“Troy!” Kurt screams.
Jada curls over Troy’s body. “No no no no …”
The stranger levels the fob at Kurt, who freezes in place.
“I am the Director of this camp.” The stranger’s cold tone cuts through Jada’s sobs. “We have some developments to discuss at the main cabin. You will proceed there in a single file line, without talking.”
Numb, I climb out of my bedroll and fall into line with everyone else. I can’t look at the poor figure huddled below the headlights, the thing that used to be Troy.
As we walk the familiar trail to the main cabin, I’m vaguely aware of Kurt crying and Jada sobbing far behind me, but too afraid to turn and comfort them. None of us do. None of us want to be next.
When I surface from the shock, we’re all in a line across from the Director in the main cabin as he addresses us. He’s tall, spare, white-haired, and looks so … reasonable. So relaxed.
“Training is over,” the Director says calmly. “You will leave on your first mission in twenty-three hours.”
What?
“I don’t have the time,” the Director goes on, “to deal with the Class A sense of entitlement.” He shoots a look at Kate and Dave, who stand in the far corner of the room. “There’s a clean-up back on the obstacle course.”
Kate and Dave exit at his command, to “clean up” Troy. Troy, who held my wrists so tight under Dog Mask’s body and hadn’t gotten a chance to eat his M&Ms and let Jada Sharpie his throat just because he wanted to see her win. I will never hear his laugh again. And all I can do is stare at the wood grain of the floor between my wet, grass-stained sneakers.
The Director casually holds up a stack of folders, like a high school English teacher going through examples of a book report they assign every year.
“As this is your first mission, you’ll be sent out in pairs to help each other with execution and concealment of four high-priority targets, targets you have been matched with based on the strengths you’ve displayed.”
This is how they plan to keep us from striking out on our own once we’re past the fence? The buddy system?
I’m going to be free. I’m going to be free in twenty-three hours. The relief is so intense I have to choke back a sob.
“So. First pair: Jada and Erik.”
Erik is expressionless. Jada walks behind him like a zombie. The Director hands them each a folder.
“Javier and Lark.” Lark?
Javier and Nobody walk up to the Director to take their folders. If Nobody is angry he used her real name, she doesn’t show it.
“Troy and Kurt.”
Kurt walks up alone.
“Dennis and Signal.”
I can’t bring myself to look into the Director’s face, I just take the folder and follow Dennis into the dining area, the room so much emptier without the usual rowdy laughter.
“Read over your briefings in silence, please.”
I look up to see Javier staring at me from across the room. I offer a minuscule smile, but he looks away as Nobody, beside him, raises her hand.
The Director stares at her for a beat, but she doesn’t drop her arm.
“Yes?”
“I’ve been assigned a primary target, but it seems like there’s also a lot of … potential casualties.”
“Yes,” the Director says. “Casualties may be required to escape from the Ojai compound.”
Ojai? That sounds so familiar. Some kind of celebrity got married there … Because it was close to Los Angeles, in Southern California. Where Oxnard is.
Where Jaw is.
“It seems like the potential casualties would be teenage girls,” Nobody continues, her raspy voice firm. “So I can’t do that.”
“You’re refusing your mission?”
“I’m not going to be any good to you on this one,” Nobody insists, and the air goes electric. What is she thinking? He’ll kill her.
“You don’t have a choice in the matter.” The Director’s voice is a warning. Nobody is about to respond when I swing my arm into the air. I force myself to meet the Director’s eyes, flat dark holes in a thin pink face, shielded by thick glasses.
“I’ll trade with her.” I can barely get the words out.
“Trade?” The Director’s upper lip curls, revealing teeth the color of old piano keys.
At last Javier looks at me, and almost imperceptibly shakes his head: Don’t.
“Your targets have been assigned to your skill level.” The Director walks slowly toward my table. Dennis, next to me, shrinks into himself. “You’re Lark’s inferior. If you trade, you dramatically reduce your odds of getting back to camp alive.”
I hold his gaze. “Okay. I’ll still do it.”
There’s a long moment, and the Director flicks his wrist so the fob lands in his palm. He moves the pad of his thumb over the button.
