by M. K. Krys
“You really can’t take it off?” Arthur asked.
Daisy shot Everleigh a dark look. “No. I really can’t.”
“So what happens if you die?” Everleigh asked. “What? I’m just asking the obvious question,” she added in reply to their horrified expressions.
“If I die, then my people are in a load of trouble,” Daisy answered darkly. “This jewel is the linchpin for our kind. Everything we do is powered by it—our ability to transform, to see into the future, even our ability to breathe,” she said, clutching the jewel tightly.
“So the Sov—you’re like regular humans without that jewel?” Arthur asked.
Daisy shook her head. “Our kind has always had access to our abilities, but everything changed when our ancestors found these jewels beneath the earth on our home planet. They quickly learned that wearing one of these greatly enhanced our powers. It didn’t take long before everyone had a jewel of their own. We began to rely too heavily on them, and soon the jewel stores had been depleted. But due to our quick evolution abilities, we had evolved to become entirely dependent on the jewels. That’s how the queen came to be. Our ancestors discovered that by connecting the power of all the jewels to one person, we could get away with using just one to enhance the abilities of the entire population. Using this method, we were able to preserve the dwindling supply for many more years, but . . . now this is the only one left.” She let the emerald go. It thumped heavily against her chest. “I think Victor hoped we might find more here, but . . .” She shook her head.
Beacon frowned. He couldn’t imagine having that much power and responsibility literally resting on your shoulders.
“Why you?” Arthur asked after a moment. “No offense,” he added quickly. “I’m just wondering why you’re the queen.”
“I don’t know,” Daisy said, shrugging a shoulder. “All I know is that the previous queen’s jewel began losing its power, as they all do eventually. A queen’s life fades away as the jewel loses its power, and even a new jewel can’t revive her. So the elders proclaimed that they needed to raise up a successor. The moment I was born, they slapped this thing on me. It isn’t like I wanted to be trapped in a jail my whole life.”
“Jail?” Everleigh said. “Your room looked pretty cozy if you ask me.”
“Oh sure, I’ve always had chandeliers and fancy clothes and all the food I could ever want, but if I tried to leave?” Daisy raised an eyebrow. “See how fast they’d chain me up. This is the longest I’ve been away from my guards in years.”
If someone had told Beacon he’d feel sorry for the Sov queen, he would have told them to stop sniffing glue. But he really did feel for Daisy. What she described wasn’t a life. It was a gilded cage.
“We’re not going to hurt you,” Beacon said.
“Oh yeah? That why you hog-tied me?” Daisy shot back, but there wasn’t any heat in her words.
“Grams?” Arthur said.
Arthur’s grandma pulled a multi-tool out of her pocket and whipped open a knife.
But before she could cut Daisy free, something thumped on the roof.
18
The barn went deadly quiet, save for the sound of the gun being cocked. Beacon squinted into the rafters, his heart racing.
A shadow passed over a hole in the roof. There and gone so quickly, he thought he might have imagined it.
“What was that?” Arthur said. His grandma shushed him.
So Beacon hadn’t imagined it.
The Sov were here.
Arthur’s grandma trained her gun at the ceiling. Everleigh powered up her baton and walked in a circle around them as she leveled the wand at the rafters.
Their ragged breathing filled the barn as they listened for any sign of where the attack would come from. But there was nothing but the sound of the wind howling through the trees.
Thump, thump, thump.
A gunshot split the air, and a jumble of screams and yelps filled the barn. Smoke poured out of the barrel of Arthur’s grandma’s gun.
“Did you get it?” Arthur whispered.
“I don’t know,” she replied.
A moment later they got their answer.
A rafter was punched out of the ceiling. The loose board tumbled end over end into the barn. A tentacle whipped inside. Before Beacon knew what had happened, the lightbulb shattered, and they were plunged into darkness. Moonlight slanted in where the board had been, and when Beacon’s eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw a Sov clinging wetly to the inside wall of the barn.
