I nod. “You got this. Let’s do it again.” I watch through the mirror as the tip of the blade begins to near the latch again. “Left… up… there. Careful.”
The tip dips down under the latch and this time Beans isn’t slow—he flicks the blade fast and hard. The latch clicks and I shout, “You got it!”
I shove the door wide open, scrambling out, and Beans follows. We both roll to our backs, gulping in fresh air.
Scarlett flops down beside me, dramatically kissing the ground. “Oh, Lord Jesus, thank you!”
Rocky and Fynn climb out last, whooping and hollering. I smile at their silliness, glad they’re good friends again. Glad the Scouts are good again.
With another deep breath, I start to sit up when I notice both Fynn and Rocky now silent and staring into the woods.
I follow their line of sight to see Mary Jo and Otis, and behind those two stand all three of their boys. Fynn’s arms and hands shoot straight up into the air, and the rest of us hurry to follow his lead.
Mary Jo takes a step toward us, shotgun in hand. “Well, lookee what we have ’ere.”
CHAPTER 23
Otis spits a long stream of brown juice. “Yep, lookee.”
Scarlett starts crying, and I don’t mean a tiny little cry. I don’t mean the kind that slowly builds, either. I’m talking, she goes from zero to full-on blubbery sobbing in less than a second.
I totally expect Fynn’s wheezing and Beans’s dry heaves next, but they both stay just like me—wide-eyed, hands in the air, staring right at the Masons.
“What were y’all doing down there?” Mary Jo asks sharply, nodding at the storm shelter door.
Scarlett inhales a choppy breath. “Th-there was this thing… th-that fell from the sky… a-and we traced it to here… and th-then Edge shut us in… b-but the cave and the rain and the field and the river and the silver balls and the skeleton.” Scarlett crumples with her sobs. “P-please don’t hurt us.”
I’ve seen people on TV have panic attacks, and I think Scarlett might be having one. Carefully, with my eyes on the gun, I slide my hand to her shoulder and pat it. The gesture must work, because her sobbing quiets a little.
Otis runs his eyes over all of us. “Where be the other one? The older one?”
Pointing in the direction I saw Edge’s shadow move, I don’t feel one bit guilty when I say, “He went that way.”
Another shotgun in hand, Otis takes off in that direction and one of their boys goes with him. Junior and the other boy stay with Mary Jo, one off to either side.
“Don’t hurt Hoppy!” I yell after Otis.
“Quiet,” Mary Jo barks. “Junior, you get on over there a little closer to those kids and make sure they don’t run. And don’t you dare mess it up this time,” she warns him, and with his head down, he drags his feet closer to us.
She looks around the clearing at the silver gunk and the charred grass. Then she reaches inside her dress pocket and pulls out Beans’s map. “Which one of yuns is gonna tell us what ya found?”
None of us open our mouths.
But then she cocks the shotgun, and we all start babbling at once.
“Meteor shower—”
“Basinger’s silo—”
“Silver dust—”
“Beans is moving—”
“Almost drowned—”
“Bats—”
“The balls—”
Mary Jo lifts the barrel toward the sky and shoots, and the boom echoes off the mountains and the valleys, the trees and the ground. We fall silent in shock. I’ve never actually heard a gun go off before. It’s loud. And scary.
The other Mason boy snickers, and Scarlett and I both start shaking.
Mary Jo points the shotgun at Rocky. “You. Speak.”
He does, quickly, stuttering and fumbling over his words, but he manages to get the entire story told.
“And none of yuns know what you found?” she asks.
We shake our heads. I wonder if Mary Jo knows what’s going on.
“Okay, this is what we’re doing.” She trails her gun over all of us. “Empty yer pockets, yer backpacks, whatever you have on ya. I want a pile there.” She indicates a spot on the ground. “No funny business. You hear?”
We nod.
“And you.” She looks right at Fynn. “Make sure you git that thingy for yer breathin’ problem.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
We hurry and do exactly as we’re told, emptying what little we have left into a pile and taking a seat on the ground.
