When the Sky Fell on Splendor

by Emily Henry

  “FBI,” she called out. “Come out slowly, with your hands up!”

  Her hand slid into her pocket and withdrew a phone. Gun still poised in her right hand, she lifted the phone to her ear with her left.

  THWACK. The car jogged again. Then twice more as two black objects careened into the hood of the car.

  Levi’s hand slapped to his mouth, stifling a yelp. The guard undid his seat belt and scrambled out of the car to get a better look as the three of us leaned forward to see what had struck us.

  Birds. Two more hit in quick succession, beak first, blood spurting toward the windshield.

  The other soldiers, the ones from the second car, were moving tentatively around us on either side, trying to see what the holdup was. Rothstadt was striding back toward the car, calling out to them, but the rumbling was too loud to hear.

  The fog broke apart as they came barreling toward us, a moving sea of black and white and brown.

  Cows, hundreds of cows breaking through the mist with wide, wild eyes and hoarse screams of panic, hooves pounding the asphalt, shaking it, as they stampeded toward us.

  Rothstadt and the others dove out of the way as the crush of cows hit the front of the car like a wave, breaking around it, surging past on either side, their noise drowning out the shouted commands of Rothstadt and the others.

  “You knew?” Levi crowed enthusiastically. “You knew we were about to get ambushed by cows?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Sofía said. The car rocked violently as the cows converged around it, mooing and groaning against it on all sides.

  Hooves pounded and slid against the hood as two cows tried to pitch themselves onto it. Gaping mouths and wild eyes pressed in against the windows, thick tongues drawing patterns of slime on the glass as the animals pounded against the car. The herd hit the left side of the car so hard the tires lifted off the road, and all three of us screamed as they slammed back down, just in time for the right-side tires to catapult off.

  Snatches of shouts broke through the chaos. Camouflage was visible in flashes as the soldiers tried to push through to reach us.

  Sofía gripped my arm and shouted over the noise, “Are you ready?”

  “Ready for—” My voice wrenched into a scream as another slam against the left propelled the car over, glass shattering on impact, raining down on us from the uptilted left side of the car. Hanging hard against my seat belt, I threw my arms over my head as glass fell on us like confetti and cows pushed in around the window.

  Still suspended in his seat belt, Levi jerked back from them, bracing his legs against the driver’s seat headrest to push himself deeper into the car.

  “We have to go,” Sofía hissed. “Now.” She unclipped her seat belt and crashed to what was now the floor, the shattered right window flush against the asphalt. I followed suit, dropping beside her. Levi was still hanging, dodging the wild-eyed cows like some reverse version of whack-a-mole.

  Sofía reached across me and undid Levi’s seat belt. He dropped like a sandbag against my forearms, crushing me to the car door-turned-floor. We were all smushed together painfully, but Sofía climbed clear, toward the upturned window.

  “They’ll crush us!” Levi said.

  “Or we’ll get shot!” I added.

  Sofía looked back over her shoulder, her face dark in the foggy night. “Can you trust me? Just once, I need you to.”

  We wouldn’t always have each other. No one could have a guarantee like that. But so far, Sofía had come through for us—for me—every single time we needed someone.

  Every time I needed them.

  “Of course we trust you,” I answered for both of us.

  Sofía nodded. “On the count of three, Franny’s going to take out the lights. As soon as that happens, we run. Follow me, okay? Unless they’re too close—then go wherever you can and hide. I’ll come back for you. I’ll find you. You don’t need to contact me.”

  She waited a moment for me and Levi to nod, then she did too. She turned toward the shattered window, bracing her feet against the seat, cupping her hands against the fragmented edge of the window. “One.” She jogged herself, like she was warming her muscles for the jump.

  A gunshot snapped through the cool night, but the cows didn’t disperse; they just became more agitated, frantically kicking at the car.

  “Two,” Sofía said.

