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The men shadowed Connor to the side of the house. He didn’t bother knocking before opening the door into the mudroom, and I met him and Riley at the few steps up to the kitchen.

“Morning,” Connor said, flashing me a smile of unnaturally white teeth. Tall and gorgeous, he was charismatic on every level, and often plied me with compliments I knew weren’t true.

I tried to avoid him whenever he came for a check-in because he made my skin crawl, but this visit was different. They’d never shown up with an entourage before. And certainly not dressed like this.

The agents wore black jackets with armored quilting at the shoulders and elbows. The necks of the jackets were high and close-fitting, made tighter by a fastened strap.

Over the jackets they wore thick black vests. Handguns hung from the waists of their black pants, and their hands were hidden in black gloves with plates of rubber on the fingers.

They clustered in the doorway between the kitchen and dining room, waiting for further direction. In addition to Connor and Riley, I counted a total of seven men and one woman. Two agents per boy.

None of them made eye contact with me, even when I stared. Were those bulletproof vests? I was suddenly on full alert.

“Come with me.” Connor led his team to the basement. I followed silently at the back, afraid of being caught and sent away.

Riley punched in the entrance code at the lab and the door rushed open. Dad’s voice carried out as he greeted Connor, then Riley.

“Arthur.” Connor clasped Dad by the shoulder. “We got word this morning from OB that we’re ending the project. We’re taking the units.”

Dad said nothing. The agents broke into pairs in front of each cell. Connor and Riley murmured to Dad while Sam stared down the men at his room, fists clenched. I caught Trev’s eyes and saw panic.

“No.” The word was out before I could stop it. Everyone turned to me, standing at the mouth of the hallway.

The boys shifted in their rooms. Shifted closer, as if they would group together if not for the walls between them. Sam’s eyes were on me.

“Excuse me?” Riley snapped. He was far older than Connor, impatient, no-nonsense.

I warmed beneath the attention and the glow of the fluorescent lights. “You can’t… yet… I mean… they’re not ready. We can still—”

Sam shook his head and I went quiet.

“She’s right,” Dad added. “They aren’t ready.”

Connor gave Dad the kind of smile you give someone when you’re tired of their excuses, when you think you know better than they do. “Every time I talk to you, they aren’t ready. I’m beginning to think you’ve grown too attached.”

Dad started to object, but I beat him to it. “We still need to run a few more tests.”

Connor slid toward me, wound an arm around my shoulders. “I know you’ve put in a lot of effort down here with Arthur these last few months, and that won’t go unrewarded. How much longer do you have before you finish school?”

I had only about six months to finish homeschooling and told Connor so, though I had no idea why it mattered.

“Come see me when you’re done. We’ll find a spot for you. I’ll keep you close to me. Sound good?”

Sam shook his head again, but Connor missed it. Cas stood at the front of his room, arms crossed over his chest. Nick rolled his head back and forth, the bones in his neck cracking. Trev curled his hands into loose fists.

Connor dug his fingers into my shoulder as he turned us both toward the rooms. “I think you would make a wonderful addition to
the Branch,” he continued, keeping his eyes on the boys. “Would you like that?”

My limbs felt weak and airy. “Um…” I was overwhelmed by the smell of his cologne, sweet and musky all at once.

There were things I wanted outside of this lab. I wanted to travel, to visit the places in my magazines. But I’d never pictured my life without Sam and the others in it. If I worked for the Branch, would I work close to Sam? Did it even matter? If he left today, would he forget about me?

“You don’t have to find a place for me.”

“Nonsense. I
want
you there. It’s my pleasure.” Connor ran a hand over his blond, perfectly coiffed hair, as if checking its placement. “Clearly the boys respect you. Look at them.”

Riley, Dad, and the other agents turned to the boys.

“Where will you take them?” I asked.

“That’s classified,” Riley said.

“Headquarters,” Connor said, and Riley looked chagrined. I wondered if Riley hated that someone younger than him was his boss.

Dad cleared his throat. “Will I be reassigned?”

Connor moved away from me. “ALPHA is ongoing. You can manage that.”

Alpha?
That was in Sam’s files. OP ALPHA.

“That program is connected to the boys,” Dad replied. “There is no program without them.”

