It took some coaxing for Sam to give up the address where the Wilsons had lived. Even once he did, he sat pouting for a long time. Eventually, Patrick pulled out his phone, sat down next to him, and showed him funny videos until he was able to smile again, and then until he showed him a drawing app until was too tired to keep his eyes open.

Elena was surprised by how far Sam had gotten in the couple of weeks he'd been on the run. It was almost a two hour drive between the camp and the Wilson house. Sam had probably snuck onto public transportation a few times.

Michelle rinsed the remainder of the dishes in the sink while Elena sat at the table with her foot up on a chair. Patrick very slowly stood, leaving Sam asleep on the couch. "Should I just let him sleep there?" he asked Michelle.

She nodded. "If it's okay. Actually, I've got to take a look at Elena's ankle. If you could drive for awhile, we can at least get out of the range of where Tech United will be looking for us."

"Should I head to the Wilsons?"

"No, not directly. Let's take a roundabout path to get there. We'll trek a little ways into the mountains, see if we can find a rest stop to replenish the camper, and we'll make the rest of the drive in the morning."

Patrick picked up the keys from the table and headed up to the cab. Elena's heart pounded. "Meet in your room?"

Michelle nodded. "I don't have anesthetic. You'd be better off at a real hospital."

Elena steeled herself. "I don't want to be the reason we get caught. We have to keep moving."

"We may have to ditch the motor home," Michelle said. "We're going to be pretty noticeable."

Elena picked up Winter, who was sniffing at the torn area of her jeans. "We've got a lot of supplies here. We'll have more chances of getting caught if we have to stop for food and things every day."

Michelle's eyes softened. "Elena, I know you don't want to leave the animals behind."

She took a deep breath and gripped Winter tighter. "Let's get this over with."

Michelle's room was only big enough to hold her bed, with just enough room around the edges for walking. Elena dragged a chair into the room and sat down to roll up her pant leg. The skin had swollen, and the wounds were a darker red. No blood flowed, but the air still felt cold on the wound.

"Elena, you need stitches."

"Can you do stitches?"

"I don't have anesthetic."

"That's not my question."

Michelle straightened up and nodded. "Okay, Elena. I'll grab my things. But listen to me." She looked her directly in the eyes. "You have to keep quiet. I don't want Sam waking up and walking in to see this, and I don't want any cars around us to call 911."

Elena nodded, and Michelle left to rummage through a cupboard. She gripped the armrest of the chair with one hand and clung onto Winter, sitting up straighter in the chair.

Michelle brought in a second chair for Elena to prop her leg up onto. "I'm going to keep you talking." She pressed a disinfecting pad into the open wound, and the room swam as her leg flared up in icy fire. "Have you ever seen anomalies like these before?"

"Of course not." She leaned back as much as she could in her chair, staring at the ceiling rather than down at Michelle's work. "But I'm concerned."

"Not just about us being chased?"

"I'm concerned about the anomalies themselves. I mean, they could be really dangerous."

"Dangerous how?" She pierced the first needle into the tenderest spot on Elena's leg, and Elena gasped.

"The—" Elena took a deep breath— "the world as we know it is stable because science works. It works the same everywhere and for everyone. There are . . . constants."

"Right."

"And we're telling Sam he has special abilities, but it's not an ability, exactly. It's just something that happens. Sometimes, science works differently for him—not because he chose to make it happen, but because it just does, around him."

"He doesn't control it."

"Exactly, he—ah!" Another pinprick.

"Sorry. Just a few left to go." A short pause. "I don't know, Elena. None of us controls how science works for ourselves."

"But we can learn the rules and trust them not to change on us. Sam can't."

"Last one, this is a tough one."

Elena squeezed her eyes shut for the last searing pinprick, then she released her breath and her tensed muscles.

"You okay?"

"Yeah." She sat up in her chair and faced Michelle, who still knelt on the floor. "But I have some hope for Sam. His anomalies aren't exactly a constant. So maybe he can learn to control them."

Michelle sat down across from her. "I think Tech United would like to control them."

Elena's eyes widened. She should have realized. Of course that was what they wanted—if Sam, if anyone, had the ability to alter the rules of science, and if Tech United could harness that, they could control anything they wanted.

Michelle sighed. "That's my best guess. That's why I've been going along with your suggestions to find out more about the anomalies. We can get a sense of what Tech United is trying to do if we know what's going on."

"You know what, though?" Elena stood and stumbled—she'd forgotten for a moment to keep most of her weight on her left foot. "If he can control his abilities, Tech United won't be able to."

"Maybe not." Michelle stood as well, and she began to move the chairs from her room back to the kitchen table. "That's going to be your job, Elena."

"What will?"

"To teach him how to control his abilities."

Elena snorted. "You've seen me with kids. Patrick should be the one to work with him."

Michelle shrugged. "You're the one who knows enough about engineering to design the tests, and enough about science to know if anything out of the ordinary is happening."

Elena lowered Winter to the floor. "I don't know."

"Well, think about it. Sleep on it." Michelle returned to her room and put a hand on the doorjamb. "Because we can't run forever. Eventually, we're going to have to figure out who we can trust. Sam's eight. He needs a home."

Elena pressed her lips together. That word—home—didn't mean much to her now.

"Speaking of which, I'm going to need to make some calls to my family. You should call home, too."

She shook her head. "My mom and I—"

"I don't care that you're fighting. You're in danger, you call her." Michelle breathed in to speak again, but her tone softened. "Do you want to talk about it?"

Elena looked away. Michelle had stopped asking partway through the summer the year before. Elena never wanted to talk about it.

"Fine. I'm turning in. In the morning, we'll talk to Sam about what you're going to teach him."

"Night, Michelle."

"Night, Elena." She gently closed the door behind her, and Elena limped back into the living room, pulled down the ladder to the loft, and climbed up using her arms more than her feet—her right leg dangled uselessly.

Elena laid awake for a long time in her bed. A few times, she got as far as hovering her thumb over the call button by her mom's number in her phone. But every time, she'd remember the way her mom had looked at her when she'd found out that Elena was searching for her dad. She'd hear the yelling in her mind again—none of the words, only the tone of voice—and she'd darken the screen again.

She'd left that life behind her. Michelle didn't have to understand.

Best to focus on the task at hand. Elena jotted down notes in her phone about ideas for experiments they could run with Sam. Some were inspired by the less invasive experiments the lab had conducted, but many were her own ideas. She thought of the questions she'd need to ask to coach him, and even planned in advance what she might be able to say to encourage him.

Because this would be frustrating, and Sam might not take it very well. They were doing something new. Completely new. And if no one had done this, no one knew how. They would all be learning. She smiled to herself—it wasn't how she had expected her summer to go, but discovering something unheard of might be some consolation.

Hopefully they would pick up some clues at Sam's old house. Tech United wouldn't know to stop there, which meant that the Camp Universe team would have some information that Tech United didn't—which was good, because Tech United almost certainly had information that she didn't.

She fell asleep still wracking her brain for what the plastic box with the counters might actually be measuring.