“You.” Mary Jo looks pointedly at me. “Dark-haired girl.”
“Annie,” I tell her, though I’m not sure why.
“Bring me that there silver thing.” She gestures toward our pile, where Beans’s silver ball is.
I don’t hesitate. I walk over and pick up the ball. It feels warm now, different than it did before. Actually, it’s more like hot, and holding it makes my hands tingle, almost like the sphere is vibrating.
“Bring it ’ere, girl.”
I glance over to my friends, all huddled, staring back at me. I look up at Junior to see he’s looking at me now. Then he surprises the heck out of me by giving a tiny nod toward the woods. Like he’s saying, Go.
I whirl around and throw the ball as hard as I can in Mary Jo’s direction and I yell, “Run!”
My friends don’t hesitate to jump to their feet, and we all take off in a mad sprint toward the woods.
A shot fires and it vibrates the air around us, but we keep running at full speed straight into the trees.
“She’s shooting at us!” Scarlett screams.
We tear through the woods, not looking back, running… running… running. Next to me Fynn starts really panting, and I know he’ll be wheezing soon.
Scarlett’s falling back. I’m not losing anybody again, so I wait until she catches up, grab her hand, and drag her behind me.
Beside me Rocky trips and rolls, and Fynn doesn’t miss a beat as he ducks down, grabs Rocky’s arm, and yanks him right back up.
“Thanks, bro,” Rocky pants, and wheezing for air, Fynn nods.
“Over there!” Beans points to a huge fallen tree.
We all leap over the log and pile on top of one another behind it.
Fynn fumbles for his inhaler, and I try to help him with it, but Rocky beats me to it, sticking it between Fynn’s lips. It’s the first time I’ve seen Rocky do that.
After a couple of squirts, we try to be quiet and listen, but all of us are breathing so heavily that it’s not really working.
Seconds go by. Then a couple of minutes, and as I finally get my breathing completely under control, I listen carefully for any movement.
“I think we lost them,” Rocky whispers, peeking over the downed tree.
“They do have what they want,” Beans quietly says.
Fynn starts to get up. “Let’s go before they find us.”
Beans nods. “Keep quiet and low to the ground.”
Just as we start to move, another shot booms in the distance, and Mary Jo calls, “Come out, come out, wherever you are. We’ve got your friend and his little dog, too.”
Oh, no, not Hoppy! I look at everyone. “What are we going to do?” I whisper. “We can’t just leave them.”
Rocky scoffs. “Are you kidding me? Edge locked us down in that cellar.”
True.
But as much as I despise Edge and just want to go home, the idea of leaving him and Hoppy to the Mason Clan just doesn’t sit right.
I look around at the Scouts and can see the same thought running through everyone’s head.
Do we help him or do we run for our lives?
CHAPTER 24
Minutes later I walk out from the woods and into the clearing. “Mary Jo, I’m here to turn myself in.”
Straightening up, she turns around to survey me.
I put my hands into the air and walk closer. “Please don’t hurt Edge and Hoppy.”
Beans comes flying out of the
woods behind me. “No, Annie!” He grabs my arm. “What are you doing?”
I try to shake Beans off. “We talked about this. Mary Jo and the rest of them are too smart. We can’t outrun them. We have to turn ourselves in.” I shuffle to the side, and Mary Jo’s gaze follows me. “I’m sorry we gave you so many problems.”
With a grunt, she looks down at Beans’s plaid boxers. “Where’re yer pants, boy?”
He cringes in embarrassment. “I had an accident in them.”
It takes her a second to realize what he just said, and then she cackles and cackles, like it’s the funniest thing in the world that a boy had an accident in his pants. What an awful woman.
I glance beyond her, surveying the clearing. Mary Jo is here with Junior and one of her other sons. Otis and the third brother must be out looking for us now. Edge and Hoppy are sitting on the ground with Junior behind them. The silver balls are over to the side in a pile. They look less silver now and more yellow. Maybe it’s just a trick of the light, but something about them doesn’t seem right.
