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down farther, grabbed Adam gently by the arm, and lifted the boy to his feet.
    “Come with us, son. We’re getting you out of these Games.”

CHAPTER 5—ANA LOVECRAFT
    “Did you know my father?” Ana asked the young girl.
    “Yes, he stayed with us when he was left for dead after The Games.” The girl spoke with an unrecognizable accent, slight but noticeable. Her speech was slow too, as if trying to get her words right. Ana couldn’t tell if she was nervous or normally spoke another language. She had never met someone who spoke anything other than English. Ana had heard of people speaking Spanish, French, and even Chinese, but no other languages were allowed in school.
    With a bull’s diplomacy, Katrina said, “Jonah stayed with you? Where?”
    Calla looked back at the eldest boy, a tall, skinny kid still in his mask.
    The boy nodded. Calla said, “We’re 15 minutes away in an old train station.”
    “How many of you are there?” Katrina asked.
    The boy interjected, “Enough.”
    Ana met Katrina’s eyes, trying to communicate that the woman should drop her gruffness, lest they scare off the group.
    Katrina seemed to get the message. She shut up, reached into her backpack, and pulled out some gauze, tending to Liam’s still bleeding socket. Ana cringed as he winced in pain.
    She turned to Calla and her crew. “You did this? To the orb?”
    “Yes,” the boy said. “But please don’t destroy it. We can take it back home and tinker with it. Use The State’s tech against them. We picked up on a City 6 transmission, instructions to draw you out. They suspected that you might try to save your brother.”
    “So you came to save us?” Ana asked. “Why?”
    Calla met her eyes, “Because I owe your father.”
    Ana was about to ask for details, but she had more pressing questions, chief among them about Adam. “Have you heard anything else . . . about my brother?”
    The boy shook his head. “They didn’t say anything, but we can check back home to see if Egan’s heard more.”
    Calla looked at Liam, who hadn’t spoken. He seemed like he was having trouble standing.
    “How badly is he hurt?” Calla asked.
    “Besides his eye, I think his eardrums might have burst. Can you help him?”
    “I think so, if you come with us.”
    Ana turned to Katrina, and whispered. “What should we do? Do you think we should continue to the Halo? Or get Liam some help first?”
    “We need to regroup. The State was expecting us to make a move for Adam. We need to figure out what’s happening and make sure we don’t walk into any more traps. Plus, Liam needs to rest and heal.”
    “Come,” Calla said, impatient. “We’ve got a skidder waiting.”
    “A skidder?” Katrina asked. “How the hell did you manage to get one of those?”
    The boy laughed as he went over to the orb and leaned down to pick it up with both hands. He stood there, the orb concealing most of his chest and torso. “You think you’re the only ones causing trouble for The State? We stole it from ’em.”
    This made Katrina laugh too, and supporting Liam between them, she and Ana entered the woods and climbed into the back of the large floating war truck.
***
    They arrived at the underground train station without incident and stepped from the truck into a cavernous bay, oddly stacked with parts from seemingly every sort of vehicle, orb, and robot from the present to what looked like the ancient past.
    Bright lights hummed above as they made their way toward a set of red double doors where a young man in gray coveralls stood guard with a blaster rifle.
    The man, who couldn’t have been older than 24, looked Ana and Katrina up and down like a dog eying a roast. Ana looked back at Liam to see that, yes, he had noticed despite holding rags over his left eye, and no, he wasn’t pleased.
    Calla ignored the guard, though, and led them through the doors. She took them on a tour of The Station, which is what they called their home, explaining that it