Burn by Sarah Fine and Walter Jury Page B

things others don’t.”
    His eyes brighten. “I do?”
    â€œYeah. So keep an eye out, and speak up. I need people I trust in there.” I reach for Christina’s hand as she joins us near the steps.
    â€œThanks,” Leo says, scuffing the toe of his oversized soccer cleat against the sidewalk.
    We all file into the building. My body aches as we climb the stairs to the apartment, but I grit my teeth and resist the urge to lean against the banister and catch my breath. Standing behind me are Race, Congers, Graham, and another young agent named Daniel Sung, an Asian guy with black hair buzzed high and tight—the only Core member thus far who has politely introduced himself. My mom, Christina, and Leo follow them cautiously. All are tight-lipped and tense as I stride to the keypad and type in the entry code. The door swings open. “You guys really made yourselves at home last time you were here,” I growl at Congers, striding into my living room and taking in the disarray. “Where’s my cat?”
    â€œAgents delivered the cat to a kennel under your name,” Congers responds.
    I squint at him. “They did?”
    He shrugs. “It was going to starve if it was left here.”
    I should say “thanks,” but instead I say, “I hope you didn’t destroy the one thing that’s gonna get us into his lab.”
    â€œYou keep talking to me like you expect an apology,” says Congers, following me back to my room with the others trailing behind. “Stopping an invasion of this planet far outweighs the invasion of your home.”
    â€œDude, shut up,” I grumble, eyeing the mess they made of my space. I mean, it was always messy, but now it’s total chaos. I don’t know what they thought they were looking for, since the lab is in the basement, but they tossed my shit all over the place. Congers and Race stand in the hall. My mother peeks in and makes a noise that tells me she can probably smell my dirty socks. I go over to a pile of laundry and kick it aside, then pull up the loose corner of carpet. My dad—and the Core agents, apparently—never thought to look under it because of the pile of stinky workout clothes that was always there. Beneath the loose carpet is the little compartment I dug into the floorboards, and out of it, I pull the small plastic case containing my dad’s fingerprint. “Let’s go downstairs,” I say.
    A few minutes later, I’m doing what I’ve done so many times before: slipping the film containing the fingerprint onto my finger and pressing it to the tab while typing in my dad’s password. It makes my chest ache. The last time I did this, he was alive.
    The door opens, and it feels like we’re unsealing a tomb. Congers tells Sung and Graham to stay in the hallway, and both look unhappy but obey without arguing. The rest of them file in behind me, looking around as I flick on the lights. “Don’t touch anything,” I tell them. “Trust me. Some of this stuff looks harmless, but none of it is.” Race appears at my shoulder, and even though his face doesn’t give much away, I can tell he’s impressed by the eager sweep of his eyes across the weapons racks. “Look at this,” I say, walking over to the black screen that shows the population count. “This is what I was telling you guys about.”
    The numbers on the screen read:
    2,943,287,964
    4,122,239,895
    12 (?)
    â€œSo you think the bottom number denotes the Sicarii scouts,” Race says.
    â€œI do. Like I told you, it was fourteen before George and Willetts were killed,” I reply as Congers and my mother join us while Christina hovers near the door.
    Race peers at the screen. “I’d say that’s a preponderance of the evidence.”
    â€œIt’s a good hypothesis,” my mother replies, always the scientist.
    I touch the screen, and it flashes with a bunch of