Junior and his brother are focused on us. I keep my hands up. “Do you promise not to hurt my friends?”
“I ain’t promising nothin’.”
I shuffle a little more, and Mary Jo turns to fully face me. Beans rushes over and grabs one of my hands out of the air. “No, Annie.”
He clenches my fingers tight and I feel him transfer over one end of the elasticized wire he had woven into the waistband of his jeans. Kind of like the trick vest he made last year—he had done the same thing with his pants by incorporating survival items into the waistband and the seams. That’s why his jeans are high-waters.
And to think that I thought Beans’s mom hadn’t bought him new clothes. Their financial situation had nothing to do with why his pants didn’t fit.
“You and I are sticking together,” he says.
Mary Jo gives our clasped hands a quick annoyed look. “All right. Whatever. Git on over here.”
Slowly, we move forward. I glance one more time behind her to see all eyes still on us. Then I fake sneeze, loudly, as our predetermined signal, and everything after that happens in a blur.
Scarlett and Fynn fly out of their hiding spot in the woods, holding an ultrastrong thin rope that had previously been the seam of Beans’s pants. The two of them tackle the brother as Rocky races straight toward us.
Beans and I take off in different directions, holding the elasticized titanium wire. We circle Mary Jo, crisscrossing in the rear and swerving back around to the front. Rocky grabs the shotgun from her hand, ducks under our wire, and races across the clearing. Beans and I dart around the front of Mary Jo again, switch directions, and head to crisscross in the rear.
Mary Jo screams and hollers and thrashes, and we do one more swerving wrap. Then we yank, hard, and she goes barreling to the ground, sending a gust of silver dust up into the air. Beans grabs my end of the wire and does a quick knot, and we both take a step back.
“I’m gonna git you kids!” She kicks and bicycles her big legs, trying to roll over, and then kicks some more.
Beans looks at me, and we both burst out laughing. She looks like one of those pigs-in-a-blanket things that my mom makes, when she takes a hot dog and wraps it in crescent dough.
Beans’s plan worked perfectly. He really is brilliant. I turn and tell him just that. “Beans, you are the smartest kid I know.”
He gives me an embarrassed smile that warms me down to my toes. I have the best friends ever.
“Leave my mama alone!” one of the boys yells, and we turn to see the one Fynn and Scarlett tackled and trussed up with the thin rope. He’s rolling around on the ground just like his mom.
Edge stands next to Rocky now, and Junior sits on the ground, unharmed as I insisted, looking at Mary Jo and not bothering to hide his own grin.
“Junior!” Mary Jo bellows, craning her neck, trying to see around the clearing.
“Leave Junior alone,” Otis says, stepping from the trees to lay his shotgun down before putting his hands into the air. “This has gone too far.”
Mary Jo makes a couple of grumpy noises. “Now, you just hold on—”
“I said,” Otis snaps, “this has gone too far.” Then, without us telling him to do so, he walks over and sits down beside Junior.
My friends and I look at one another. I don’t think any of us can believe that Otis just got all authoritative with Mary Jo, or that he’s giving himself up.
“Where’s the other one?” Edge asks.
“He took off,” Otis says. “That one always was a coward.”
Something vibrates through the air, and I look around. “What is that?” I turn to Beans. “Do you hear that?”
Nodding, he rotates in a slow circle, looking at the ground and the trees and all around. “Yeah, I hear it, too.”
“Hey,” Rocky calls from across the clearing. “Do you feel that?”
Feel? Yeah, he’s right. Whatever it is, it’s tickling the hair on my arms. I rub at them and turn to Fynn and Scarlett, who are both staring at the pile of silver balls.
Only they’re definitely not silver anymore. They’re dark yellow, and as I watch, they slowly transition into orange, and as I keep watching, I realize that they’re vibrating.
Fynn takes a giant step back, grabbing Scarlett as he does. “Th-th-they’re going to explode!”
Mary Jo squirms against the wire, and I move quickly. “Help me,” I tell Beans as I’m already starting to untie her. No matter how much I don’t like her, I’m not going to let her get blown up.
