There’s no running water in this bathroom—I checked—but still I’ve managed to find a small sanctuary. It’s the one place I can find almost anywhere where I can rest from all the eyes watching me. School, home, safe houses . . .

My knees pressed up tight against the sink, I open the pocket-sized notebook I found zipped in a plastic baggie floating inside the toilet’s tank.

It’s a list of names. Pages and pages of names.

An archive of every person who has sought shelter inside these cellar walls. This is a station stop on the underground byway to Canada. Like the cowboy Kipling’s ranch in west Texas.

He had a notebook just like this one.

I find myself scanning the unfamiliar names, line by line, as if I might recognize one. Lucía wasn’t here. Stop being foolish.

About halfway through page fifteen I stop. “Ariadne Black: mother of Cooper, Noah, and Ruby.” There’s a strange mark at the end of the entry, an interlocking triple spiral.

My heart drops. Ariadne was hiding triplets. Much, much rarer than twins. My god.

Was the woman still pregnant, or were her illegal Multiples already born? Either way, the Blacks never made it over the border wall—I would have seen or heard of the unusual family at the Common’s headquarters. Ariadne was probably arrested, years before my time.

Anger fills the empty space inside my chest.

Multiples are not a curse. We shouldn’t have to hide, and our genetics shouldn’t be eradicated from humanity’s DNA.

I will stop my father’s “twin gene” therapy before it starts. If it’s already begun, I’ll reverse it. Somehow.

Hot tears fill my eyes, dripping onto the yellowed paper. I let them come, symbols of strength and love.

I flip through the notebook to find the last entry and grab the pen inside a pouch attached to the spine.

“Ava Goodwin, sister of Mira,” I write in my careful, cramped handwriting, so like my father’s. At the end of my entry, I draw the infinity symbol, two oblong circles forming one knot.

Mira, I hope I’m not too late.

I hope she’s found what she was looking for in Alexander, because we need a secret weapon now more than ever.

MIRA

Our transport is nowhere to be seen. Technically, we’re forty-eight hours early for our scheduled pick-up, but still. After Roth’s invasions and Ava’s unmasking in front of a live national audience, I figured the Common would be here.

They’re not. It’s just the five of us, stashed away in a safe house ten miles from Tacoma with no plausible way out.

It’s too dangerous to stay. It’s too dangerous to leave.

“We can’t just sit here,” I reason for the third time. Kano shakes his head, but I keep going. “If we linger, sooner than later, the Texas Guard will find us. They’re combing the entire state, searching for Ava.”

I stand, looking each of them in the eye. Alexander turns away, his brow as wrinkled as his overpriced clothes. He looks like a man who’s already given up.

“But if we move,” I press, “we have a chance. It’s small, but it’s better than waiting here for Roth to catch us.”

“I vote we move,” Theo says, rising from the unfinished maple farm table, resting his weight on his fists.

“You’re not a Common member,” Kano snaps. His usual sleek topknot hangs loose and messy on the back of his neck. Chunks of silken strands fall across his eyes, giving the normally playful warrior a surly look. “You don’t get a vote. Sit down.”

Theo shrinks and plops back onto the bench.

“You don’t have to do what Kano tells you, mijo,” Alexander asserts in his clipped tone, reaching for Theo’s shoulder.

“It’s fine,” Theo says brusquely, shrugging his father’s hand away. He throws a fleeting glance in my direction.

Theo’s cheeks flush in splotches, a deep red burning across his skin. The image is so like his half brother’s my stomach flips, and I’m caught in a memory. I’m trapped inside my old house, my last night in Dallas. Around our dining table are the three Roths: the governor, Mrs. Roth, and Halton. Halton’s tucking me into my chair, his cheeks stained with a flush of embarrassment and unvented wrath.

It was the night fate came for me.

I blink away the flashback, but I can’t shake the sense that disaster is on its way. Squeezing my palm over the steel rings of my knife’s handle, I move over to the window.

“The best course of action is to stay put,” Kano argues. “Rescue missions are most effective when you remain in one spot. The Common knows we’re here. They will come.”

With a cautious touch, I brush aside the dented blinds and press an eye to the glass.

We’re on a hill. I can make out the long dirt road that snakes its way down for a quarter mile. It’s clear, unlike the sky, which is heavy with the threat of rain.

According to the map, we should be able to see the soaring peak of Mount Rainier. With an elevation of over fourteen thousand feet, the mountain is invisible through the clouds.

What else is out there that I can’t see?

“Others have changed our plans, and now we must adjust,” I say, turning back to the table. “Our transport won’t make it here. I know you believe that too. We have to keep moving.”

Always, forever, move. The mantra that powered me from Texas to Canada.

“How do we move?” Kano asks, propping his elbows on the chipped tabletop. His gun has never left his hand. “The Guard has taken over the rail stations, and none of us here has the skill to hijack an autonomous car, even if there was one within a four-mile radius.”

I step forward and open my mouth to speak, but Kano stops me with an upraised hand.

“If you’re suggesting walking, we might as well skip right into the Guard’s arms, because we’d have an hour tops before a drone would detect us—”

“The Blackout Wear will work!” I insist.

“And the Scent Hunters? There’s too many of us to go unnoticed—”

“We can split up,” I shout over him. “You take Alexander and Ciro. I’ll take Theo.”

The suggestion’s met with a resounding no. But I hear one yes in the corner. Theo.

I rake my oily bangs from my face and rush toward my rucksack like the decision has been made. “If one of our groups makes it to Dallas, we can still complete our mission. With either Alexander or Theo, we can expose the truth and win.”

Alexander pops up from the bench and throws his body against the jerry-built yellow door. The three stacked dead bolt locks seem to be the only things holding the rickety door up—the only protection between us and them. When I step closer I discern names carved on the decaying wood. Faded names of Gluts and runaways long gone. Alexander pulls my attention back to him.

“You will take my son over my lifeless body,” he fumes, staring me down. His spittle lands on my nose. “Two kids cannot take on the Texas Guard.”

“I’m not a kid!” Theo screams.

“I’ve done it before,” I inform Alexander, my voice firm and unshakable.

Theo throws on his overstuffed backpack and storms toward me.

“Theo, sit down!”

“No! We’re moving. We can’t hide from what has to be done!”