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“He’s…he’s on the crew,” I say stupidly.

She sighs. “I know he’s on your crew.” She exchanges an eye roll with the other women. “This man is displaying signs of extreme anxiety. He may be a danger to himself or others. We need to detain him for questioning.”

Questioning. That doesn’t sound good. I make a rough guess about how long until he cracks and tells them everything. Judging from the wild eyes, I’d guess we have ten minutes from when they start grilling him. I can only hope they hold him for a while first.

I do some quick recalculating of the plan while I shrug.

We’ll have to leave him. With a submissive nod to the soldiers, I close the doors of the van carefully and move back to the driver’s seat.

“Give me one more minute,” the guard says to me and walks with the two soldiers leading the man over into a building at the side of the road.

I open the com to the back.

“Everything okay back there?” I ask.

“No,” one of them mutters. There’s a couple of affirmative grunts.

“Is that it? Is he gonna give us up?” a man asks, and it’s Zeph, the guy who was at the courthouse with Amity.

“They’ll probably throw him in a holding cell and let us head out,” I tell them. “We’ll be on our way in a minute.”

“What are they going to do to him?” Zeph asks.

“If he stays calm? Maybe deport him. If he mentions the Forge? He’ll be put in a detention camp.”

Mark squirms in his seat beside me, no doubt aware of how many things can go wrong at this point.

“Everybody breathe.” I don’t want to scare them, but I feel I have to say it. “If something happens and they takeyou, hold out as long as you can to let us get some distance from the border.” I glance through the glass and there’s nervous nodding.

“Yeah,” one man says.

The door opens and the PS guard walks slowly back to the road, chatting into her SafeGuard. She doesn’t look at all concerned, which is a good sign. She climbs into the booth and gives me a bored wave, not bothering to make eye contact.

Letting a breath out, I start the car and slowly pull away from the curve.

“Okay, we’re okay,” Mark says softly next to me. He looks in the mirror, watching the checkpoint shrink behind us as I ease us back onto the highway and gather speed as slowly as I can stand.

“Okay,” I say into the com, and I hear a rustle and sighs of relief from the back. “We’ll be between territories for a couple of hours and I’ll let you know when we cross into the Midwest. We’ll stop once we’re inside.”

I glance over at Mark and back to the road. He’s unlocking the glove compartment.

A few minutes later he’s got his SafeGuard off. Thinking about the man back at the border, I pull off the highway to take back roads. When we stop he gets the SafeGuard off me and all the new recruits.

Their faces, looking at their bare wrists, show wonder and relief. Every single one of them has a pale circle around their wrist where the device has been for the last eight years, replaced with an updated model and bigger size each year.

I see a couple of them shake their wrists, gaze continually drawn back to the empty stretch of skin.

I flex my wrist as well, glad to be free of it. I don’t even wear an e-watch at home; I can’t stand the feeling of having something strapped to my wrist.

I remember when I got my first SafeGuard, the pride and happiness on my mom’s face. Phones were confiscated along with weapons, but the SafeGuard would let her know where I was and let her communicate with me. It would help her keep me safe at all times.

If only they had been as concerned with keeping her safe, she’d still be with me today. The anger rises, crawling up into my chest and my throat.

“Back in the van,” I snap at the guys, who look a little confused at my bad mood while they are all grinning at their empty wrists.

I climb in and slam the door.

I do what I can for the Forge, but no matter how many men we get out of the PS, no matter what my father’s plans are to retake what is rightfully ours, none of it can do what I want more than anything in the world. None of it will get my mother back.