  I closed my eyes, felt the hot thrumming cord through my center, the series of not-quite-muscles I’d found that night locked in the Jenkins House basement. I flexed them, felt the energy jittering as it surfaced, eager to be unleashed. I adjusted my crouch, getting my weight over my feet so I could spring out as soon as Sofía had cleared the car.

  I focused on my heartbeat, on Sofía’s and Levi’s breathing. White unfurled across my mind, and when it faded, I saw the velvety darkness, felt the cold air batting against me, the glittery streaks rushing past on every side, singing as they went. The still pool waiting to swallow the light.

  I finally understood what Bill had meant: what a shame it would be to lose this. How lonely my own body might feel when the being sharing it with me left, taking with it whole worlds I’d never know.

  The power built. I could hear it singing through me.

  The shouts and moos, the gunfire and crinkle of grass, and the distant barking of some farm dog all faded into a rush like tinnitus beneath the voice.

  Soft, warm, massive.

  Pushing against my confines and then—

  “Three!”

  —breaking out.

  The console, the headlights, the streetlamps, the radios, and cell phones, the lamps on yellow laminate tables in kitchens blocks away, the low-slung wires dancing through the rolling fields on silver towers.

  I felt myself—or Molly?—touch them all, felt them light up under contact. My eyes snapped open on all-encompassing light, light so bright no images came through it.

  And just as my eyes began to adjust on Sofía’s tennis shoes scrambling out of the car, everything went black again.

  A haze of colored pixels exploded across my eyes, afterimage burning on my retinas, but I didn’t wait for it to clear. I hoisted myself upward, palms meeting rubber, metal, and glass.

  Shoulders hitting fur and muscle. Wet tongue on my cheek, breathy snort on my neck as I scrambled, unseeing, into the night. My ankle raged as I dropped beside the car, collapsing on the street.

  I rolled sideways as fast as I could, slamming into hooves that danced near my head. I pushed myself off the ground, batted back and forth by the sea of bodies as my eyes adjusted to the velvety night, latching on to fragments of moon-streaked fog.

  I tried to run but my footing was unsure, my legs unsteady.

  It wasn’t just the darkness or my ankle, or that every shambling step I took brought me into another haunch or snout or tail.

  My whole body ached. Pain seared behind my eyes, and nausea wriggled through my abdomen like it was looking for an exit. The cord of energy in me felt strong, like it was close to the surface and my body couldn’t handle it.

  Bent in half, I shoved off the side of a cow and stumbled forward through the pitch-black street.

  I couldn’t see the soldiers or Agent Rothstadt. I couldn’t see anything but flashes of fur, shimmers of starlight fluttering across pale branches.

  Where was Sofía?

  Where was Levi?

  A spasm of pain rocked me off balance again, sent me doubling over just to catch my breath.

  What was happening to me?

  I reached out—grabbed for anything—and caught a tree trunk, pushing myself upright, turning in a circle as I searched for the glint of the overturned car. The current of cow bodies had carried me farther than I’d realized. I was a yard into the woods on the far side of the street from the field. The road itself was still in chaos, soldiers and cows crashing
into one another, blocking each other’s way. Three cows peeled off from the writhing mass and thundered toward me.

  I dragged myself along branches, gritting my teeth to keep from screaming in pain as I ran. I glanced over my shoulder. The cows were closing in on me, the white rings around their eyes suddenly visible as they hit a patch of moonlight.

  They were scared, I realized. Not running at me but running from something.

  Two veered left around a thick spruce and the third cut to the right, revealing the thing bounding after them, leading them toward me.

  Long white fur turned silver by the moonlight, ears wicked back, and tail juddering anxiously side to side.

  Droog?

  A bark snapped out of her as she came toward me. I expected her to come to me, but she barked again as she ran past, leaving me to stare, confused, after her.

  I couldn’t get my bearings, couldn’t understand anything really, except that she’d been herding the cows that had rushed our car.

  I jumped as someone grabbed my shoulder from behind, spun toward the panting person in a panic. “Sofía!”