“Arthur,” Riley said, putting heavy emphasis on Dad’s name, “this is something that will be discussed later.”

Dad’s shoulders sagged.

I tried to catch his eyes, to send him a silent message:
Fight for the boys. Don’t let Connor take them!
But he avoided looking at me, avoided looking at anyone.

“So,” Connor said, “shall we get started?” Though it was phrased as a question, no one waited to answer. The agents squared their shoulders, and Connor looked over at Dad and said, “I trust you’ll cooperate?”

Dad nodded. “Of course.”

The lights overhead felt blinding. I looked at all the files piled on Dad’s desk, at the desk I’d claimed as my own next to it. This was
our
place,
our
job.

Say something, Dad
, I thought. The boys had been here for years. The lab was their home. Wasn’t here better than some Branch building?

“How would you like to proceed?” Dad asked.

“Gas them all at once,” Connor said. “My men will move in from there.” He clapped his hands together, and Dad hurried to the control panel.

I stood unmoving near the mouth of the hallway, staring at Sam, lips parted, unsaid words stuck behind my teeth. His gaze flicked to the chessboard in the back corner of the lab and something like regret flashed across his face.

“Miss?” the female agent said. I blinked. “Perhaps you should wait upstairs.”

“I’m staying.” I pursed my lips and moved out of the way.

“I don’t know if that’s such a good idea—”

“Anna has as much right to be here as any of us,” Connor said with a wink. While I was grateful that he didn’t kick me out, I wasn’t sure why he was sticking up for me.

I turned and caught Dad’s eyes, and his expression made me pause. It was a look that said a million
sorry
s, none of which I would ever hear:
Sorry for bringing you into this mess. Sorry that you even have an excuse for being here. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.

I wanted to say,
Who cares about me? Don’t let them take the boys.

But Dad didn’t say anything. Not one word.

6

CONNOR HIT THE CONTROL BUTTONS and the rooms’ vents opened, expelling the gas. Riley stood in the center of the lab, hand poised over the butt of his gun. The boys dropped where they stood. We waited the required four minutes. No one moved.

I clenched and unclenched my fists. Connor had broken Dad’s second rule. I didn’t understand why they couldn’t just escort the boys out.

As the four minutes stretched thin, like a rubber band ready to snap, I focused on Sam. He’d fallen on the other side of his bed, so I could see only his legs from where I stood. When he woke up, he’d probably already be gone, on his way to headquarters. Wherever that was.

Would he think of me when he woke? If I had known the night before would be our final night together, I would have spent more time with him.

I would have told him how much he meant to me, that not a second went by when I didn’t think about him. Every muscle in my body tensed with anxiety as I realized I would wake up in the morning and there’d be no one here. I could already feel the emptiness settling in.

“Time,” Dad said.

The vents scraped shut, and the doors to the rooms slid open. The men moved in as the lab filled with the acrid scent of dissipating gas. I pushed away from the wall, closer to Sam’s room. Next week was supposed to be his week for blood work. The fact that I wouldn’t be able to see him up close, in person, to touch him, tugged at cords I didn’t know I had.

One man stood at the front of Sam’s room like a guard, while his partner crouched down at the foot of the bed. The second man secured Sam’s wrists behind his back with a zip tie before pulling a syringe from an inside jacket pocket. He picked off the orange cap. Then he froze.

“What the hell?” He stepped over Sam’s legs. “Shit.” He whipped his gun from its holster as Sam rocked back, jamming his foot up and between the man’s legs.

I sucked in a breath. The man fell to his knees. The one on guard fumbled for his gun. Sam leapt in the air, swinging his tied-off wrists
beneath his feet, putting his hands in front of him in one quick motion.

“Cell three! Cell three!” Riley shouted.

Sam tore the gun away from the first agent and cupped it in both hands. He didn’t waver. He pointed. Shot. Blood splattered across the wall. The man slumped over. I tasted the gas, bitter in the back of my throat. I jammed myself in beside the row of filing cabinets.

Sam shot again. The man on guard collapsed. Someone yelled. Dad ducked toward the control panel. The men in Cas’s room came barreling out into the lab, guns ready. The woman guarding Trev’s room hunkered down at the partition wall. Sam aimed for the light fixtures in the ceiling and took out three rows as one of the agents in Nick’s room tried a countering shot.

