When the Sky Fell on Splendor

by Emily Henry

  I heard that sound again, something singing through the air, smacking something hard and meaty.

  I clawed my way along the side of the car toward the noise, pausing at the sight of my backpack open on the ground there.

  My phone. He would’ve taken it already, probably stomped it into pieces. My heart sank into my stomach. I couldn’t call for help. We could make a run for it, but he had a gun.

  We could hide, but who knew how long it would be until he gave up, until someone thought to look for us here? Someone other than the people who had Remy locked in an interrogation room and lackeys carrying boxes out of Levi’s house.

  Sofía and Bill scuttled into view, backlit by the headlights.

  Bill had his arm around her throat, the same as he’d done to me, that rag smothering her face. Sofía was swinging her lacrosse stick, trying to hit him over her shoulder but having no luck.

  I shoved myself off the car and barreled toward them. I hit Bill from the side and took him down on the hood of the CRV, and Sofía went skidding through the gravel.

  Bill rolled quickly over on the hood beside me, his belly pinning me to the car as he worked at the gun caught in its elastic holster. He swore, his mouth twisting open so that spit glistened in its corners and his spearmint-tinged breath hit my face in a hot rush.

  “Sofía!” I screamed, trying to push him off me. My arms were pinned against my chest, where I had no leverage.

  Bill let out a satisfied sigh as the gun finally came loose.

  “Sofía!” I screamed again, eyes and throat burning. The energy was building in me, shivering to a peak.

  Sofía was crawling through the grass after her lacrosse stick. She grabbed it and leapt to her feet, but Bill rolled over, throwing an arm out to hold me behind him against the hood as he raised his gun on Sofía instead.

  The energy plumped out, pushing against the constraints of my body, like a sponge filled too fully, too fast, with nowhere to empty.

  Sofía froze, her dark hair plastered to her face in rain-soaked clumps and her lacrosse stick hovering over her shoulder.

  “Get in,” Bill panted at her, jerking the pistol toward the Cadillac’s trunk. Sofía’s eyes darted to it, then fixed back on me. Her stance widened.

  “Drop it,” Bill said, “and get in.” He lifted the gun higher, training it on her forehead.

  A burst of energy rippled out through me, overflowing, breaking out of me.

  He flinched as the Cadillac roared to life. The headlights flashed on, staring us down from one side while the CRV’s glared at us from the other.

  Bill adjusted his papery grip on the gun but kept it trained on Sofía. “Now, Frances, you’re only making things worse.” His thumb massaged the trigger. “Don’t cause a scene.”

  The lights all down the train tracks behind us were winking on, piercing through the gray-green storm. A massive shriek tore through the rainfall as the rusted skip cars suddenly lurched to life, riding up the conveyor belt toward the blast furnace.

  Bill swore but didn’t move. His car alarm had tripped, the CRV’s too, triggering a strobe effect on the headlights. He spun in place, looking toward the access road he’d taken to get here.

  I took my chance: I ran toward the Cadillac, and Sofía dove behind its trunk as Bill’s gaze snapped back and the first bullet went off.

  I threw the driver’s side door open and hurtled inside, jerking the car into gear and slamming the gas.

  Bill’s eyes went wide in the fluorescent white of the lights as I shot toward him. His hands lifted at his sides and his mouth dropped open in an ellipse as I sped toward him. I could hear Sofía screaming, running alongside the car. “No! Fran, no!”

  She darted out in front of me, hands waving frantically, and I hit the brakes as hard as I could, spinning the wheel to miss her.

  Lights shattered and popped all down the tracks, and I jumped out of the car the second it screeched to a stop.

  Bill was screaming, bent in half with his hands cupped over his eyes. Sofía was holding something small and pink up defensively in front of her as she bent to scoop his discarded gun off the ground.

  She looked at me, blood dripping down her cupid’s bow, breathing hard. I froze, staring back at her, shaking from fear and confusion and fatigue and pain.

  I had almost died.

  I had almost killed someone.