“Very well,” the Director shrugs at last, letting the fob slip from his hand and rattle around his bony wrist. My teeth unclench. “Leave your folder at your table and exchange seats. But there will be no more trades. And this one is final.”
I push back my chair, the scraping sound harsh in the silence. Nobody reaches out and squeezes my hand quickly as we pass by each other, and then I’m next to Javier.
I look over at him, long enough that he should be able to tell, but he won’t look back at me. He stares down at his folder deliberately instead, so I open mine and see the face of the man we’re supposed to murder.
Angel CHILDS: 30, 5’8”, brown hair, brown eyes.
First noted in Santa Cruz two years ago, in a small camper van with glow-in-the-dark stickers adhered to its side.
Angel spent approx. last two years traveling the California coast, playing his guitar in coffee shops and tourist spots. He met a freshmen co-ed who subsequently dropped out to join Angel on his tour of the PCH and help recruit others. Within four months six college drop-outs were living in Childs’ van.
They traded up to a decommissioned school bus, which they drove to musical festivals throughout SoCal until they arrived at a collective in Ojai, called Owl’s Nest.
Once an active commune in the 1960s, Owl’s Nest was home to three older artists who had lived there continuously for over fifty years. They reportedly invited the newcomers to stay.
By spring, all three artists had disappeared. Childs claimed they left after signing the property over to his first recruit, called “Compass” by his group, who refer to themselves as “The Constellation.”
Since the disappearance of the original owners, the population of Owl’s Nest has risen to approx. fifty adults between the ages of eighteen and twenty-four.
Neighbors have reported hearing gunshots, as well as sightings of Childs driving down horse trails on an ATV while wearing a holster. Members of a prominent California biker gang known as the Death Heads have been seen going in and out of Owl’s Nest at night.
Childs himself never leaves.
Ergo, this target must be dispatched from within the compound, which will take considerable strategy to infiltrate. They are highly selective in deciding which guests may enter, and within their own hierarchy access to Childs is highly limited.
Furthermore, if The Constellation detects Angel Childs’ assassination before agents leave the compound, the agents will almost certainly be terminated.
A picture paper-clipped to his profile, taken from social media, shows him sun-soaked and square-jawed, long dark hair cascading over his shoulders, strumming a guitar and smiling a large, toothy smile.
Once we’ve finished reading, the Director tells us to make our way over to the Arts and Crafts table to meet with Dave, and we all flee.
With a small, shared glance of understanding, Javier and I sprint ahead, running off the path and into the trees, out of the sight of the others.
Once we’re hidden in the cool shadow of the woods, the sparkling blue of the lake breaking through in pinpoints between the pine needles, Javier turns on me.
“Why would you trade with Nobody?” he cries. “What were you thinking?! This is a suicide mission!”
“Javier, I didn’t have a choice.”
“You chose to trade!”
“Because the mission is in Ojai,” I confess. “I need to investigate a guy in Southern California. This way I’ll have the whole trip down as a head start before they realize I’ve taken off.”
“Whoa, investigate? Investigate him for what?” He blinks at me. “What are you talking about?”
“Javier, last night I found out the guy who killed Rose lives in California.”
He stares at me for a long moment. “The guy who killed your victim, Rose?”
My stomach starts to sink.
“Wait … so, what, you’re innocent?” There’s a panicked note in his voice, something between a laugh and a sob. “Like, you’ve never killed anyone?”
“I’m sorry, is that a bad thing?” My voice comes out high, brittle. “Didn’t you … couldn’t you tell? All that stuff about being mislabeled, ‘flower for sure,’ I thought …” I reach for his hand.
He flinches away. “So that’s where you and Erik were? Off ‘investigating’ all night? You told him you were innocent, but you didn’t tell me?”
“I didn’t tell him, he guessed! He guessed the first day he met me.”
“I really don’t know what to say.” Javier shakes his head. “I thought we were on the same page. I thought you were someone who’d messed up and was trying to do better. But you’re nothing like me.” His jaw is set, his nostrils flaring, his eyes won’t meet mine. “Signal, you might be an innocent, but I’m not. I killed a guy with my bare hands.”