“Shoot!” Everleigh yelled.
The squid retreated. Gunshots fired, and Beacon shielded his face as the booming sounds went on and on. Finally, the gunshots stopped. He opened his eyes. For a moment, he thought they’d gotten it. Then a tentacle slithered over the gap in the roof. The squid moved down the wall so quickly that Arthur screamed and leaped out of its way as more gunshots followed its path. The creature vaulted around the room so fast, they could hardly track its movements. It leaped from rafter to rafter, dripping slime over everyone. A tentacle reached out, trying to capture the queen. Everleigh grabbed on to Daisy and pointed her baton at the squid.
Beacon looked up at the roof. Any moment now, the rest of the squids were going to show up, and then they were totally screwed.
But as the chaos continued inside the barn and backup never arrived, a slow realization came over him. Backup wasn’t coming. Which didn’t make sense. Why would a Sov be acting alone to save the queen?
Then it hit him.
This wasn’t just any Sov trying to save Daisy.
“Galen,” he whispered, before he shouted, “Hold your fire!”
Beacon tried to leap in front of the squid, but Everleigh yanked him back by the hood of his jacket.
“Are you nuts?” Everleigh screamed at him.
Taking advantage of Everleigh’s distraction, the Sov whipped out a tentacle. Its slimy appendage coiled around the queen’s waist and pulled her to its body like they were doing some kind of freak salsa dance.
And then the creature was gone, disappearing back through the gap in the roof.
Beacon ran to the door.
“Beacon, come back!” Everleigh shouted. But he didn’t stop.
The forest was covered in a blanket of white. It was easy to see which direction Galen had gone. There was a long, thick squid-print in the fresh snow, leading into the woods.
Beacon put his head down and ran. Snow filled his shoes, but he didn’t care, couldn’t care until he caught up to his friend. Until he explained.
Trees flashed past in a blur of white and brown.
“Galen, come back!” he shouted.
He banked left, running hard. He jumped over fallen branches, slid over patches of fresh ice. He thought he’d slipped again when he felt his feet go out from under him. But then a tentacle wrapped around his chest, and he was pinned against the rough bark of a tree, dangling several feet in the air.
The squid—Galen—drew up on its hind tentacles, towering over him. Its mouth opened, and Beacon saw the row of grotesque yellow fangs dripping with slime. He had no trouble imagining what they would feel like slicing through his skin.
“It isn’t what it looks like,” Beacon said. “We weren’t going to hurt her! Arthur’s grandma is on our side!”
He was just about to say, “She didn’t know you were with us,” when another tentacle wrapped around his neck, cutting his words short. It squeezed, and Beacon coughed, then . . . nothing. He couldn’t make sounds come out, couldn’t breathe, couldn’t get air.
A beady black eye stared unblinkingly into Beacon’s. Beacon clawed desperately at the tentacle, but it was no use. Black spots danced in his eyes, his vision going blurry at the edges.
The mouth opened wider, and the squid let out a powerful roar that blew the hair back from Beacon’s face. He closed his e
yes against the force, waiting for those razor teeth to pierce him.
“Beacon, where are you?” Everleigh shouted nearby. The squid startled.
Just as quickly as it had grabbed him, the tentacle let go. Beacon thumped to the ground with a bone-jarring thud. He felt along his neck, his throat raw and burning. Galen was gone.
“Beacon! Are you okay?” Everleigh ran up, sliding to her knees in the snow in front of him. Arthur and his grandma were there suddenly, shouting questions, while his dad walked calmly behind them.
“Oh my God, what happened?” Everleigh said.
“Why did you go after it?” Arthur said.
“It was . . . ,” Beacon started, then erupted into a coughing fit. He swallowed past the burning in his throat and tried again. “It was Galen.”
“What?” Everleigh said.
“It can’t have been him,” Arthur said. “He’s sleeping.”
“Well, he woke up,” Beacon said grimly.