  The machinery had all fallen silent and still.

  Bill wasn’t screaming anymore, but he’d dropped onto his knees, rubbing fiercely at his eyes.

  “Are you okay?” Sofía asked me, voice ragged and breathless.

  I nodded once, despite the trembling, despite the weakness and the dark specks dancing at the corners of my vision.

  I almost died.

  Almost killed someone.

  My abdomen felt like it was splintering, poison sloshing in my stomach from the aftereffects of the power.

  I tried to speak. No sound came out. I swallowed and tried again. “How’d you do that?” I barely whispered.

  “Mace,” she rasped, shaking the pink canister in her hand. “You should really consider getting some.”

  She gave a tired, shaky smile. It was a delicate thing, like a newborn bird or a piece of spun glass still wrapped in the tissue paper. Genuine, but breakable.

  My teeth were chattering; so were hers. “How’d you know I was here?”

  Sofía’s smile faded. “Molly.”

  “The drug or the alien?” I said.

  She threw her arms around me, and I hugged her back, shivering. “You’re here,” I wheezed.

  “Always,” she murmured.

  In the distance, sirens were wailing. We pulled apart and turned to watch the cop car hurtling up the road. “Did you call the police?” I asked.

  She shook her head, watching the car’s serpentine path toward us. “I texted the others. Maybe someone panicked.”

  I took a shallow, unsatisfying breath. “Tell me it’s going to be okay.”

  Sofía stared at me for a beat, then threaded her hand through mine. “I promise I’ll be there with you, even if it’s not.”

  I looked at Bill, kneeling in the dirt, scrubbing at his eyes.

  “At least I didn’t kill a man,” I said.

  “At least he didn’t kill you,” she said.

  The cop car came to a stop, siren falling silent though the lights kept spinning and other sirens were ringing out in the distance. Both front doors popped open, and before Sheriff Nakamura had so much as gotten out of the car, someone else leapt from the passenger seat and flew through the rain to us, his burgundy rain jacket flapping in the wind.

  “I’ve been calling you for twenty minutes!” Levi said, catching both of us in a painful hug. He drew back, and his gaze wandered to Bill. “That’s him? That’s Albert Kingston?”

  “That’s Bill,” I stuttered. “Black Mailbox Bill.”

  Levi nodded. “That’s his real name, Albert Kingston.”

  “How do you—” Sofía began.

  “His wife contacted the sheriff when he was taking me down to the station,” Levi said. “She found the messages on their home computer and was worried. I guess Albert’s been into this stuff as long as she’s known him, but the last couple of years he’s been obsessed, always talking about finding a way to re-create his encounter, wanting to ‘feel the light’ one more time before he dies. He told her he was on a business trip in San Antonio, and when she saw the e-mails . . .”

  Levi shook his head, wiped water from his thick reddish lashes. “She found others, messages to another guy who found a disc in Nashville. He’s been missing since two days after Albert’s last e-mail with him. When I got Sofía’s text that she saw you at the mill with some guy, I just . . . I didn’t know what else to do. I’m sorry, Fran.”

  Everything left in my roiling
stomach felt like it had turned to cold, dead weight as his confirmation sank in.

  Two more cop cars came wailing around the bend, windshield wipers ticking madly, and behind them, a sleek Suburban with windows so black they looked like matte paint.

  Sheriff Nakamura was moving toward Bill now, with his gun trained on him.

  “You did the right thing,” Sofía murmured to Levi.

  “You had no other choice,” I agreed. But everything Black Mailbox Bill had said would happen to me crashed to the forefront of my mind like a tidal wave. “Just remember. It was a fake video. Some UFO zealot tracked us down because of a fake video. Just stick to the story.”

  Sheriff Nakamura had Bill on the ground on his stomach, the sides of his open Members Only jacket splayed out like wings and his arms twisted behind his back to be handcuffed. The sheriff was reciting the Miranda rights, but his eyes were on the blast furnace.

