I DREAM OF WATER AND RAIN AND ELECTRICITY. Of tunnels and darkness and the taste of my mother’s Sunday chicken. My father’s cigarette sizzling lazily on the arm of his chair. The heavy weight of the gun at my hip. The sound of Sydney’s boisterous laugh.

And when I wake from this surprisingly deep sleep, I feel calmer than I have in so long. I almost think I’m home on a Saturday morning, before the academy, before everything. Before my father got shot. Back when everything was okay. That thought quickly ends as I look around and, instead of being greeted by sunlight flooding through my windows, I’m greeted by darkness. But I can also hear the soft breathing of someone beside me which is . . . new.

I check my watch and nearly startle. It’s almost noon. Dear God, we’ve been sleeping for hours— nearly twelve. Margo was supposed to wake us up. We were only supposed to take an hour or so nap. But why had I been this tired? What had happened? I pat my hands against my body on instinct, and finally I notice.

My gun. The gun at my hip is gone.

“Sydney!” I hiss and shake her awake. She squirms and murmurs, but I persist and finally she opens her eyes.

“My gun is missing. It’s almost noon. Margo was supposed to wake us up hours ago and my gun is missing.”

I see Sydney’s eyes whirl as she tries to process this. “You think Margo took it?”

“I think she drugged us, too,” I whisper and I put my fingers to my lips to motion for her to do the same. Who knows if they have someone listening in on us—who knows if this is just Margo; maybe they’re all in on it.

Sydney’s eyes widen. It all makes sense—how tired we were last night, how easy it was for her to get us to abandon our mission. I wouldn’t have slept this long; I would never have gone to sleep at all, especially since we were so close to finding Sammy.

“All along, this entire time, she’s been up to something. I would say I didn’t see this coming, but that would be a lie,” she whispers.

I nod. “I had a feeling too. It was obvious how much she disliked us. But this? She’s trying to get something from us. Or she’s trying to hide something.”

“What about Ruiz? Do you think he’s in on it, too, whatever it is Margo is planning?”

Where Ruiz had seemed nice, Margo had seemed cold and unwelcoming. But they both ruled this camp, they shared a son, and I’d seen the way he whispered into her ear at the end of the night, how close they seemed.

“It’s hard to tell,” I answer.

“And Jaime?” Sydney asks, her voice small. I hesitate. I know how much he reminded her of Sammy and how much she feels for the little boy.

“He might know something about it, but I find it hard to believe they’d let a little kid in on all of this.”

Sydney and I share a look. Margo and Ruiz seemed exactly like the kind of parents who’d include their young son on these kinds of plans in hopes of brainwashing him.

“We should ask him and make him tell us what he knows,” says Sydney, with a steely resolve in her voice that makes me look up at her.

“Are you sure?”

“If it means getting Sammy back, I’ll do anything.”

Because that’s it, isn’t it? That’s what it must all add up to—Sammy. They had his rain jacket, they claimed they may have seen him. They know this system better than most New Yorkers know their own neighborhoods. They have to know something about Sammy—anything.

I nod and together we make our way out of the train car. The camp around us is silent and I wonder if they all knew this was coming. If they laughed with us and told jokes just to make us feel safe, just to make us think they weren’t a threat. I want to shout for someone to tell us what’s going on, to help us get back to the surface, but it’s clear that no one is here. I picture Margo—her cold, hard voice spitting out words filled with venom. Maybe we should have seen this coming all along.

I put my hand on my hip, expecting to feel the familiar weight and shape of my gun, but I remember that it’s gone. A part of me expects to feel empty—lost without it. Because this uniform is all I am. All I’ve been striving for since the moment my father came home drunk and miserable. Since the moment I saw his eyes fall on mine with a challenge. I should feel incomplete, I should feel defenseless. Especially here, in a place where the sun doesn’t shine. But I don’t. I can’t.

Even without my gun, even here, somehow I feel like there isn’t anything I can’t do.

I look at Sydney to the left of me, her face molded into a mask of fearlessness and determination. Except it’s not a mask or a shield the way my uniform was.

I study her and find that it isn’t difficult to do the same, to follow her example, to let her strength become mine.

We walk through the deep tunnels as if the world isn’t falling apart.

“Jaime?” Sydney shouts as we continue along one of the paths Ruiz and Margo showed us yesterday.

“Are you there?” I shout in tandem, making my voice just as kind as hers. We’ve been looking for the boy for the last half hour. Part of me wants to just try and find his parents and then Sammy—but that’s probably impossible, especially without help. And we both remember Jaime talking about how much he loves playing on these tracks—especially when his parents are busy.

So we continue to look through the ghost tracks, rainwater dripping lazily down on our heads, and finally we spot a purple jacket hunched over in the corner. I hear Sydney’s breath hitch and I wonder if for a moment she thinks it’s Sammy, but she breaks into a jog and cries Jaime’s name.

He turns, a soft smile appearing on his face.

“Hey, kid,” I say when I catch up, trying my best not to watch him warily as he plays with old action figures along the metal of the track. “Do you know where your parents are?”

The smile on his face falls and he looks between the two of us in fear. No—not quite fear—nervousness.

“I-I-I haven’t seen them since this morning.”

“Jaime. Remember, I’m a cop. You can’t lie to me.” And of course I’ve said exactly the wrong thing. Jaime retreats farther into the corner, his eyes widened with fear.

“It’s okay, Jaime.” Sydney speaks up, a smile wide on her face. “I’m your friend, and I promise no one’s going to hurt you or be upset with you if you tell me where your parents are.” She holds her hand out to him and within moments he latches onto it, his small hands wrapped around hers.

“You promise?” he asks, his voice small and broken. I turn to look at Sydney, watching the indecision in her eyes. There’s no way she can keep this promise and she knows it.

“Yeah,” she says anyway. “I promise.”

We follow Jaime along the ghost tracks, doing our best to not make a sound as we plod down an unfamiliar path.

And suddenly the tracks stop, the tunnels around us begin to narrow, and in front of us is a darkness so all-encompassing even the flashlight in my hand can barely light the way.

“They’re down there.” Jaime points a finger toward the passageway. “There in the truction place.”

Sydney and I share a look.

“Truction?” Sydney asks, kneeling on the ground to get a better look at him. She holds onto his small shoulders. “What do you mean?”

“The place where all the noise comes from.”

Sydney looks up at me questioningly and suddenly I know what he’s talking about. “Construction site,” I mouth to her and she nods. That’s where this passageway must lead—the Second Avenue construction. If I think about it, we’ve been walking along it for the last few days.

“Are you sure that’s where your parents are?” “Yeah,” says Jaime. “And that little boy.”

The world seems to pause on a moment—a quick breath of air. I see Sydney trembling, her slim shoulders shaking.

Her voice breaks. “A l-little boy?” She bites her lip and I move to put a hand on her shoulder, mirroring hers on Jaime’s. “Blond hair? Blue eyes? A little s-small?”

Jaime nods. “Momma told me not to tell you, but I like you and I don’t want you to be sad.”

Sydney stumbles into him, wrapping her arms so tightly around him that I’m surprised he doesn’t fall over.

“Thanks, Jaime,” she says, pulling back to wipe her eyes. “I’ll never forget this, I promise.” And this time, I can tell she means it. “Now go back, you don’t belong here.”