Something in the trees moves, and I glance up to see at least a dozen men and women dressed in camouflage step into the clearing.
My hands shoot straight up into the air because—my eyes widen—every single one of the group has a rifle.
And the rifles are pointed right at us.
CHAPTER 25
“Sit,” one of them commands, and all of us immediately do.
Silently, the group of military people spreads out around the clearing to surround us. They shift the focus of their rifles off us and hold them braced in front, and I quietly expel a breath of relief. Mary Jo holding a gun to us is one thing, but the military? Yeah, so much more intimidating.
The one who commanded “Sit” points to where Beans and Mary Jo and I are. “I want all of you here. Now.”
Everyone immediately moves, scurrying across the clearing to sit beside me and Beans and Mary Jo. Two of the military guys pick up the one trussed boy and carry him over to none-too-gently drop him next to our clump.
The vibrating noise becomes louder, and I glance across to see the balls going from orange to red. Automatically, my friends and I inch closer to one another, and I feel one of them shaking.
No, wait. That’s me.
Scarlett grabs my hand. I grab Beans’s. And one by one, we all link fingers. “I’m sorry,” I murmur, apologizing again.
Fynn slides Hoppy into his lap. “This is all of our faults.”
Scarlett squeezes my hand. “We’re in this together,” she says, and Beans and Rocky both nod.
Tears blur across my eyes, and I sniff. My stupid friends. God, I love them.
We watch as one of the military men crouches beside the glowing spheres. He consults his watch and then presses his finger to an earpiece as he listens to whoever is on the other end. Abruptly, he stands and shouts, “Incoming!”
A gush of wind whips through the clearing then, and several of the military move in to protect our clump as a whooping noise fills the air.
“What’s that?” Scarlett yells.
The whooping gets louder.
“A helicopter!” Beans yells back.
And louder still.
My black braids whip my face, and I cover my ears with my hands as I glance up to see a helicopter whirl over the tree line to hover above us.
Three people dressed in the same camo fatigues zip down to land in the clearing. As soon as their feet hit the charred grass, the
y unclip their zip lines, and the helicopter takes off again, tilting and whooping off across the sky.
One of the new people is carrying a hard black case, and together the three of them sprint over to the balls. As the men kneel next to the spheres and lay the case down, I look at their faces and realize the one with the case is… Dad?
“Dad!” I shout.
He looks over at me and holds up his hand. “Stay there, sweetie.”
I look over at Beans, like he might have the answer to my silent question: What is my dad doing here?
Oh, my God. Does he hunt aliens? Holy cow, Dad is cool!
I watch as Dad flips the case open and spreads it wide. Black foam lines the interior, and a ball just like the others already sits inside. It’s also glowing red.
Quickly, Dad pulls on a pair of thick gloves and carefully picks up the first vibrating sphere in the pile. Fear works its way through my chest as I continue watching him. Please be careful, Dad. Please.
He places the sphere inside the case. Then he does the same with another and another and another, working swiftly and cautiously to cradle each within the black foam. The last one is the larger one with all the knobs. Dad rotates the ball, studying it, and then turns one of the knobs before placing the ball in the center of the case and grabbing what looks like a remote. He points it at the case and presses some buttons, and the spheres go from vibrating to full-on shaking.
One of the military guys kneeling beside him stands up and backs away, and I watch as Dad points the remote at the case and punches more buttons.
The spheres get redder. And redder. And redder still, and the guy who backed away casts a nervous look around the clearing.
The color of the balls shifts again, going from red back to orange, from orange to yellow, from yellow to white. And then the spheres begin glowing brighter. And brighter. And so bright now, I have to squint to keep looking, like looking into the sun.
“That’s not normal,” I hear one of the military people whisper.
I clench Scarlett’s fingers and Beans clenches mine.
Feverishly, Dad jabs at more buttons. “It’s too late!”
“Did he turn the right knob?” I hear someone else ask at the exact second Dad yells, “Cover!”
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