  No, not on the blast furnace. On the two skip cars parked partway up the incline, one closer to the top of the tower than it had been an hour ago, the other visible when it hadn’t been for years.

  Sheriff Nakamura’s eyebrows pinched together, and his mouth stopped moving as he studied the building.

  I gripped the nautilus shell and focused on that, clearing my mounting anxiety before I could send the skip cars shooting off the ramp into the sky, right before the eyes of the blazer-clad woman stepping out of the black SUV, followed by the man in fatigues who’d been driving.

  I could see the badge clipped to her jacket from here, along with the razor-sharp smile she offered as she surveyed us through the fog.

  Sheriff Nakamura dragged Black Mailbox Bill to his feet, his eyes still puffy and red, and as the sheriff led him past us toward the cruiser, Bill/Albert looked between me and the FBI agent approaching in low, sensible heels.

  “It will be worse this way, Frances,” he croaked over his shoulder. The sheriff gave him a sharp pull. “Trust me. It will be so much worse.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  HER NAME WAS AGENT Rothstadt, and she had a sharklike smile that must have helped earn her this job.

  “You’re not in any trouble” were the first words she said to us through that smile. Her blond hair was styled in soft curls. Her suit was navy, and her small hoop earrings were silver, matched to the crucifix around her pale neck. “We just have some questions for you regarding a piece of satellite debris whose crash we believe you witnessed.”

  She’d forgotten to hold the smile in place, but she flashed it again, a bookend for her words.

  Smile—frightening statement—smile.

  “Your parents have already been contacted,” she added. “They’ll be meeting us at our compound.”

  By then, Sheriff Nakamura had gotten Black Mailbox Albert into the back of his squad car and hurried over to join us. “You mean station,” he said.

  Smile. “No, unfortunately we’ve determined that this matter will have to be handled at the temporary facility we’ve set up for the length of our investigation.” Smile.

  “Well, we’ve got our own investigation on our hands,” the sheriff said. “We need to get the kids’ statements about a murder suspect. In fact, we’ll be needing to get a statement from my son down at the station as well.”

  Smile. “As soon as we’ve finished with him, and the others, we’ll bring them straight to you.” Smile.

  “These kids have just endured something terrible,” the sheriff said.

  Smile. “And this is a matter of safety. We have to verify there’s been no . . . contamination. It shouldn’t take long.” Smile.

  The smile hadn’t worked on him, and she could tell. “I understand you’re concerned about your nephew, but the sooner we handle this, the sooner he and your son and the others will be able to get back to their lives.”

  He’d squared his shoulders, gone rigid like he was caught halfway between fight and flight.

  Even now, wedged into the Suburban’s leathery back seat between Sofía and Levi, I didn’t know the answer.

  If I tried to burn out the energy now, what would happen? Would being useless to them help or hurt me? And what about the others?

  Was staying calm and playing dumb our way out of this? Or were we climbing into their cage?

  Maybe there was no way out, whether we fought or not.

  And Remy. What about Remy? He was already in their custody. . . .

  I closed my eyes and focused on calming the skitter of my heart and the tautly humming cord of energy through me.

  It was so stuffy in the car it was hard to get oxygen.

  Breathe. Stay calm and don’t think about anything.

  One popping light bulb and I’d lose plausible deniability about Molly the Alien.

  I’d risk all our lives.

  They’d taken Levi’s and Sofía’s phones (Smile. “Just a precaution.” Smile.) as soon as we were in the car, out of the sheriff’s sight. We had no idea where the others were.

  The thought of my brother—being taken, alone, out of Walmart and shoved into the back of a car by armed guards—sparked hot across my mind, and I pushed it away as fast as I could.

  I couldn’t panic, and panicking was all my muscles, heart, and brain seemed bent on doing.

  What about Remy?

  Don’t think don’t think don’t think.

  Had they really told our dad to come to the compound? Would he even come if they had?

  Don’t think don’t think don’t think.

  Fear spiraled through my stomach, twining around the cord of electrical charge like the stripes on a barbershop pole. I changed my mantra.

