Ren’s head swam as she took a seat in front of a large painting, the old canvas thick and dark with layers of oil paint. Though she’d never seen it before, the painting was immediately familiar to her. It was by Rembrandt van Rijn, the Dutch painter whose work filled her favorite room back home at the Met. She followed the patterns in the paint slowly, allowing the faces and shapes they formed to come to her as if emerging from a lake.

She felt a knot loosen somewhere inside her. She could almost imagine she was back at the Met, waiting for her dad to finish work. Almost. But other images shouldered their way in. She reached a dark corner of the canvas, and instead of seeing the shadows of a long-ago room, she spied the open mouth of a monster. She shivered deep down but didn’t look away.

She felt like she saw the impossible almost every day now. On a good day, it was a dead cat trying to get free. On a bad day, it was a dead man trying to suck out her soul … She felt like a visitor in her own world. Her facts, her lists: What good did they do when anything could be true? She pushed on, out of the corner of the canvas and back up. She found a face, the little brush of color on the cheek, and ever so slightly, she smiled.

And that’s when she understood why she was there, in that room, instead of at the British Library. Yes, Alex was being selfish, but that wasn’t it. She really was drained, and it wasn’t her body that needed recharging. It wasn’t her brain, either. She pulled her gaze back and took in the whole painting at once. It was beautiful.

No, it was her soul. She didn’t understand how that was possible, either, but she knew this: It had nearly been torn from her, and now it needed to heal.

“Hey, Ren,” she heard as someone sat down next to her.

She turned. “Oh, hey, Luke,” she said, not quite managing to keep the surprise out of her voice.

“Hey,” he said. “S’up?”

“Uh, not much?” said Ren. “Just checking out the paintings.”

“Right, right,” said Luke. “ ’Cause it’s a gallery. Me too.”

Ren didn’t want to be rude, but … “Really?” she said. Luke was dressed as if a basketball game might break out at any moment. “Doesn’t, uh, doesn’t really seem like your thing.”

“Oh, it’s not, but the camp makes us,” he said. “We have to ‘tackle’ cultural tasks. It’s supposed to increase our mental sharpness or something. I’d like to tackle whoever came up with the idea before I die of boredom.”

“Right,” said Ren, picturing a small army of young jocks in knee-length shorts snickering at naked sculptures.

“Who painted this thing?” said Luke, nodding at the Rembrandt.

“You’re kidding, right?”

The look on his face, as blank as the day is long, told her he wasn’t. She sighed. “It’s a Rembrandt.”

Luke unfolded a piece of paper and took a small pen from his shorts. He scanned the paper but put the pen away without making a mark. “Oh, man,” he said. “Already have that one.”

“Bummer,” said Ren, immediately regretting her sarcasm. Luke had saved her at the airport.

“Yeah,” said Luke ruefully. “Say, where’s A-Dawg at? Little twerp’s not answering my messages.”

“His battery died,” she said, which was true enough.

Luke nodded. “So where’s he at?”

Ren considered the question — and how much she should tell Luke. “Reading,” she said. That also seemed true enough.

Luke looked at her carefully. Does he know I’m ducking the question? Most of the time she thought Luke was as dumb as a rock, but sometimes she wasn’t so sure … “Like for his ‘internship’?” he said.

The way he said it didn’t ease her suspicions, but a moment later he was standing up and heading out of the room. “There are more of these Rembrandts two floors down.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking one last look and standing up herself.

“Tell my cuz to call me, okay?” said Luke. “Laterz!”

“Bye,” said Ren, but he was already gone. He had paintings to cross off his list.

Ren checked her map. “Two floors down” … There was a level “–2” in the Sainsbury Wing — and it had “temporary exhibits.” That must be it, she thought.

She reached the bottom of the stairs and found a guard. “Excuse me,” she said, “I’m looking for the Rembrandts?”

“Ah, right, the special exhibit,” he said. “Far corner, last room.”

He pointed the way. She thanked him and walked on, a spring in her step for the first time in dog years.

She walked directly to the far corner, last room. Looking straight ahead, she didn’t notice that the guard from the stairs was following her.

She entered the room like a summer breeze, light and warm. She looked around. She was the only one there, no people and no Rembrandts. These paintings were much earlier and entirely too English. She checked her map. The glass door swung shut behind her.

“ ’Ello again,” she heard.

The summer breeze turned to an arctic chill. She’d been so careful. Staying out of sight, blending in on the city’s crowded sidewalks. But in this museum, feeling better for just a moment, she’d let her guard down. And now, she would pay for it.

She looked up and saw the thug from the airport: Liam, the van man. Behind him, through the closed glass door, she saw the guard from the stairs, taking up a post outside the room. So stupid, she thought.

“What do you want?” she said, stalling for time as her hand found her pocket.

“Nuffin’ really,” said Liam, a wicked grin lifting his thick lips. “No fuss. Jus’ come wiv us.”

Us? thought Ren. How many of them are there?

She ripped her phone free as she turned and ran. There was nowhere to go, no other exit, but she put the room’s one bench in between her and the towering thug. As she shifted her weight from left to right, trying to guess which side he’d attack from, her shaking fingers fumbled across the screen. She managed to open her text messages. Liam had taken something from his pocket, too: a syringe.

Horse tranquilizer. It had nearly killed a guard twice her size. Liam took two quick steps and lunged. He stabbed out with the syringe as she punched her finger at the edge of the screen: Send! No bars down here. But maybe it would still —

“Aaaah!” she screamed as the point of the needle raked across her left arm. A long, deep scratch — but had any of the tranquilizer gotten in? She ran around the right of the bench as Liam ran around the left. He was still behind it as she shot back across the room toward the door.

“Stop ’er!” he roared.

The guard turned around in time to see Ren throwing her whole body, messenger bag first, into the door. The thick safety glass smacked him in the face, and she squeezed out the small gap as Liam thundered up behind her.

The next room was empty, too, but she could see the exit at the far end. Desperate for escape, pulse pounding in her ears, she ran. Two steps, three — and she was yanked back. The guard had recovered in time to grab the strap of her messenger bag. He reeled her in like a wriggling trout as the drop of tranquilizer began to take effect and her vision began to blur.