“Who’s Galen?” Arthur’s grandma said. “Will someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“That squid that kidnapped the queen?” Beacon said. “That was our friend.”
“Your friend?” she said, eyebrows lost in her hairline.
“I know it seems hard to believe,” Beacon said, “but he rescued us from more than one Sov attack, and he helped us find our dad. Except now he thinks we betrayed him.”
“Oh God.” Everleigh shoved her hands into her hair. “Daisy was tied up! We shot at him!”
“But we weren’t going to hurt Daisy,” Arthur said anxiously. “He must know that.”
“He definitely doesn’t know that,” Beacon said. “He made that clear when he almost strangled me. And now we have a big problem.”
“Our most powerful ally hates us now?” Everleigh said. “Yeah, we got that.”
“Worse,” Beacon said. “I think Galen might switch back to the Sov’s side now.”
“What?” Arthur and Everleigh shrieked together.
“Think about it,” Beacon continued. “The only humans he’s probably ever connected with kidnapped his best friend, hog-tied her, and threatened to kill her. He’s probably out for revenge now. I wouldn’t be surprised if he helped the Sov attack us.”
“He wouldn’t do that,” Arthur said. “Would he?” He looked uncertainly at Beacon’s throat, still purple with ligature marks.
“I didn’t think so before, but after he almost killed me just now? Yeah. Definitely possible,” Beacon said.
Everleigh stood up. “We have to find him. Once we explain everything, he’ll understand.”
“I don’t know how we’re going to do that now,” Beacon said. “He can change into any form he wants to evade us. We’re like sitting ducks.”
“But he transformed,” Everleigh said. “He has to sleep now. That gives us time.”
“Unless he uses his EpiPen,” Beacon said, recalling what Galen had said about the shot giving him extra time before he passed out. “Each shot gives him almost half an hour, and I know he brought a load with him from New York for just in case.”
Everleigh muttered under her breath and paced in the snow. “Okay, we just need to think like Galen would. He wants to attack us, but he left the barn. Why leave?”
“Well, it was one of him against a whole bunch of us,” Arthur said. “And we had weapons. Maybe he went for backup?”
“He doesn’t need backup. He’s a squid!” Everleigh said.
“My grandma got a few good shots off at him. She could have easily taken him down,” Arthur said.
Arthur and Everleigh argued with each other, but their words faded away as Beacon thought. The answer came to him suddenly.
“The ships,” he muttered. “There’s a whole fleet of them just sitting right there for the taking.” Beacon pushed himself up. “We need to get to that clearing.”
“If Galen is awake, then that means the rest of the Sov are probably awake, too,” Everleigh said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“It’s a risk we have to take,” Beacon said.
“But what about Dad?” Everleigh said.
“Grams can watch him,” Arthur offered.
“Oh, you don’t think you’re going anywhere without me, do you?” Arthur’s grandma said. “You kids would be Sov soup if it wasn’t for me.”
“Then who’s going to look after him?” Everleigh asked.
They all looked at the twins’ dad then. He stared blankly ahead, as if he were a robot waiting for his next command. Which was kind of exactly what he was at the moment, Beacon realized darkly.
“He’ll come with us,” Beacon said. “After everything we went through to save him, we shouldn’t be splitting up, anyway. We stick together from here on out.”
Everleigh couldn’t argue with that, so she just sighed.
And that’s how, ten minutes later, they found themselves hunkered down at the edge of the forest, looking out into the clearing filled with a whole fleet of alien UFOs.
“Traditionally I think you’re supposed to run away from the people trying to kill you,” Everleigh said. “But I could be wrong.”
“Shhh!” Beacon hissed.
“Any sign of them?” Arthur whispered.
Beacon scanned the fleet. He would have thought the place would be packed with the Sov and their guards, but there wasn’t anyone in sight. The ships hovered over the frosty grass. The clearing hummed with electric energy, like the calm before a storm.