My eyes go to his scars. He sees me look, and he draws himself up straighter.
“You know something else?” Javier says, lifting his chin so he looms almost a head taller than me. “I don’t regret it. When I let myself look back on that day I feel … satisfaction. Yes. Satisfaction. If I could go back to that moment? I’d do it again. Only thing different, I’d make it last longer. Try and enjoy it.”
I feel sick.
“So now what, you want to make out?” He takes a sudden step toward me and I step back involuntarily. “Didn’t think so,” Javier says quietly, and walks stiffly past me down the field.
Dave blows the whistle in front of the Arts and Crafts table as I stumble down the hill and join the stunned group of campers facing him.
“Well, campers, we’re going to be really busy for the next twenty or so hours—”
“Who the hell is that guy?” Kurt interrupts in a strangled voice.
“He’s the Director,” Dave says tensely. “After we reported the intruder last night, HQ put him in charge of camp. Believe it or not, he’s here for your protection.”
“He killed my brother!”
“We could all rush him at once,” Erik says in such a serious tone that Dave lunges forward and grabs him by the collar.
“If you want HQ to simultaneously activate all your implants at once, then go ahead, by all means. Play your asinine games with the man who planned and built this place.” There’s a desperate edge in Dave’s voice as he pushes Erik away. Erik bristles, rage and restraint fighting in his face, and I put my hand on his shoulder without thinking. He turns on me at the contact, breath catching, but something in my expression makes him calm enough to hold back.
Dave looks at each of us in turn, then snatches up his walkie-talkie and yells for Kate to come handle us, disappearing up the hill. We all stand there, left without answers, and a small, muffled sob escapes Kurt as he sits down in the grass, hands over his head, his back to us, and I can’t handle it anymore.
I kneel down beside Kurt and put my arms around him and he sags into me, the muscles in his neck and back rigid, his voice broken and jagged as he cries:
“I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where he is.”
I don’t know what to say, so I murmur nonsensically, “It’s okay. It’s okay …” and rub his back. Light footsteps, and Jada kneels down beside us. And then Nobody’s fingertips graze my hair as she winds her arms around Kurt and Jada, and then Dennis’s fine curls graze my hand as he closes around the other side of Kurt, and I can sense Javier in the huddle across from me, and the unmistakable heat of Erik’s arm reaching across my shoulder so he can rest his long, broad hand on Kurt’s back. Kurt’s neck and shoulders release then, and he lets out a long, broken sigh.
“You know, in ancient times …,” Erik says, and Kurt lets out a dry, hot laugh, and then weeps again, but these are good tears. Necessary ones. Like he’s getting something out of him. We sit there in the long grass, huddled together against the wind coming off the lake, just holding on to each other as hard as we can.
I’ve dozed off by the time Kate arrives. There’s a sick pallor over her usually cheerful features, and the sky is the color of milk. She clears her throat and asks us to come to the table, so we help each other up and sit in a tight knot as she passes out eight stapled packets of Google Map printouts.
“I know this has been a difficult morning,” Kate says at last. “But in spite of all the arguments I could possibly make against it, you guys will be leaving tomorrow at dawn. So we need to get serious about getting you ready. The routes to your targets are in front of you.” I look down at the national view of our map, a pink squiggle that runs from Washington to California. “Study them carefully. It will be crucial that you stay on this route once you’re out of camp. You’ll all be given burner phones. Camp HQ will be programmed in as ‘Mom and Dad.’ If you need to make a detour for any reason, pull over and call us, and wait for us to give you the all clear. Because if you go a mile off your route in any direction, your kill switch will be triggered, and obviously we do not want that to happen—”
“Wait, what?!” I blurt. “What are you talking about?”
“Your kill switch, Signal,” Kate says in a tone like this should be obvious. “Until now, it could only go off if you crossed the fence or we clicked a fob. But when you go off on your missions, we activate the GPS, and your kill switch conforms to your route. You travel to your target, complete your assignment, and come back the same way. Or it will go off. Understand?”