  “Follow her,” she got out between breaths, hitting my back between the shoulder blades to get me moving.

  “Where’s Levi?” I asked as we took off again.

  A crash in the woods to our right answered. His silhouette waved an arm over his head as he jogged alongside us. “Let’s go,” Sofía warned.

  We followed the flash of speckled white through the brush.

  “Where are we going?” I hissed.

  The corners of Sofía’s mouth twisted into a grimace. She either didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

  I didn’t ask again. Every time I told myself not to think about the pain, it seemed to double, and when I started to stumble, Levi grabbed my elbow and hauled me back up, tugging me along. There were voices behind us. Flashlight beams. The whip of chopper blades picked up at our backs.

  Wherever Droog was leading us, it had to be close—she’d started to double back to check on our progress, bounding back out of sight for a minute at a time then circling us, drawing us nearer to the destination, herding us.

  Muffled voices called out through the woods as we moved, and to our left, the trees thinned and splashes of shocking light caught on something white and glossy in the distance. It stretched out indefinitely alongside us, and as a breeze rolled through, rustling the woods, the white thing rippled.

  “That must be the compound,” Levi whispered, tipping his head toward it.

  It was something like a massive white tent, I realized, with hallways tunneling off in different directions, nearly as big as our high school. I stopped short and stared through the dark trees, finally piecing everything together.

  Halfway between us and the massive tent, there was a strip of gravel road, lined with semitrucks, blazing white under the glare of the floodlights mounted on tall structures every few yards along the tent, washing the already muted colors from the camouflage-print fatigues of the figures moving around in the street.

  A taste like hot metal rushed over my tongue.

  Droog had led us right back to Jenkins Lane, to the makeshift compound we’d been trying to escape.

  Wind tore through the forest, making the branches whip and snap. Light sliced from the sky, and a deafening fwooop—fwooop—fwooop thrummed all around us.

  Levi’s and Sofía’s hair flapped viciously in the wind as all three of us lifted our gazes to the angry sky.

  A black helicopter cut across it, suspended by the furious snap of its blades.

  The noise amped up as two more appeared, lights scouring the woods and field beyond.

  A wave of panic raced through me, hot and electric.

  Every light in the field—around and inside the tent, shining down from the helicopters, the trucks’ headlights—surged in response, went blindingly white for an instant then cut out just as fast as the power overcame the wiring.

  The world plunged into darkness. The whirring overhead slowed. The wind pattern changed as something massive dropped like a cartoon anvil toward the field. Voices called out in every direction.

  “FRANNY!” Levi grabbed my arm, and yelped as a spark jumped between us.

  The sound—the sight of him stumbling back—snapped me out of it. The power coursing through me hit a wall, and my fragmented senses clicked back into place seconds before the helicopters would have smashed headlong into the tent and anyone inside of it.

  The lights flickered back on. The blades spun to life, and the choppers jerked upward out of their nosedives.

  Beside me, Levi was pulling his own hair and gasping to catch his breath like we’d been the ones to very nearly die.

  “Oh my God,” I wheezed. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I almost . . .”

  Sofía touched my arm. “But you didn’t.” She nodded toward the blur of white and fur zigzagging ahead of us through the backyard of the Jenkins House. “We have to go.”

  My feet finally unfroze, and we went back to running, chasing a border collie through the woods, but the block of ice in my chest didn’t thaw.

  TWENTY-NINE

  “WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Levi repeated my question as we ran.

  “Sof?” I prompted through gritted teeth. The pain in my ankle returned with renewed fervor, competing with the dizziness and nausea that kept bending me over.

  Sofía shook her head. “I knew someone was coming for us—I could see them leading the cows, but I figured it’d be Arthur or Nick or something. Now it makes sense why my viewpoint was so low . . .”

  “That’s how you knew what was happening?” Levi asked, voice cracking. “You were reading Droog’s mind? Like you read ours?”