That’s when he saw it: a ship at the back of the clearing. While all of the other ships’ windows were dark, there was one with pale orange light glowing from inside the cabin’s windows. The neon lights of a control panel flickered on, illuminating the lion’s mane of hair bent over it.
“Over there!” Beacon whispered. “Galen’s in that one.”
He started to get up, but Everleigh grabbed his arm.
“Look.” She nodded toward the far right edge of the forest. He didn’t see it at first. Then there was movement in the trees. Beacon ducked, watching as people emerged from the forest’s edge.
Two, four—dozens, no, hundreds of people, and they were all walking toward the ships.
“What in tarnation . . . ,” Arthur’s grandma muttered under her breath, squinting into the dark.
“Are those Sov guards?” Arthur whispered.
But that didn’t seem right. There was something off about the way they were walking, too upright, too stiff, too . . . controlled. Beacon’s chest tightened. He knew that walk, those mannerisms.
Just then, the moonlight in the clearing shifted, and he got a better view of the person closest to him. It took Beacon a moment to recognize him without a cigarette dangling from his lips, but he remembered those ruddy, wrinkled cheeks inside a tow truck the day their car had broken down on their way into Driftwood Harbor.
Mr. Murray.
“It isn’t guards,” Beacon whispered. “It’s the prisoners. The townspeople. Everyone who’s had the shot.”
As he watched, Mr. Murray tripped over a tree root and fell to the ground. It had to have hurt, but he popped back up as if propelled by some otherworldly force. Blood seeped down his chin, but he didn’t even try to wipe it away.
Beacon looked over at his dad, lying down in the snow because he’d been told to do it. He hadn’t sat up to peer over the snowdrifts like the others had when the townspeople arrived. It was as if he were incapable of making decisions now unless someone told him exactly what to do.
“Look, there’s Mrs. Miller!” Everleigh whispered, pointing at a dark-haired woman with a hooked nose and a black skirt suit.
“And there’s Sheriff Nugent,” Arthur said.
“What are those ones doing?” Arthur’s grandma said, pointing. “Looks like they’re carrying something.”
Beacon squinted at two townsp
eople carrying either end of a long, clear tube. When they got closer, Beacon saw bright blue liquid sloshing around inside the tube.
“It’s the acid rain,” Beacon said.
“But they were still testing it!” Everleigh said.
“Initiate the sequence,” Arthur muttered, repeating Victor’s words. “Victor must have accelerated the plans because of our attack.”
The twins and Arthur exchanged a sober look.
“I just don’t get it,” Arthur’s grandma said. “Why would the townspeople be doing this? Don’t they realize what’s happening?”
“They don’t,” Beacon said. “The Sov did something to them. Something worse than before. It’s like they’re drones now—they just do what they’ve been told. And I think they’ve been told to kill everyone.”
“It’s starting,” Arthur whispered.
Beacon gulped hard, pushing down the panic.
“We need to get to Galen,” Beacon said. “We don’t have a hope against the Sov without him and Daisy.”
He stood up.
“What are you doing?” Everleigh tried to grab her brother.
Beacon shook her off and stepped forward, his shoulders pushed back, his pace slow and robotic.
“Are you crazy?” Arthur hissed. “Get down!”
“Young man, get back here this instant!” Arthur’s grandma whisper-shouted.
Beacon ignored them all and walked.
There was a scuffle behind him, and a moment later, Everleigh, Arthur, Arthur’s grandma, and his dad were all walking next to him, copying his mechanical body movements. Arthur’s grandma had ditched her gun, and Beacon couldn’t see Everleigh’s baton anywhere. He really hoped that his plan hadn’t gotten them all in a whole lot more trouble.
“Stop looking around,” Beacon warned Arthur out of the side of his mouth. “Just stare ahead.”
“I’m sorry, but it’s hard not to look,” Arthur whispered back. “My alien subreddit would lose their minds at all this. I mean, look at those ships!”
“Please stop looking at those ships,” Beacon said. “You don’t see anyone else gawking at them, do you?”