“Subjects X-17 and X-18,” the Sensor replied, pointing first to the little girl and then to the boy.

“X-17,” Claire repeated. That was what Sykes had demanded for his continued cooperation. What he’d wanted The Society to give him.

A weapon. A Nobody. For “reconnaissance” and “threat removal.” An assassin, a spy—

A child.

The Sensor cleared his throat. “I believe their trainers call them Nix.”

This time, Claire was the one who had to be restrained. She threw herself at the man, tearing into him—scraping her nails down his face, digging her teeth into his shoulder, kicking him, screaming.

Nix dragged her away.

“I thought you said Nobodies were incredibly rare.”

“Well, naturally, yes, they are. And rarely identified before the kill point, as you can imagine. But about Natalie—”

The man’s eyes were desperate.

“No,” Claire said, struggling against Nix’s hold. “Not about Natalie.”

It was one thing for this man to be cold toward her, and to Nix. But to children? Kids who’d never get to be forgotten at Walmart or left out of a school play or abandoned on a field trip to the zoo, because their caretakers were too busy attempting to drown them?

Claire knew suddenly what it was like to really, truly want to hurt another person. The instinct was overpoweringly strong, and if she hadn’t given Nix the gun, Claire might have done it.

“Please,” the man said, unaware of the reaction he’d provoked. “You have to listen to me. Natalie—”

Natalie, Natalie, Natalie. It was every other word out of the man’s mouth, and Claire wondered how he could justify it to himself—betraying everything for one little girl, and not being bothered in the least by the systematic torture of another.

“Tell us about these children, and we’ll listen about Natalie.” Nix’s voice was dull, and Claire wondered how he could be so calm. She curled up against his body, and he settled his free arm around her stomach.

“They’re Nobodies. Still quite young. Haven’t made their first kill. When The Society acquired Natalie, Dr. Milano insisted all three be housed together.” The man’s voice took on a reverent note every time he mentioned the little girl’s name. “They’ve been serving as donors, for the serum.”

“Donors?”

“To inoculate a Sensor against a Nobody’s powers, you need Nobody blood, among other ingredients. Powerful stuff, Nobody blood.”

Claire pictured these little ones. Crying. Bleeding. Not crying, once they’d learned their tears were worthless. Claire bent her lips inward, holding them in place with her teeth and trying desperately to hold everything together.

For Nix.

“Why do they look like me?”

The question laid Nix out bare. Claire could see all of his hurts, all of the things he’d never let himself want. She could see him as a little, little boy.

This boy.

“As I said before, Nobodies are notoriously hard to locate in the first few years of their lives. We haven’t managed to harvest one before the kill point from the general population since the mid-fifties. But they do have their uses, so in the past two decades, certain members of The Society have provided us with Nobody infants in exchange for positions of wealth and power within the organization.”

“And how exactly do they do that?” Claire asked, knowing from the rhythm of Nix’s heartbeat that he was suddenly terrified of the answer and incapable of asking it himself.

“Nobodies suffer from a rare birth defect. It has been found over the years that certain mothers—although Normal themselves—are more likely than others to produce defective children. The Society has been known to recruit these women. To offer them incentives.”

Claire couldn’t take listening to this. Not because it meant that her own mother might have had a genetic part in making her the kind of child a mother couldn’t love, but because every word the Sensor was saying indicated that Nix’s mother had willingly given him to The Society.

She’d sold him.

And based on the family resemblance between Nix and the children in the picture, Claire was willing to bet that she’d sold his siblings, too.

Nix hadn’t realized that it was possible to hate a nameless, faceless woman. But he found, in retrospect, that it was actually quite easy.

Hating his mother—I had a mother and she gave me away—was easier than anything except for loving Claire. Just as natural. Just as inevitable. Just as sure.

I hate my mother. And it doesn’t matter, because my hatred doesn’t count.

The thought reminded Nix of the other people he’d hated, the other emotions he’d wasted on recipients who never looked at him with anything other than vague indifference.

His mentors.

His marks.

And Ione.

Ione, who was Normal, but had somehow climbed to the top of the corporate ladder to head The Society—or at least, the North American branch. Ione, who had never spared him more than a passing second. Ione, who had dyed her dark hair blond, to better match her light blue eyes.

Dark hair. Light eyes. Certain members of The Society have provided us with Nobody infants in exchange for positions of wealth and power.

“Ione is my mother.” Nix tried to process the idea. Mother was an abstract term to him. He’d never had one. He’d only seen one, or two, only allowed himself a few stolen moments watching and listening to their lullabies, from the shadows. “And these two.” He laid first his index finger and then the pinkie of his free hand on the picture Claire held. “Ione is their mother, too.”

“If you’d like to kill her, I have no objections. It will be necessary, if you want to truly free yourselves—”

“And the children,” Claire added. “We have to free them, too.” Nix marveled at her ability to think ahead. To plan. To believe that there was a better life for this Nix and that Nix than there had been for him.

Do you know why we call you Nix, child?

Because that was what they called all Nobodies. It wasn’t even a name. Not really. And these little ones, they deserved names. They deserved naps and stories and hugs. And Claire.

They deserved to be loved.

“Yes! Yes! The children. Once the North American institute is destroyed, and the serums and formulas along with it, you can take them. Hide them. Give them a fresh start.”

“I know the institute. I lived there. If there were other Nobodies on the premises”—brother, sister—Nix’s voice caught as he tried not to think the words—“I would have known.”

“The way you knew about the serums?” the Sensor asked. “The North American institute has two parts: one is aboveground, one is below. They have separate entrances, separate staffs, separate mandates. It’s a typical safeguard against Nobodies—you walk through walls, you rise through ceilings, but you don’t, as a general rule, attempt to sink down to the center of the earth and stumble across things buried four stories underground.”

The words began pouring out of the man’s mouth faster, his eyes glowing with an almost feverish insistence. “I’m giving you information you didn’t have, information you need. You want to destroy the drugs, the research, to weaken The Society and fall off its radar. I can help you, and all you have to do is save the children.”

At first, Nix wondered why the Sensor seemed so desperate to save “the children,” and then he remembered the desperate repetition of the red-haired girl’s name—Natalie, Natalie, Natalie—and Nix recognized, finally, the manic glint in the Sensor’s eyes and the root of his willingness to throw everything away for Subject N-632.

“She’s a Null.”

The Sensor’s lips trembled. “She’s eight years old. She’s beautiful and she’s bright, and it’s not her fault she’s different. She could be good. She could be different. You have to save her. You have to.”

Eight years old, and already capable of manipulating a full-grown Sensor into crippling The Society’s reach in North America.

Nix stared at “Natalie.” In the picture, she looked on, vaguely interested, as his little brother and sister struggled against the hands that held them in the baby-size dunk tanks.