9

9

I found Maddie in the third-floor storage room, sitting on a bare mattress with her laptop in front of her. She was staring out at the balcony, and it took a moment for her face to clear when she turned to me. I’d seen that expression a lot a few months ago. I was pretty sure it was the face she made when she was thinking about Grayson.

I edged around the boxes and a bed frame and walked to her.

“Hey,” I said, easing down onto the floor next to the mattress. “You OK?”

“I’ve been better,” she muttered, without looking at me.

“Did you make all the calls to the family members?”

She nodded.

“I’m sorry. That must have been tough.”

She sighed, running a hand through her hair. “Half the new recruits died. And several civilians were injured. By our recruits, not the scrabs.”

“I heard.”

“It’s just . . .” She closed her eyes for a few seconds. “It’s just a setback. We had one in Paris, and we were fine. A few people have quit today, but I’m thinking of calling an all-teams meeting tonight. Try to reassure people and keep their spirits up.”

“Are you sure that’s the best idea?” I asked quietly.

She turned to face me. I didn’t think she’d slept at all. Her eyes were glassy, and she looked ready to pass out. “What do you mean?”

“I think we should suspend the teams, Maddie.”

She stared at me. “What?”

“Just temporarily,” I said quickly. “We lost a lot of people, and there were MDG scrabs there.”

“So you just want to give up?” She looked at me incredulously. “If anything, we need to work harder! Can you imagine how scared people must be, hearing that the trained scrabs are still out there?”

“You’re right,” I said, and some of the anger left her face. “I’m not saying we should give up. I’m saying we should let everyone else think that we have.”

“What do you mean?”

“Let’s pretend like we’re scared. Let MDG think that they’ve won. And while they’re celebrating, we’ll go back to the US and finally find Dust Storm.”

“But . . . I’ll have to actually disband the teams to do that. I can’t tell everyone that plan. It would definitely leak.”

“It would. I don’t think we could tell anyone except team seven.”

She blew out a long breath. “I don’t know.”

“You could say it’s temporary. The holidays are coming up anyway—just send everyone home and say we’ll be regrouping in the new year. We need to take some time to recruit and develop new training methods anyway. Put some people on that, so everyone knows that we’re actually coming back soon, and let team seven deal with MDG.”

She was quiet for a long time, her face pensive. “Well, shit.”

“What?”

A tiny smile crossed her face. “That’s a really good idea.”

I returned the smile. “Thank you.”

“You’ll come stay with me in New York?”

“Of course. I think we should let the rest of the team visit their families, if they want, but I’m sure as hell not going to Texas. Not until that conference, anyway.”

Her eyes widened. “The conference. It’s in January.”

“It sure is. And I bet Hannah could get us some passes.”

“I take it back; this is a brilliant plan.”

---

Maddie called a team meeting that afternoon. The eight of us squeezed into Maddie’s and my room, and I could see from everyone’s faces that they knew something was up. We usually met in the lounge, or just out in the hallway.

I perched on the edge of my bed with Edan on one side and Priya on the other. Edan’s shoulder kept lightly brushing against mine, which was intensely distracting.

We hadn’t discussed our sleepover, and I’d slept in my own bed last night. So far, my plan of pretending it had never happened was working out well.

Priya leaned past me to peer at Edan. “You look better.”

“I know. I’m quite dashing, aren’t I?” He grinned, and Priya rolled her eyes.

“I meant you look like you slept more than an hour last night,” she said.

“I did. And no scrab attacks so far, so Andrew hasn’t had to carry me out over his shoulder.”

“Dorsey does not have the upper body strength for that,” Priya said.

“Excuse you,” Dorsey said, looking up at us from where he was sitting on the floor and flexing his right biceps. “Why does everyone keeping saying that? I totally have muscles. They’re just . . .”

“Small?” Priya guessed.

“I was going to say subtle.”

“OK, sorry,” Maddie said, putting her phone aside. She was sitting cross-legged on her bed. “Just had to finish that email.” She took a breath. “I wanted to let you guys know first that I’m about to go downstairs and suspend all the teams.”

Silence fell over the room. Patrick, who was leaning against the door, stared at her in shock.

“Seriously?” Noah asked.

“Just temporarily,” she said.

