maybe I learned how to take it. Maybe the third time, you’re the one who wets his pants.”

“Ha! Not possible. While you flop around, I take pistol you stole and shoot you,” Vash promises. “Bang, bang. Self-defense.”

What I want to do is put down Noah and grab a bucket and throw it in this horrible man’s smug, handsome face. But before I can think it through, Shane gives me a warning look and says, “Don’t. I’ll handle this.”

Which Vash thinks is very funny. “You handle? Big joke for big man. Where you going, huh? Escape into tunnel? I don’t think so. We find the entrance, toss in a little boom-boom, make part of tunnel collapse. Forget tunnel. Forget escape. You are safer right here, trust me.”

Shane snorts. “Trust me. From a war criminal? I’m guessing most of those who ever trusted you are dead.”

Vash shakes his head, disappointed. “I’m wishing I had time for this,” he says. “Could be lots of fun.”