I was still confused. It was too much information at once. “Safer, how? Who exactly are you hiding from?”

His mouth formed a hard line. “More people than you can imagine. Scientists, crackpot conspiracy theorists, government agencies. You’d be surprised how many people would like to get their hands on . . .” He stopped mid-sentence, and I wondered what he’d been about to say. “. . . well, on people like us. I’m sure that Agent Truman was able to find you the same way we did: through your dad’s online chatter. That’s why I couldn’t approach you sooner, Kyra. I had to make sure you hadn’t been compromised.”

“What does that even mean?” I asked pointedly.

“It means exactly how it sounds. I wanted to make sure Agent Truman hadn’t gotten to you first. That you weren’t being used as bait to lure me out.”

“Bait? Are you kidding me?” I crossed my arms. “You really think they’d use me as bait to catch you?”

Simon leaned close, his expression so grave it nearly took my breath away. “Not just me. All of us.”

I stared into his eyes, noting how much more amber they were up close than I’d first guessed, flecked with chips of gold. “So how did you know I wasn’t? Compromised, I mean?”

His nostrils flared as he reached out and caught my wrist. “Because I saw them coming for you. And I knew exactly what they planned to do to you when they got you.”

My throat felt tight, and my chest ached, but somehow I found my voice. “You’re scaring me,” I managed.

Simon didn’t blink when he answered me. “Good, Kyra. You should be scared. This is serious. I know it’s hard to believe, all of it, but you’d better start believing it, and fast. Your dad, as well-meaning as I’m sure he is, puts you—puts all of us—at risk. Agent Truman and those NSA guys, they’d love nothing more than to get their hands on us. You saw them—all that equipment. What did you think they wanted to do, interview you?” He gave a slow shake of his head. “No, Kyra. They do their own kinds of experiments, and they’re not pretty. No one ever returns from those.”

“Things like . . .” I turned a pointed glance in the direction of my arm, letting Simon know what I thought of his tactics. “Cutting someone open?”

“Worse,” he informed me, his nostrils flaring and the muscle in his jaw leaping. “Way, way worse.”

My mind reeled with the implications. “You mentioned that some people are taken and never come back. What happens to them?”

He paused, reaching for a wet wipe and absently scrubbing at the blood on his own hands. “We think those people don’t survive, like failed experiments. For all we know, we’re just lab rats to the aliens. Expendable. And I’ve never heard of anyone who wasn’t a teen being returned. Maybe we’re the only ones who are ever truly taken in the first place. Maybe the rest who say they are . . .” He shrugged. “Really are just crazy.”

“Teens? Why’s that?”

He turned his palms over and got lost in examining them. “Beats me. Maybe because our bodies are stronger and can survive all that shit they do to us.” Sitting straighter, he rubbed his hands over his knees, his eyes searching me out. “Or maybe it’s just that teens are more disposable. You can yank them out of their lives for a few days and then drop them right back in, and it’s just a blip on the radar. Younger kids get AMBER Alerts and milk cartons. Families send out search parties because they were likely abducted by some psycho sex offender. People are quick to give up on teens, to call them troubled or runaways . . . especially those who’ve been fighting with their parents.” He raised his eyebrows at me.

My dad and I had been arguing.

“When we turn up again and can’t remember what happened, either no one believes us or they suspect we’ve had some sort of drug-induced blackout.” He shrugged. “You know, because that’s what teenagers do.” Something flashed behind his unusual eyes.

“Is that what your parents thought happened?”

“They never came out and said it, but I knew they never bought that I didn’t know what happened to me.” He shook his head, shrugging it off. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It was a long time ago.”

“Where are they now? Your parents?”

His brows squeezed together, and this time his pain was evident. “I couldn’t stay. Eventually I had to distance myself from them to keep them from asking questions about why I wasn’t getting any older.”

“Why didn’t you just tell them?” I couldn’t imagine not telling my parents something so huge.

But then I knew I was lying. That had been the old me. The me from five years ago who had parents I could confide in and trust, and whose dad was her number one fan.

Now . . . I wasn’t so sure.

Simon wrung his hands in front of him, and I realized the subject was just as touchy for him as it was for me. Families were a complicated matter. “I tried once.” He exhaled. “I tried to tell my dad because we were close like that and I used to be able to tell him anything. But when I tried to explain . . . to tell him I’d changed . . . he wanted nothing to do with it. He said it was crazy talk, and if I ever said it again, he’d have to send me away . . . to get help.” His copper-colored eyes sought mine. I thought of the way I’d shunned my dad when he’d tried to share his theories with me. “We never mentioned it again, but my dad . . . he never looked at me the same after that.” He curled his fingers around his knees and squeezed them while he leaned back. “I’m not the only one with a story like that, or with no place to go once the lack of aging becomes too obvious. The camp gives us a place to go and others who understand what we’ve been through.”