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The second thing Hailey had taken up was sculpture. Every chance her mother got, she would bring home machine scraps and discarded equipment from the plant, and Hailey would spend her free time turning it into art, which her mother kept around the house or displayed proudly on the front steps.

This odd hobby began after Mrs. Phoenix noticed what great things Hailey was making with all the garbage she'd found on the street (there was a lot of garbage on Hailey's street), and before long Hailey got the impression that her mother entertained wild dreams of Hailey Phoenix becoming the great modern artist of Spokie. This was even more ridiculous than her own plans to move out to the flatlands, Hailey thought, but at the same time she had to admit that it was kind of nice.

“Holograms,” Mrs. Phoenix said. “Imagine that.”

After she'd washed the dishes and bid her mother good night, Hailey slipped out of the house, as she almost always did, to take her nightly stroll.

The sun was sitting low in the sky at this point, and since Hailey's block was as close as any inhabited street got to Slog Row, there were more than a few Markless roaming the sidewalk. But Hailey didn't mind the Markless the way most people did, partly because her mother had been one until recently, and partly because, living where she did, Hailey just saw so many of them. Sure, her house was robbed—every couple of months, in fact— and yes, Hailey had been accosted while coming home late one night just a few weeks before. But since there wasn't any paper money left for anyone to steal, and since Hailey and her mother had so little besides lentils and garbage sculptures lying around the house, Hailey figured she just didn't have that much left to lose.

Even so, Hailey wasn't much interested tonight in crossing the expressway to explore Spokie's dark outskirts, and she soon found herself ambling the other direction, toward the fancy center square downtown, thinking happily that it would be a rather nice night for window-shopping.

She was almost there when Hailey ran into a fellow eighth-grade student looking lost and flustered and a little frightened just outside Spokie Central Park.

“You okay?” Hailey asked. “Need any help?”

“I lost my iguana,” the girl said. “You're from Spokie Middle, right?”

Hailey said that she was.

“It's all right, though. He's wearing a tracker. I can follow him on my tablet, see?” The girl showed Hailey her tablet and pointed to a satellite picture with a little glowing dot moving around inside the park beside them.

“I'm Hailey.”

“Oh. Erin. Hi.” Erin began walking in the direction of the dot on her map.

“What are you doing with an iguana?” Hailey asked. “And why is it wearing a . . . tracker?”

“Not just a tracker,” Erin said distractedly. “He's got some powder on him too—
wait!
” Erin cocked her head and listened for a moment. Hailey heard nothing. “He's by running water. Is there a fountain in this park?”

“You're new here, aren't you?” Hailey said.

“Yes. From Beacon.”

“They let you take iguanas for walks in Beacon?”

“I didn't
take
him for a
walk
—he
escaped
! Or . . . well, I sorta let him out into the hallway, but I didn't think—look, it doesn't matter! And no, Beacon doesn't—oh, forget it,” Erin said.

“Come on,” Hailey told her, laughing a little. “I'll take you to the fountain.”

7

Back on Logan's street, Logan and Dane were trying to beat the sunset and retrieve Dane's hoverdisk before it got too dark. But its perch in the tree was awfully high.

“I don't know why I'm the one up here,” Logan said, as Dane laughed sympathetically from the sidewalk. “You're the one who missed the catch.”

“Yeah, 'cause your throw was off!”

“It's a hoverdisk. It's
supposed
to veer off.”

“It was on the lowest setting!”

“Whatever!” Logan said. He was standing on the highest branch that could possibly have supported him, ten or so feet off the ground, and straining to touch the sports disk just out of reach.

“And anyway, you lost rock-tablet-laser.”

“I did
not
!” Logan said. “Who ever heard of a rock-tablet-laser match where you don't play best two out of three?” He wasn't actually angry, but the banter took his mind off his precarious foothold.

“Well, when you get back down here, we can have a rematch.” Dane laughed.

“Great, thanks,” Logan said, but his own laughter stopped short.

“What's up? You knock it loose?”

Logan hadn't knocked it loose. Logan hadn't touched the hoverdisk at all. Instead, in the fast-approaching darkness of night, he'd stumbled upon something else, high up in the tree.

A can. A tin can, like the kind you'd find tomato soup in, or beans. It was hanging off a twig above him. It was hanging from fishing line.

Logan unwrapped the line from the tree and pulled the can to his ear. The clear twine travelled off across the street toward Logan's house and pulled tight against him.

“Honey, do you know where the boys went?”
said a distant voice in the tin can.

“They're on the roof.”

“They aren't, though. Wait a second—I see Dane outside.”

Logan looked on in horror as his dad stepped out onto the stairwell outside Logan's room.

“Dane!” he called from across the street. “Do you know where Logan went?”

Dane flashed a glance to Logan in the tree and immediately thought better of admitting it.

“We're, uh, racing, Mr. Langly. We took a lap around the block. He's still catching up.”

“Well, you boys come in when you're done. Dinner soon. You're welcome to join if you'd like.”

“Thanks, Mr. Langly,” Dane yelled. “I'll think about it.”

Mr. Langly stepped back inside Logan's room, and in the tin can he held to his ear, Logan could hear his father's voice say,
“Boy's growing up faster than I know what to do with him . . .”

