The message came at four in the morning, while the city was still the color of wet concrete.
[Hacker]: One of the three woke. Theo felt it twelve minutes ago. Drained parking structure under the old transit interchange, level three. There is a person inside it and Theo says he is taken, not given. A harvest crew is forty minutes out with a container truck. You are nineteen. Iris is already downstairs. You cannot fight with that arm so do not try. You can do the only thing that matters down there, which is talk. Go.
Caleb was in his boots before he finished reading. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway in her robe and did not ask where. She had stopped asking where. She handed him the good coat and said, "Bring whoever it is home, or bring yourself home. One of those."
Iris had the car running. She drove fast and without comment, which was how she did everything, and she did not look at his sling once, which was its own kind of looking.
