Dorsey nudged Noah with a grin. The footage cut to another scene, and I blinked as I realized it was me. It was the moment the guy on the ATV clubbed the scrab and I finished him off. When I turned to face the camera, I was smiling.
“Thanks for fighting right in front of the Jeep,” Noah said. “That was really helpful for my video.”
“Any time.”
“All the American news stations are like this,” Priya said. “Google team seven.”
Archer leaned close to her and said something that made her laugh. She rose up on her toes and kissed him.
What a strange couple. Priya must have known a completely different version of Archer, because I couldn’t imagine Archer ever whispering anything to me that would make me laugh.
I pulled out my phone and searched team seven.
Teenage Team Defeats Scrabs in France
Grayson St. John’s Fight Squads Score Major Victory
MDG Warns That Noah Cohen Video “Possibly Heavily Edited”
President Tweets About “Dangerous Kids with Weapons” After News of St. John Victory
“What do you mean it’s gone? It’s on fire?” I heard Grayson say, and I turned to see him standing not far away, phone pressed to his ear. “Yeah, OK. Call me back when you hear from the London teams.”
I looked back down at Noah’s screen. A blond man was seated with the reporter, the words MDG Spokesman on the screen.
“Videos like this may seem impressive from the outside, but in reality, these people are dangerous,” he was saying. “There are a lot of amateurs running around out there, armed to the teeth, and it’s not safe. There’s a real concern about lasting damage after they leave. Which will be soon, from what I hear. Recruit numbers are dropping.”
“Is that true?” Zoe asked.
“We always expected numbers to drop after the first month,” Madison said. “We’ve actually retained more than we thought.”
“Jake, we’ve just received word that French authorities have asked St. John to drastically scale back their operations there,” the anchor said. “Do you know what prompted this?”
“Well, they’ve yet to produce any kind of good result in France,” Jake said. “And I understand there’s been significant property damage. Teams in Paris keep running their vehicles into buildings. An American team chased a scrab into a restaurant yesterday and injured several civilians. And we’ve just heard about an abandoned farm that was destroyed recently.”
I looked at Edan quickly. “Is he talking about the farm we were just at?”
Grayson walked over to us. “Yeah, they torched it.”
“I don’t have confirmation yet,” the man said. “But I’m hearing that a couple of kids from Grayson’s team were in the area.”
“Is he trying to pin that on us?” I asked, aghast.
“But you don’t know for sure,” the anchor was saying.
“I don’t, but we have found some explosives, and they’re the kind that the St. John teams use.”
“He for sure is pinning that on you,” Priya said.
“Dammit, I’ve never even gotten to use an explosive,” Edan said. “If I’m getting blamed for this, I at least want to blow something up.”
“Why didn’t you take some pictures while you were there?” Gage asked, looking accusingly at Edan. “You had your phone on you, didn’t you? You should have taken some pictures of the scrabs in the barn. Get some proof so this wouldn’t happen.”
“We were kind of busy escaping,” Edan said.
“I’m just saying. If it were me, I would have thought to grab my phone and get some proof.”
“Well, Gage, if you ever stumble across a barn full of angry scrabs while being kidnapped, I look forward to all your stunning photos. I’m sure you’ll get that perfect selfie angle,” Edan said. Gage sneered at him.
“Damn, Gage, do you really have to make it your full-time job to be a dick?” Dorsey asked. “Like, maybe you could be a part-time dick. What do you think?”
Laila’s mouth rounded to an O, and she gave Dorsey a deeply impressed look. Edan stifled a laugh.
I braced myself for Gage’s response, but he just turned red and looked at his feet.
“They can’t prove anything,” Grayson said. He sounded tired.
“Is it true that you’re scaling back operations here?” Zoe asked. “What does that mean?”
“It’s true,” he said. “It means I’m moving all American teams to London. Some of the South American teams too, though a bunch of them are going to Spain. Only the African teams are staying in France. They’re going to do their own thing.”
“Their own thing,” Zoe echoed. “Meaning they quit?”
“No, they’ll still be fighting scrabs, and I’ve let them keep using my drones.”
Zoe regarded him skeptically. I also got the feeling that he was sugarcoating some of this for us.
“This is an opportunity to do some good,” Grayson continued. “They need help in London. And I’m worried that MDG is there. It’s where I would go, if I wanted to capture scrabs. And they just torched their facility here.”
“Plus France is kicking us out,” Dorsey said.
“They’re not kicking us out,” Grayson said. “They asked that we take a break.”
“A break always means they never want to see you again,” Dorsey said. Grayson gave him a pained look. “What? It does. Every person I’ve dated who put me on a break never responded to my texts again. They’re just letting you down easy before they ghost you.”
“He’s not wrong,” Patrick said.
Grayson pinched the bridge of his nose with a sigh.
“But London is . . . it’s bad, right?” Zoe asked, smacking her gum. “They, like, don’t have enough police officers, right? Or they don’t always show up?”
“They are overwhelmed, yes. And it is bad there. Worse than France. Worse than almost anywhere in the world, actually. Which is exactly why they need us,” Grayson said. “But you’re under no obligation to go. We’re headed back to Paris now, to the train station, and you’re welcome to go your separate ways once we get there. Just let me