Logan's hands shook almost too much for him to hold on to the tree. In one clumsy motion he knocked the hoverdisk from its branch and tore the tin can from its fishing line.

“You got it!” Dane whispered, trying to be cautious after lying to Logan's dad. “Good job!”

Logan climbed to a safe height and jumped the rest of the way down the tree and onto the sidewalk.

“What've you got there?” Dane asked. Logan was holding the can. “You okay, dude? You look like you're gonna faint.”

Logan felt that way too, weak in the knees. He had to sit down.

Dane put his hand on Logan's shoulder and said, “Look, it was a close call with your dad, but it wasn't
that
close. He's not even angry.”

Logan was grateful for the alibi, as the last thing he wanted to do right now was explain to Dane what he'd just found. “You're right,” he said. “I'm just being stupid.”

At that moment, two girls appeared together down the sidewalk. When they came a little closer, Logan could see that they were, in fact, Hailey and Erin. Erin was holding her iguana tightly in both hands, and speaking loudly and excitedly to Hailey though she wasn't yet close enough for Logan to hear the words.

“Yo, girls!” Dane called out. “Hey, over here!”

Hailey turned and smiled upon seeing Dane and Logan. Erin smiled too.

“What's up?” Dane asked when they'd come a little closer.

“Just out for a stroll,” Hailey said.

“I lost my iguana.” Erin held him up.

Dane cleared his throat, and Logan snapped out of his daze.

“Oh! Dane! This is Erin,” he said. “Erin, this is my friend Dane.”

Dane nodded approvingly at Logan and waved to Erin.

“Hi,” Erin said.

Logan managed a thin smile. “I didn't know you two knew each other.”

“Just met,” Hailey said.

Erin laughed. “Playing kick the can, I see?” She gestured with Iggy to the can Logan was holding.

“Yeah, what is that?” Dane asked Logan.

“It's nothing,” Logan lied.

Dane pointed up. “You find it in the tree?”

“Uh . . .”

“Dude, it was prob'ly a bird's nest or something! And you stole it!”

“Shut up, Dane,” Logan said, rolling his eyes. “It wasn't a bird's nest.” He hesitated. “Actually . . . it was attached to that twine you found.”

Dane frowned. “Why?”

“It was, uh . . . it was picking up the sounds in my room.” Logan felt himself go white as he said it.

“So you
did
have an experiment going!” Dane said.

Logan laughed distantly. “Yeah . . .” He chuckled. “Works better than you'd think.”

But right as he lied, Erin caught Logan's eye. She read the look on his face. And suddenly many pieces of some grand puzzle clicked into place.

Could it be? Could Logan really be Peck's next victim? Could this be what all the “haunting” stories had been about last night? Could that be the explanation behind this tin can too?

Erin's eyes went wide. Without thinking, she hoisted Iggy up onto her shoulder and steadied him with one hand. With her other, she took Logan's, her touch surging through him. “Listen,” she said. “There's something I need to show you,” and the two of them turned.

“Dude, where are you going?” Dane looked at Logan pleadingly, stealing a short glance at Hailey. “I thought we were gonna eat dinner or something.”

“Dinner can wait,” Erin said.

“No, it can't,” Dane said. “Logan, not cool!” But Logan was already gone, dragging wildly behind Erin as she pulled him down the road.

“Peck,” Erin whispered once they'd run some feet away.

“What are you talking about?” Logan said. “What's going on? Who's Peck?”

“I think you're lying about that tin can being yours. But I think everything else you've said to me has been the truth.”

Logan was starting to breathe heavily. “You're right, but— Erin, what is this about? Who's Peck? Where have I heard that name before?”

Back by the tree, Dane looked at Hailey. She smiled apologetically.

“So,” Dane said.

“Hi,” Hailey said.

The two of them shrugged. And they made their way home.

8

Erin shuffled through boxes in her father's closet, fielding Logan's frantic questions.

“He
what
?”

“Killed someone. Guy named Jon Pulman. Jon was fifteen at the time.”

“Why?” Logan felt a shudder run down his back.

“No one knows. Peck had a history with him; they'd been friends for years, apparently. Jon had the Mark; some speculate Peck couldn't tolerate it any longer—”

“Peck doesn't have the Mark?”

“That's right.”

“And he killed his own friend because his friend did? That doesn't make any sense.”

“No. But it's consistent, if you keep digging.” Erin found the box labeled “DOME—CONFIDENTIAL,” which she'd hidden before she left, and exhumed it once more. “Something about the Mark seems to rub Peck the wrong way. Big-time. Turns out he attacked another one of his oldest friends, Trenton, just six months later. Trenton is seventeen. He's been in a coma ever since.” Now Erin corroborated her story with pages that she took out from her father's box one at a time.

“How long's that been now?”

“'Bout four months. Hasn't woken up.”

Logan looked over the papers. “What'd Peck do to him?”

“Same thing he did to Jon. Blunt object to the back of the head.”

“Over the Mark?”

Erin could tell Logan was skeptical. “You wouldn't think so, necessarily. Not just from those two instances alone. But the story continues.”

Logan had to concentrate hard on his breathing to keep from hyperventilating. He could already see his peripheral vision fading.