  Remy will be okay. Arthur will be okay. We will be okay.

  I opened my eyes. In the front passenger seat, Agent Rothstadt hurried to smile. It reminded me of something.

  It reminded me of Black Mailbox Bill.

  It reminded me of hunger.

  We’d stopped at a railway crossing. The SUV ahead of us had made it across, but we’d just missed our chance—the automatic gate began to lower, blocking the road from the tracks.

  Rothstadt straightened in her seat, facing the fog rolling up from the tracks over the quickly darkening windshield. She dropped the smile immediately, an actor exiting the stage to hide in the wings. She sighed, checking her watch.

  Sofía caught my eyes. If she was trying to communicate something, I wasn’t getting it.

  The train had reached us, chugging past in screaming bursts, the road trembling, the car rocking.

  Sofía mouthed something: Wait.

  For what, I didn’t know, but she clearly knew something was coming.

  The passing train blotted out most of the moonlight, sending it through only in blips between cars.

  In the flickering blue light, with his eyebrows peaked, Levi looked toward us. Something had changed in the car, an energy all three of us felt. The buzz through me felt like the plucked string of a harp, only instead of slowing, the vibration was speeding up.

  My heartbeat followed. Stay calm, I told myself. Wait.

  The last car of the train whipped past. Its metallic groans, the shriek and chug and breathy whistling, faded. The red lights stopped flashing. The gate lifted.

  The camouflage-donning driver didn’t move. Rothstadt looked at him. We all did.

  But he was staring at the manila envelope resting on the dashboard. It was shivering, tap-tap-tapping against the plastic as it rumbled. The train was gone but the whole car was still shaking.

  “What’s that?” Rothstadt asked.

  The driver shook his head. Rothstadt turned in her seat. Smile. “Almost there.” Smile.

  She nodded toward the tracks. The guard seemed unsure, but he put the car in drive and rolled over the uneven surface with a th-thunk. The fog washed over the car in waves, thick, strangling blankets.

 
We th-thunked back onto the road. The guard huffed, flashed his brights into the writhing wall of white. “What the . . . ?” he said under his breath. Rothstadt checked her watch.

  Sofía’s eyes stayed on the rattling manila envelope.

  We were crawling along the road now. The fog was too thick to see the pavement, or the grazing pastures that rolled along our left, the cornfield and electrical towers up ahead.

  The car was really shaking now, the envelope buzzing against the dash. In profile, Rothstadt’s lips pressed tight, wrinkling so they looked like a wound stitched together. Her blue eyes were wide and glassy.

  The car was silent except for the slow squeak of the wipers against the misty windshield and the feverish tapping of paper on plastic.

  The vibration grew until all of us were shaking, until the trees on the right side of the road, visible in breaks in the fog, were dancing, leaves glinting like silver dollars as they fluttered toward then away from the streetlamps.

  The vibration had a sound now, not like the train whooshing past. A rumble like earth-bound thunder.

  “Stop the car,” Rothstadt said.

  The guard already had, but he put the SUV in park. In the rearview mirror, I could make out the Suburban that had been following us, and it stopped as well.

  “Stay with the witnesses.” Rothstadt swung the door open and climbed out, shoes clicking as she walked along the headlights’ trail. She paused, staring into the foggy night, her blazer taut on her lifted shoulders, her hand resting at the gun on her hip. She turned back, hand cupped over her eyes to block the light as she stared through the front window. She shrugged, and her voice reached us dimly: “Nothing.”

  But still the ground was vibrating like a massage chair, and the envelope was jittering on the dashboard.

  THWACK. The car bounced as something thumped against the roof.

  Levi and I jumped in our seats, but Sofía stayed still, calm. The driver swore under his breath, hand going toward his own gun as he eyed the sunroof suspiciously.

  Rothstadt was still standing in the middle of the road, blanched by the car’s headlights. She had her gun drawn, but her eyebrows were knit together in confusion as her gaze wandered from one side of the road to the other.