Dr. Baker left the building with his cell phone to his ear, Michelle began to tear down the banners, and Elena went to help her.

"No," Michelle said. "You should go talk to Sam. Trust me, Patrick could use a second person."

"Why me? I pushed him away from the bowling ball."

"Yeah, but he's not mad at you. He's scared of me, not you."

Elena couldn't understand how anyone could be scared of Michelle—unless they had seen her angry, of course, but Sam hadn't. "That's not fair, though. I'm the one who pushed him to the ground. We didn't even use your cover story."

"Doesn't matter. He's scared because I'm the one who broke his trust by dropping the bowling ball."

"But—but that doesn't make any sense."

Michelle lowered the poster she'd been holding and turned to Elena, smiling but with a bit of sadness in her eyes. "Fear is an emotion. It doesn't have to make sense. Especially a child's fear."

She groaned. "This is why I'm not good with kids."

"You like science because it works every time and you can control the outcomes."

Those were the days.

Michelle put a hand on her shoulder, pushing gently. "Go talk to the kid. It'll be good for both of you."

That was a direct order. Elena shuffled her feet just slightly on the way over to where Patrick and Sam sat, and she sat down across from them.

"Hey, um, Sam." She bit her tongue. "Or . . . Planck, right? You're sure you're okay with us calling you Sam? I mean, it doesn't even sound like Planck."

He wrinkled his nose. "No one nice calls me Planck."

Elena looked to Patrick, who winced. "Okay. Sam, then."

Patrick nudged Sam's shoulder. "Tell Miss Elena what you told me."

"This was the best camp ever. At the other camps I went to—"

"No, not that part. About how you ran away from home."

"Oh." He pouted. "It wasn't my home, it was the Wilsons' home."

Elena's breath caught. "Did they tell you that?"

"Every day," he said softly.

"Did—did they hurt you?"

He held up his left hand. Pink burn marks lined his knuckles.

Elena paced her breathing. What had she gotten herself into? "How long did you run away?"

He shrugged. "Like a few weeks ago. I went to summer camps and kind of snuck in. They gave me snacks and we had fun and—" He held up his hands. "But this was the best one, I promise!"

The Wilsons hadn't reported him missing, which meant they wouldn't. He'd probably gone to a public school in an inner city where kids were lost to the system too often for it to come as a surprise to anyone.

No one was looking for him. If that bowling ball had hit him in the face, if it had smashed his head open, the other campers would have been traumatized for life, but no one would ever have missed him.

Elena scooted a little close to him. "Can I see your hand?"

He held out his hand, and she took his little fingers in hers. The marks were scabbed over and mostly healed, but they still made her stomach turn.

She lightly touched one of the scabs, and he jerked his hand away. "Why did they—" Her voice broke, and she couldn't continue.

He took a shuddering breath. "They said it would make the demons leave me."

Elena's eyes met Patrick's.

"Sam," Patrick said, "why did they think there were demons in you?"

Sam cringed, pulling his knees into his chest.

"Hey." Patrick put a hand on his shoulder. "You can tell us. We're not going to hurt you."

"But what if there are demons in me?"

Elena breathed in to try to convince Sam demons weren't real, but Patrick spoke first: "Well, you can't get rid of them by burning your knuckles. You have to talk gently to them. Besides—" he smiled— "I'm really good at telling when there are demons around. If you tell me what happened, I can tell you if there are any in you."

Sam pulled his knees into his chest. When he spoke, it was in barely more than a whisper: "I did my homework with my left hand."

Elena let her breath out. If there really was something to Sam's uniqueness, his previous foster parents would have been far too caught up in their own obsessive prejudices to notice any miracles happening before their eyes.

Patrick put on a mock thoughtful face. "Well, based on what I know about demons . . ." He shook his head. "You should be all clear. They don't like possessing left handed people."

"Really?"

Patrick winked, and Sam threw his arms around him.

Elena bit her lip. They still didn't have the whole story. From what little she knew about foster care, kids weren't supposed to be just thrown in a home and abandoned—there was supposed to be an end goal to their care. His birth parents might even still be alive.

Elena winced—Sam wasn't going to like her questions, but the questions would feel better coming from her than from a police officer. "Sam, where did you stay before you lived with the Wilsons?"

He let go of Patrick and turned back to her. "With the Paulings."

"And before that?"

He squinted. "I don't remember their names. They didn't want me either."

A weight settled on her chest. The casual, matter-of-fact way he said that . . . "Sam—" she took a deep breath— "do you remember your mom?"

He shook his head. "No, I don't think I had one. I mean, I didn't meet her."

His face showed no emotion, either fondness or longing. Maybe a bit of annoyance. She breathed in to ask if he knew where he was from, but Patrick shook his head and put a finger to his lips. Elena nodded. She'd said more than enough, and so had Sam.

They sat in solemn silence, but not for long. Less than a minute later, Dr. Baker came over to stand beside them, Michelle following close behind.

Elena stood. "Is someone coming for Sam?"

Sam gasped, and his eyes grew wide. "Wait, did you call the Wilsons?"

"No," Dr. Baker said, "but I did call the police."

Sam burst into tears again, and he clung onto Patrick. "Don't let them take me, Mr. Patrick," he said. "Please, they're going to burn me again."

"No, son." Dr. Baker's voice sounded gentler than Elena had ever heard it. "If your foster parents were hurting you, they'll send you to a new home, not back to the same one."

Sam sniffled and peeked over his shoulder. "How do you know?"

"I know a lot of things." Dr. Baker's tone was back to its usual indifference. "The police are agreeing to meet us back at Tech United headquarters."

Michelle stepped forward. "Why not here?"

"Because based on everything you've told me—rather, everything Elena has told me—there seem to be some anomalies occuring in this place."

"What does that mean?" Patrick kept one hand on Sam's shoulder.

"A lot of foster children have—" he paused and looked at Sam— "additional needs. We need to figure out what kind Sam has, and whether he's the one who has them."

Elena blinked. All of the unexpected events had happened when Sam was present—who else would be suspect? "What does that mean?"

"Elena, you were also present for all of the anomalies. To be safe, we need to have all of you present for some tests."

Michelle shook her head. "I don't understand. Why not just let the foster care agency take care of it?"

"Because they've never dealt with anything like this. Sam or Elena—or both—might be special in a way none of us knows how to deal with. But back at headquarters, we have some highly competent engineers and sophisticated equipment that might help us get to the bottom of whatever is going on."

Something sounded off to Elena. "How did you convince the police of that, though? Did you explain the whole thing to them?"

"The officer I spoke to on the phone has known me for a long time. She's helped with security for our headquarters more than once, and she trusts us and the work we do. She agrees that we need to find out what we're dealing with before we decide how to deal with it."

It was quiet for a bit. Elena shifted her weight and glanced from the fear on Sam's face, to the concern on Michelle's, to the easy confidence on Dr. Baker's. Something in all this sounded very wrong to her—every part of her wanted to say something, especially when her silence had caused so much trouble already this week—but there was nothing she could say. Not in front of Sam, and definitely not in front of Dr. Baker.

For one reason or another, Tech United believed there was something to Elena's suspicions. It was better than the opposite.