“It was my idea,” I added quickly. Everyone’s attention turned to me. “The teams need time to regroup, and we need time to figure out what’s going on with MDG. Maddie and I are going to New York to work with Hannah and Victor, and then we’re planning to attend the Scrab Defense League conference in January.”

“You’re all welcome to come with us to New York, or you can go home for the holidays,” Maddie said.

“We’re just going to leave?” Patrick asked. “What about all the UK teams?”

“I’m suspending all St. John teams, but they’re welcome to stay in the hostel for now.”

“We can’t just leave them here.” Patrick looked from me to Maddie with a frown. “We’ve been killing scrabs out there nearly every day. We’re saving people. We can’t just pack up and desert everyone.”

“We’re not deserting them,” Maddie said. “I plan to be back very soon. But for now, I agree with Clara that we should focus on MDG. Once we expose them, it will be easier to recruit.”

“You could still leave some teams in place here,” Patrick argued.

“It’s too dangerous,” I said. “We lost so many recruits yesterday.”

“It’s a miracle that Clara and I didn’t die too,” Dorsey said quietly.

Patrick looked like he wanted to protest further, but he just crossed his arms over his chest and leaned against the door.

“So what do you guys think?” Maddie asked. “Would you want to go back to the US?”

“I wouldn’t mind going home for the holidays,” Priya said.

“Me neither,” Laila said. Noah nodded in agreement, but took a quick glance at Patrick. They exchanged a look that I suspected meant that neither of them were happy with this plan.

“Ugh, I guess,” Dorsey said with a sigh. “I actually wouldn’t mind seeing my friends.”

“Edan?” Maddie asked. “You want to go back to New York for a while? You can stay with me and Clara.”

“Sure,” he said. “You know how I enjoy making fun of your fancy-ass house.”

“I do,” she said dryly.

I’d forgotten that Edan would have been to Grayson and Maddie’s house. In fact, Edan had a lot of history in New York. He didn’t have a home in terms of an actual building, but he had friends. People who cared about him.

I glanced at Dorsey and Laila, who were talking about going to Chicago. Everyone had friends or family or something to go back to. Everyone but me.

Edan caught my eye and smiled in a way that made me think my feelings had been splashed across my face. I blushed and looked away.

“This is just temporary, guys,” Maddie said. “I promise. We’ll be back before you know it.”

---

We walked with Maddie to the lounge for the all-teams meeting. It was already packed, and the room quieted as she stepped onto a chair to address everyone. Her expression was tight, and I saw her swallow hard as she waited for a few more recruits to trickle in. The rest of team seven circled around us.

“OK, guys,” she said, her voice so soft it barely carried to the back of the room. Everyone went still.

“I’ve notified all the families of the recruits who were killed, so you can feel free to post your tributes. We—” She stopped abruptly, and when she spoke again, her voice was shaking. “We’ll be having a memorial tonight.” She took in a deep breath. “And I’m suspending all teams temporarily.”

A shocked ripple went through the room.

“We suffered extensive causalities, and there were some civilian injuries as well. I think it’s best if we take some time to regroup. Some of the trainers will be working from here to develop new recruitment and training strategies, and I’ll be touch in the new year about next steps. The hostel will remain open, if you’d like to stay.”

“Can we keep fighting scrabs if we want?” a recruit called.

“What you do in your free time is up to you, but I’m going to need everyone to turn over their St. John uniforms and all weapons.”

Grumbles went through the crowd.

“If you want to return home, please just put the details in an email and send it to me by the end of the day. Team seven will be handling all travel plans, so come to one of us with any questions.”

She paused, taking in a shaky breath. “I didn’t want to do this. My brother gave his life for these teams, and I believe in them just as much as he did. He wanted to create a huge, global alliance of warriors to fight these things, and I know you guys want to be out there doing exactly that. But we can’t continue right now if it means sacrificing huge numbers of recruits. I know he wouldn’t have wanted that.”

I saw a few people nod in agreement.

“I’m sorry, guys.” Her voice cracked. “I’m so sorry.”

I blinked back tears of my own. I knew we were making the right choice, but my throat tightened as I looked around at all the disappointed faces in the room. Even though we had every intention of coming back, I couldn’t help but feel like this was the end of something great.