7
“They’re here to help us,” she said soothingly as she held the little cat tight. “It’s okay. Everything is going to be okay. Dad needs help.”
But as the one drone finished tying up her father, the others moved into position, one by one, forming grim ranks that all faced Glenn. They crowded closer around her — in seconds, she would be surrounded. Hopkins howled and Glenn went cold as she realized what was happening. The drones moved forward as one, bearing down.
They wanted her too.
Glenn tensed, waiting for the hiss of a stinger, but before it could come, her father’s workshop exploded.
Glenn hit the ground hard, thrown back by a wave of heat and pressure. She heard someone yelling her name, but with the way her head was buzzing the voice seemed slow and distorted. Hopkins yowled and shot out of her arms.
The air was full of popping sounds, like a string of firecrackers.
Hands grasped her shoulders, but she wrenched away from them, mesmerized by the tiny impact craters that were opening up the ground all around her, kicking up a haze of snow and dirt.
“Get up, Glenn! They’re shooting at us!”
Kevin yanked Glenn to her feet and pulled her backward. As she staggered away, she was shocked to see the orange flashes coming from the drones. Not stingers, but bullets. Real bullets.
Reality came crashing down and Glenn turned and fled into the woods with Kevin staying just ahead of her. They both ran flat out. At some point Glenn was aware of passing the border’s warning lights but she just kept on going, lurching over obstacles in their path until her lungs ached and a vicious cramp put a stitch in her side. Finally exhausted, the two of them dropped down behind a thick screen of trees, panting.
Glenn dared to raise her head to look back the way they had come. Nothing but trees. The firing had stopped.
“We must have run a mile or more,” Kevin said, shivering as he looked around. “We crossed the border.”
The warning lights were only a faint glow behind them. Ahead was dense forest stretching as far as she could see. Even with a nearly full moon, the space between the trees was a deep black.
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Glenn said.
“Why were they shooting at us in the first place?”
The red jewel at the center of the bracelet glowed like a cat’s eye.
Was it possible? Had he really discovered something? Something Authority was willing to kill for? Glenn felt sick as she saw him on his knees in the snow, looking up at her before he collapsed.
“We have to talk to your father,” she said.
“What? He’s the one who got us into this in the first place!”
“It’s a misunderstanding. If we explain it to him rationally maybe he can get my dad freed.”
“And how are we going to do that when thirty Authority drones want us dead?”
“They stopped chasing us,” Glenn said.
“But — ”
“What choice do we have? Unless you picked up some camping
skills while I wasn’t looking we’re going to have to go back at some point. And your father is government, Kevin. There’s no way Authority is going to shoot us on his doorstep. Your house is probably the safest place we could be.”
Before Kevin could say anything else Glenn looked up and
sighted Polaris.
“That way’s north,” she said. “Come on.”
Kevin started to protest but Glenn was on the move and he had no choice but to follow. As they made their way through the darkness, Glenn looked for some sign of Hopkins. Her heart ached at the thought of him putting himself between her and the drones, only to be lost in the cold without her to protect him. No, she told herself, he’s smart.
He’ll slip past the drones and get back inside the house. He’ll be there waiting for me when all of this is over.
The land sloped upward, a slippery mess of old snow and fallen tree limbs. Glenn was more used to asphalt and concrete but she carefully picked out a narrow path and eased her way up. She felt every rock and branch through the soles of her thin slippers. Beside her, Kevin had his arms wrapped around his chest and was shaking as they walked.
“Seriously, Kevin. There’s nothing to be afraid of. They’re just woods. No werepeople.”
“I’m not afraid,” he said, his voice wavering. “I’m cold.”
“So dial up the thermals in your clothes.”
“Not working,” he said. “Must have busted something when your dad’s workshop went up and I came to get you.”
Kevin pulled his thin jacket tight over his chest. Other than that, he was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans. The temperature had to be below zero, easy. If his thermals weren’t working, he must have been freezing.
“You didn’t have to do it,” Glenn said. “You could have just gone home.”
“Gee, Morgan,” he said, “you’re welcome.”
“I didn’t mean — ”
“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on?” Kevin asked. “I would have told you that you couldn’t trust my dad. He’s a doctor, sure, but he’s government first. I mean, we’re friends. Aren’t we?”
There was a noise off to her left. Crunching leaves. Glenn
stopped.
“Wow. Thanks for the lingering pause there, Morgan. It’s a real vote of confi-”
“Shhh.”
Kevin stopped where he was. Half a second later another set of footsteps came to a halt. Glenn looked out ahead but saw nothing.
“What was that?” Kevin asked.
Glenn turned back just as an enormous shadow glided behind
Kevin. It moved from one tree to another and disappeared.
“What? Did you see something?”
Glenn swallowed hard.
“No,” she said, wrestling with the stammer in her voice.
“Nothing. Just … my imagination.” She took his arm, looking over her shoulder as she urged them forward. “Come on, this way’s east. It’ll take us right to your place.”
Glenn told herself that what she had seen was a trick of the moonlight. Some hapless forest animal blundering through the woods just like they were, its shadow almost certainly making it seem bigger than it actually was. She remembered her own words to Kevin the day before. The mind’s tendency to find patterns where there were none.
Glenn was as susceptible as anyone else.
They passed under the red lights at the border and soon the forest broke. There was no sign of the drones. Kevin’s house was a little farther on, just over the rise of a tree-covered hill. Glenn and Kevin climbed it side by side, digging their feet into the snow and grasping tree branches to steady themselves.
Once they crested the hill, Kevin’s house loomed in front of them.
It was huge, more a mansion than a house: three stories with an expansive yard, the kind of estate that was only available close to the border where few people wanted to live. Most of the lights were on, filling the windows with a warm glow that spread out across the yard and the heavily manicured trees that flanked the front door. No sign of drones or agents or skiffs. It should have seemed absolutely normal, but Glenn felt a sinking in her stomach. It was eerily quiet.
“What?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Something’s … I don’t know. I’m just being paranoid. Right?”
Kevin looked down at the grim face of the house and swallowed.
“Yeah. Definitely. Paranoid.”
Glenn took a step forward but Kevin grabbed her wrist at the last second.
“But maybe we go around the back,” he said. “Just in case.”
They slipped into the house through a back door. Unfortunately, it felt the same inside as out, like the tense seconds before a bomb went off.
“Where is everybody?” Glenn whispered.
Kevin shrugged. “Mom should have been back by now.”
They froze as somewhere in the house a door opened and closed.