The Bluebird Code

She sleeps in an alley.
He's been watching her for weeks.

Seventeen-year-old Maisy survives one day at a time.

She works full-time at the Mazehaven Diner, pouring cheap coffee and wiping down tables long after midnight. When her shift ends, she doesn't go home, because she doesn't have one. Instead, she curls up in the same narrow alley behind the diner, hidden between dumpsters and brick walls, hoping no one notices she's there.

Most people don't.

But someone does.

It starts with the boy in booth six.

He looks about her age. Dark hair, sharp eyes, unfairly handsome-the kind of face that definitely doesn't belong in a rundown diner at midnight. He comes in almost every night, orders the same thing, and sits there for hours.

Watching her.

At first Maisy assumes the obvious: creep, stalker, rich kid playing some weird game. But the longer he shows up, the stranger it feels. He doesn't flirt. Doesn't talk. Doesn't even pretend to look at his phone.

He's studying her.

So one night, exhausted and fed up, Maisy storms over to booth six and demands to know what his problem is.

The boy just leans back, completely calm, and says something that makes her blood run cold.

He's not a customer.

He's a scout.

And Maisy isn't just a waitress trying to survive the streets.

She's going to be a spy.

Why was she chosen?
How long has the agency been watching her?
And why does the boy from booth six seem to know more about her life than she ever told anyone?

Because if there's one thing Maisy understands about survival, it's this:

Nothing in the dark comes without a price.