  “I guess . . . I mean, she must’ve been affected by Molly too. It’s the only—” She jumped out of the way as Droog circled back at top speed, then went on. “The biggest part of the consciousness might be in Franny, but obviously there are bits in all of us, and I guess I can access anyone—or dog—that might be housing some of that.”

  “Well, at least we’re getting the mechanics of this down,” Levi said, determined to be optimistic despite the choppers circling overhead.

  “So we don’t know what we’re doing, or where we’re going?” I asked.

  “I figured she knew what she was doing!” Sofía cried.

  “My dog? Sofía! There’s being open-minded, and then there’s—” This time, I jumped out of the way as Droog wound another circle around us. My gaze followed her trail through the trees, but she made a sharp turn before she reached the Jenkins House and bounded toward a copse of trees halfway between us and the decrepit back door, on which block letters sprayed in yellow paint read murderer.

  “I know she’s a dog!” Sofía said. “But we’re just humans, and that doesn’t stop you from giving the streetlights of Splendor electroshock therapy! Droog just led a stampede to break us out! I thought she had a plan.”

  Droog came to an abrupt stop in front of the cave, pitching her front paws onto the ledge over its mouth.

  “Shh!” Levi waved a hand toward the pinprick of light visible beneath the lip of the cave. The light turned off before our eyes.

  “There’s someone in there,” I whispered.

  Droog pushed off the rock and sprinted another circle around us, trying to draw us in toward it. Sofía crept forward, and when Levi reached for her elbow, she shook him off and kept going. I wasn’t sure why we were bothering to move so stealthily.

  Whoever was in there had clearly heard our approach—why else would they have turned off the light?

  Sofía caught my eye and tipped her chin toward a pile of brush just behind the thicket of trees. Something was hidden under the tangle of fallen branches and dead leaves. I moved closer.

  Bikes?

  I leaned toward the bramble, peering through the darkness at the battere
d blue Schwinn underneath. I recognized it. It belonged to—

  “Nick?” Sofía said, surprised.

  “Franny?” a boy’s voice called from inside.

  “Wait, Arthur?” Levi called back.

  Droog’s tail wiggled, and she let out a cough of a bark in greeting.

  “Did I just hear Droog?” Nick called, and with her tail wagging and nails clacking, Droog crouched and darted into the darkness.

  “What is this, some kind of demented tribute to ‘Who’s on First’?” I said.

  There was a shuffling from within as we approached, bent low, and finally a lantern went on inside, casting Nick’s and Arthur’s faces in a golden glow. Relief throbbed through me at the sight of them.

  A part of me, I realized, had been braced to never see either of them—but especially Nick—again.

  Something came over me, and I dropped onto my knees and threw my arms around Nick under the low overhang of the cave entrance. He blinked his surprise at me for a few seconds before hugging me back. “Well, nice to see you too.”

  “What are you guys doing here?” I asked, pulling back.

  “Especially you,” Levi murmured, kneeling awkwardly beside me so we were on the same level. “I thought you were ‘done.’”

  Nick grimaced. “I thought I was too. I went home last night, and I slept like a baby for the first time all week, and this morning, I was sure I’d made the right decision, getting out while I could.”

  “Wow, great story,” Sofía deadpanned, still standing, and crossed her arms. “Glad you found your bliss.”

  “And then,” Nick twanged, “I went to work. And there was a power surge and a blackout, and I knew it must mean Wayne was there. That he was up to something. I told myself it didn’t involve me. And then the texts just kept coming in. About Remy waiting for his dad to come home, and from Franny, warning us not to go home, and Sofía having her vision of Franny at the mill.

  “And every message that came in, I told myself it wasn’t my problem. My family is my only problem, my responsibility. But then Levi sent us the message about that Black Mailbox Bill guy, and how his wife was worried he might’ve come after Franny, and I looked across the store and watched Arthur just walk out. Just leave work, and it hit me.”