The cuffs dug deeper the longer Beau sat in the interrogation room. Chief Mahoney locked Beau’s handcuffs around the steel loop bolted to the center of the pale white table. He wasn’t going anywhere. He was not free to leave the police station, as Chief Mahoney reminded him several times.

  Cold light bled from the ceiling and made a sound like a power grid ready to fry. A one-way mirror dominated the far wall, opaque with condensation. Beau saw himself faintly in the glass—mud-streaked, blood-speckled, older than he looked that morning.

  A nurse from earlier scraped the blood from his hands, but she missed the dried ant goo under his nails. A manilla folder lay open on the table. Photos were scattered around it. There were pictures of his electrical trap, the rift, and corpses.

  The door hissed open.

  Chief Mahoney returned. He walked in with squared shoulders. His uniform was stained with ant ichor. He dropped a fresh folder onto the table. He stood and loomed over Beau, casting judgement.

  “Do you understand the severity of the situation?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Do you understand and know the penalty for damaging the dome?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “And what do you know about the penalty?”

  “You damage the dome and you pay the price.”

  “What is the price?”

  “You go to prison. Or the death sentence. Or… I don’t know.”

  “Okay. You spend the rest of your life in prison, or you could actually be put to death.”

  “Okay.”

  “This is the most important time of your life up to this point, and the most important thing you can do, right now, is to be honest.”

  Beau nodded.

  “Because you haven’t been honest.”

  “Yes, I have—”

  “—No. Okay? Let me finish.”

  Beau nodded.

  “You knew, and you knew when you came in here an hour ago to take the polygraph test, the difference between telling the truth and not telling the truth, being honest and not being honest.”

  There was a pause between them.

  “Did you pass that test?”

  Beau shook his head, no. “I have no idea. I hope I did.”

  “What do you mean you hope you did? You either know you did or you know you didn’t.”

  “I know I did.”

  “You knew you passed the test?”

  Beau nodded.

  “Why did you so severely not pass the test?”

  “I honestly don’t know. I don’t know. I should have passed it. I should have passed it because I didn’t do anything on purpose.”

  “Look. I like you and I want to help you. But in order for me to help you. Listen. In order for me to help you—”

  “—But I’m not—”

  “—No, no, no, no, no. Listen to me.”

  Beau nodded.

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  “In order for me to help you, and maybe in order for me to keep you from going to prison for the rest of your life, if you’ve ever told the truth in your life, now is the time. You have got to be honest.”

  “No, no. Yeah. I will.”

  Chief Mahoney leaned forward, voice lower now. “Then explain to me why you set that trap. Explain the short circuit again. Explain why the energy spike came from the part of the forest’s edge where no less than three witnesses spotted you. That’s right, there were others around. They all gave me the same description. You weren’t as hidden as you believed.”

  Beau looked at his hands. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone. There was a possum…”

  “We found the possum.”

  “I was trying to catch a deer.”

  Chief Mahoney blinked. “A deer?”

  “Our protein stores have been nothing but garbage for two months. It was for my grandpa. I thought…I thought I could help.”

  “You rigged an electric trap to catch a deer?”

  Beau’s eyes burned. “I didn’t know it would cause the dome to flicker. I didn’t know it would overload the outer wall.”

  Mahoney’s jaw flexed. “You breached our dome's integrity. The ants didn’t find us by accident.”

  Beau said nothing.

  Mahoney walked toward the mirror. He pressed a hand to his brow. “There’s over seventy dead, Beau. Three hundred injured. Now the entire dome has less food and medicine."

  “I know.”

  “You basically killed the sun. And you invited a swarm of giant ants.”

  “I know.”

  “Then why did you save us? Why did you fight?”

  Beau didn’t answer.

  The door opened again. Beau froze.

  Mayor Tom Carnie stepped inside like he owned the room. His white coat was spattered with blood. His boots were dusty. His hair was freshly combed. The man smelled like a preacher at a funeral—warm to the eye, but icy underneath.

  “Look at us,” he said, voice slick with charm. “The dome barely stops bleedin’, and here we are, the boy who broke it all. And the boy who saved it. Same boy, huh?”

  “Doesn’t feel like I saved anything.”

  “I thought I was finished out there. Then this kid I’ve known my whole life—” Mayor Carnie jerked a thumb at Beau. “—he comes storming in like a psychopath. He killed three of the monsters right in front of me. He dragged me out. He had one hand gripping his axe and his other hand around my belt.”

  Chief Mahoney folded his arms. “It still doesn’t change what he did.”

  Mayor Carnie’s smile didn’t budge, but something flickered behind his eyes. “No,” he said softly. “But it complicates things. Don’t it?”

  He turned to Beau, voice syrupy-smooth. “So. Tell me, son. If I cracked open that door and let you walk free…what would you do?”

  Beau swallowed, but didn’t flinch. “I’d make it right. Send me out there. I can’t make any medicine, but I’ll find more food. I can help you fix this.”

  Carnie tilted his head. “You think one boy with an axe is going to feed and protect ten thousand people in the dome?”

  “No,” Beau said. “But I can try.”

  Silence stretched thin.

  Mayor Carnie leaned in and rested his hands flat on the table. “Listen closely. I ain’t sendin’ you out there to be a hero. I’m sendin’ you because if I don’t, the town’ll say I let the dome starve while the kid who broke it begged to clean it up his own mess.”

  He straightened and smoothed his lapel with lazy grace.

  “Don’t make me regret this.”

  With a wink to the mirror and a nod to Chief Mahoney, Mayor Carnie turned and strolled out of the interrogation room.

  Mahoney exhaled hard. “You better come back alive. Cause if you die out there, we’re going to lose a good kid.”

  Chief Mahoney uncuffed Beau.

  He rubbed his sore wrists. “I’m going to fix this.”

  “Not right away, you’re not. We’re all gathering for a meeting at the square. And apparently, you’re invited. First we come up with a plan and then we execute.”