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hasn’t shared any detailsabout,” Blaine mumbles. “What do we really know about this Badger guy? He could get us all killed.”
    â€œI read about him in some underground papers in Bone Harbor. He’s been selling water to AmEast citizens right under the Order’s nose. Badger’s good and he knows what he’s doing. He’ll get us in. And anything we need to plan further, we’ll figure out before we get to the Compound.”
    Vik has a chopper set to bring us to the small Expat settlement of Pine Ridge west of the Gulf. From there, we’ll get in touch with Badger. We need to be ready within the next hour, which means packing fast, and asking questions—the detailed questions—later.
    â€œI still don’t like it,” Blaine says. “We shouldn’t go. We—”
    â€œDo you even care that Pa is dead?” I erupt. “I’m trying to make his sacrifice worth something. Trying to get us back to Emma, Claysoot, Kale . Remember your daughter, Blaine? Or are you fine pretending she doesn’t exist either?”
    His fists grab the front of my shirt, his momentum sending me backward. My shoulders hit the wall, followed by my head.
    â€œDon’t you dare,” he hisses. “I think about her every damn second.”
    â€œSure doesn’t seem like it.”
    â€œJust because I don’t say something aloud doesn’t mean I’m not feeling it. But this is so like you—jumping to conclusions,saying whatever comes barreling into your head.”
    This is the closest we’ve come to a fistfight in years. I half want him to throw a punch, but he won’t. I know he won’t.
    â€œI used to think you were so much better than me,” I say, staring him down. “I’d always beat myself up over how selfless you are, putting everyone else first, being so sickeningly decent , and it’s like I don’t even know you anymore. Because this isn’t decent: wanting to sit around and do nothing but work soil and fool around with Jules. It’s cowardly.”
    â€œYou arrogant—”
    â€œPack or stay, Blaine!” I grab his wrists and tear myself free. “I don’t care what you decide so long as you don’t stop me from doing what’s right.”
    A muscle ticks in his jaw. We stare at each other for a painfully long moment. Then he picks up his bag, throws a few things into it haphazardly.
    â€œYou’re an ass, you know that?” he says. Dark shadows linger beneath his eyes, and he’s squinting slightly, almost as though looking at me blinds him.
    â€œI’ve always been an ass.”
    He either doesn’t hear the teasing tone of my voice, or he chooses to ignore it.
    â€œI love you, Gray. I always will. Which is why I get so riled up by the fact that you can’t see how losing you would kill me.”
    He snatches his bag and leaves, and I realize for the first time that all his hesitations could be for different reasons—ones that have nothing to do with not wanting to remove Frank from power or returning home to Kale.
    He’s still trying to keep me safe. Just like he did when we were kids—shielding me from a slingshot blow with his own body, or pulling my curious hand away from a flame. Blaine is never going to outgrow playing big brother.
    I stop by the female quarters and find Bree making her bed like the room is more than a temporary home.
    â€œHere goes nothing,” I say.
    She straightens, turns to face me. “It’ll be a breeze, I’m sure. Getting in off-limits places always is.” Her eyebrows are raised with the joke, the corners of her lips curled in a smile.
    â€œCan’t go much worse than Burg, right?”
    She swings her bag onto her shoulders. “Don’t tell me to hand over my gun when I need it, and we should be fine.”
    The reminder of how she took a beating at Titus’s hands because I convinced her to