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He tipped his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ah—fuck. Shit.” Blood was rolling down his lips and chin. He was going to get it all over the damn couch.

Ivy frowned.

Where he lay on the smaller sofa, video game console in hand, Eugene gaped.

“What’s the matter?” Darien asked him. “Scared of a little blood?”

“You sayfucka lot,” the kid said, his lisp thick.

“Hey,” Kylar protested from the kitchen. He pointed a stern finger at his little brother. “Watch your fucking mouth.”

Jack chuckled.

“I’m just saying,” Eugene grumbled. He returned to his game. “When’s Paxton gonna be here? I’m bored.”

“Kids these days,” Kylar said, shaking his head. “They’ve got a million electronics in front of them, and they still complain about being bored.”

Eugene glared. “A million? I only haveone!”He lifted the console.

“Lose the tone, termite.”

Lace came around the couch, a box of tissues in hand. “Here.” She offered it to him, and he grabbed a fistful from the box.

“Thanks.” Head back, he pressed the wad of tissues against his nose.

“I think you should take a break,” Ivy said.

“I will.” It was a lie. He had no intention of stopping. Not until he found at leastoneof them, for gods’ sake. He refused to accept that they were dead. If he kept looking, they had to turn up eventually.

“Any luck?” Kylar asked him.

The others were cleaning up the mess from dinner. Loren was there too, pausing in the midst of stacking dishes to look his way. Her pretty face was lined with worry, her mouth all pouty. Beautiful—she was so beautiful, she took his breath away.

He sighed. “No.” He’d sat down by himself in the living room while the others finished making dinner and had stayed there for over an hour, tracking everyone who was still missing. Travis, Max, Dallas, Jewels, Aspen, Dominic, Blue, evenMalakai,he tried them all.

But to no avail—not evenonemeasly thread to follow. And now that he’d been at it for over an hour, according to the clock on the microwave, he knew he was pushing his luck. Even for people who were seasoned in tracking—people like him—holding the Sight for that long wasn’t just hard as hell, it was also dangerous. It put a lot of strain on the mind, and if you didn’t heed the warning signs from your body, you could risk passing out, being hospitalized for a brain bleed, or, worse case scenario, becoming braindead.His body was already telling him to stop, but?—

Travis. Max. He had to find them. Had to at least know that they were okay, for fuck’s sake.

He took a look at the tissues in his hand. They were soaked in blood. He grabbed a few fresh ones from the box Lace had left on the coffee table and tipped his head back, putting firm pressure on it. Soon as the bleeding stopped, he’d try again.

But Ivy, as if reading his mind, repeated, “I think you should take a break.”

“I said I will. In another hour.”

Before Ivy could go off on him, Tanner said, “Telecommunications are down.” He was at the dining room table, laptop open before him.

Lace whipped her head his way. “In Yveswich?”

“And beyond. That whole general area—not all of Ker, but all of Yveswich and some of the smaller communities nearby.”

“Landlines, too?” Darien asked, his question muffled by his plugged nose.

“All of it.”

Arthur said, “Is it due to the power?”

“No,” Atlas replied. “Someone cut it on purpose.”