The bullet missed Sam. The room plunged into a murky half darkness.

Riley took a shot, the gun sparking to my left. Concrete pebbled from the wall. I could just make out Sam at the front corner of his room, gun up.
Thwap. Thwap.
Two bodies hit the floor. The sound rooted me in place.

“Turn the gas back on!” Connor shouted, and Dad fumbled at the controls.

The woman sprang from her hiding spot, and Sam killed her with one pull of the trigger. Another agent rushed in, landing a punch to Sam’s jaw. As Sam stumbled back, he brought the gun up and put a bullet in the man’s forehead.

Riley ran to the exit as Sam eliminated the last two guards.

I was next. Sam was going to shoot me. On purpose or by accident, I didn’t know.

Hands gripped me, wrestling me to my feet, an arm closing around my neck. I thought it was Dad, trying to save me, but the barrel of the gun rammed against my skull said otherwise. Connor’s cologne filled my nose.

“Sam!” Connor yelled.

Sam went rigid. Though I could see nothing else, I could see that—the sharp line of him in the dark. My head swam.

“Put the gun down.” Connor tugged me toward the door. He was crazy if he thought Sam would quit, just like that. Maybe I’d spent the last several years of my life trying to make Sam’s a little bit better, but he wouldn’t trade his freedom for me.

Dad hovered near the controls. Sam, hands still tied together, eased the gun toward the floor. His jaw tensed, like his brain didn’t agree with what his hands were doing.

He was throwing away his freedom for my life. The realization left me both cold and hot all over. I couldn’t stand to watch the unfairness of it register on his face. I didn’t know what any of this meant, or what Sam intended to do once he broke free of the lab, but if I had to pick sides, I had to pick Sam’s.

This was my chance. And I’d always known my answer.

I swung an elbow back, catching Connor in the stomach. He doubled over, sending his gun skittering across the floor. Sam shot.
The first bullet clipped Connor in the shoulder. I ducked as a second bullet hit him in the side. He dropped. Riley fired a shot from the hallway and Sam flattened himself against the floor.

“Get me out of here!” Connor ordered as Riley popped off another round.

The lab door swished open. Sam rose to a crouching position. He aimed. I pressed myself harder into the wall.

Riley hooked his arms beneath Connor and dragged him out. Sam pulled the trigger again, but the chamber answered back with a hollow
click
.

“Go! Go!” Connor yelled.

The door closed behind them, sealing with a definitive
whump
. The keypad beeped from the other side and the bolts slid into place.

I shakily rose to my feet. My stomach swirled with nausea. I looked to Dad in the far corner.
What now?
I thought. But Dad just stood there, his fingers twitching like he needed a straw to hold.

Sam put the gun down and sprang into action. He stole a pocketknife from one of the dead men and flipped it open, then used it to split the zip ties on his wrists. He went to Cas’s room and shook him until he woke. Cas sat up, dazed. Sam went down the line, waking the others. I remained at the mouth of the hallway, unsure of what to do with myself.

I swallowed hard against the uneasiness sitting at the back of my tongue, like I might vomit at the slightest encouragement.

“We need to move,” Sam said to Cas. “I doubt we have much time—”

“Wait.” Dad stepped forward. The boys tensed. “I’m not going to stop you”—Dad held up his hands—“but you have to think about what you’re doing. Do you have a plan?”

Sam plucked another gun from the floor. “My plan starts with getting out of here.”

“I can help you.” Dad held up a set of keys. “Take my car. It doesn’t have a tracking device on it, but you’ll want to switch vehicles soon. If Connor is badly injured, you have a half hour, tops. There’s a safe house not too far from here. I’m sure that’s where Riley took him.”

Sam took the offered keys. “Cas, gather the guns. Trev and Nick, check out front.”

“The door is locked—” I started.

“Five-zero-five-nine-seven-three,” Sam interrupted.

That wasn’t the code I used to get in and out of the lab. Not that I thought Riley or Connor had locked us in using the normal one.

Nick slid a daggered look my way as he passed and I mashed myself even closer to the wall. Trev punched in the numbers and the lab door hissed open.