“I know,” John told her.
“At the gas station, I was going to make those men hurt each other,” Allie added. “I could have done that, too.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I almost did.”
“Yes.”
“But I don’t want to hurt people,” Allie went on. “So, how can I make this stop? I mean, if I couldn’t do any of these things-if I didn’t have these powers-then people would leave me alone, wouldn’t they?”
“I don’t know, Allie,” John confessed. “I don’t know much about people.”
“Is there anything I can do?”
“No, nothing.”
“Will the others come for you?”
“It’s not important,” John said. He looked at her gravely. “Allie, things are going to get hard for you for a while. You’ll be afraid, and you’ll be alone. You’re becoming even more than you already are.”
“I’m not coming with you,” Allie said determinedly. “I belong here, with my family.”
John reached into his pocket. “I brought this for you,” he said, opening his hand. The star earring glowed silently in John’s palm. “It was your great-grandmother’s. She gave it to me when I left. I can’t… do this much longer.”
Allie took the earring from his hand. “I know,” she said.
Lisa searched the road ahead, her eyes now focused on the small, roadside gas station that shone out of the night. She pulled into the station, reached for Allie’s hand and led her to the bathroom as a second car came to a halt in the gravelly drive.
Inside the bathroom Lisa said, “Give me the earring.”
Allie stretched out her hand. The earring rested on her open palm.
Lisa plucked it from Allie’s hand. “I’ll never let you go, honey,” she said. She knelt down, her face very close to Allie’s. “Listen,” she said, “my dad used to tell me that kids shouldn’t ever have to think about anything more complicated than baseball.” She smiled softly at her daughter, and ran her fingers through her long hair. “You’ll be a little girl again, I promise.” She placed the earring John had given her on her necklace, the two now hanging side by side. “There. Together again.”
Allie smiled.
“I’ll never let you go, honey,” Lisa said with a sudden, furious determination, feeling more strongly than she ever had, the deepest of all human bonds. “Never.”
The door of the bathroom shot open and Lisa turned to see Mary Crawford facing her, gun in hand.
“That looks lovely,” Mary said sarcastically. She stepped forward and pressed the pistol into the small of Lisa’s back. “I’m holding a gun on your mother,” she said to Allie. “I’m betting that, even if you wanted to do something, I could get a shot into her before you turned the gas station into a flying saucer, or a House of Pies or something.”
Lisa looked at Allie. “Don’t try to do anything, you understand,” she said desperately.
Mary smiled. “Be a good girl,” she said to Allie. “Be a good girl and listen to your mom.”
Allie looked at Mary angrily.
“Allie, when you were in that farmhouse, you saw something that scared you,” Mary said. “I think you know what they want you to do and I don’t think you want to do it.”
Allie glanced at Lisa, then back at Mary.
“I don’t want to hurt anybody.” Mary said. “I really don’t.” Her voice softened into a plea. “You’re out of options. You must have figured that out for yourself by now. I have the resources and the technology to help you. You really don’t have any other choice. It’s them or me. Don’t you see, I just want to help you.”
“You’re lying,” Lisa said icily. “You can’t help anyone.”
Mary looked as if Lisa had spit in her face. The pistol barrel jerked toward the door. “Let’s go.”
Tom was at the gas pump, removing the nozzle from the tank when they came out of the bathroom, Lisa in front, Mary behind, pressing the pistol at Lisa’s back.
Charlie watched them from the kiosk, then turned toward the car that had pulled into the station driveway minutes before. A single man sat behind the wheel, his head turned slightly, watching Lisa and Mary and Allie as they continued forward.
Wakeman! Charlie thought, then stepped out from behind the kiosk. He saw that Wakeman had suddenly noticed him, and that he was now moving frantically behind the wheel.
Instantly, the car’s engine fired, and the car lurched forward, throwing arcs of gravel behind the spinning wheels as it made a screeching turn and hurtled toward Mary and the others.
Mary yanked open the car’s back door, pushed Lisa and Allie into the backseat, then leaped in behind them.
Lisa glanced out the back window of the car as it spun away. Charlie was still running after them desperately as Tom raced to his car and leaped in behind the wheel. She turned back, and saw it, the terrible change in Allie’s face. “No,” she whispered, “no, Allie.”
But it was too late.
The explosions came one after the other, four of them as each of the tires on Wakeman’s car blasted away, so that the car ground to a halt.
Charlie was there in an instant. He jerked open the door and pulled Mary out onto the road, the pistol falling from her hand and clattering across the roadway.
“Allie, don’t do anything else,” Lisa cried as Tom pulled up.
“I didn’t,” Allie said urgently. “I didn’t do anything.”
Lisa’s eyes swept from her daughter to the backseat of Tom’s car, where John sat motiorilessly, pale and ghostly, as if the last of his human reserves had now been spent.
“That was a little too close,” Tom said as Charlie, Lisa, and Allie all rushed into the car.
He stomped the accelerator and the car sped away. “How did they find us?” he asked after a moment.
Charlie looked at Allie in the rearview mirror. “Honey, I want to ask you something.”
“Sure,” Allie said.
“Those people from the government, when you went with them from Dr. Penzler’s, they put something over your head.”
“Right,” Allie said. “I heard them say it was to block a signal I have in my head.”
Charlie looked at Tom. “Lisa would have it too,” he said.
Tom nodded.
“If the people who took Allie know enough to block that signal, then they know how to read it. To track it.”
“That’s how they found us,” Lisa said.
Charlie shook his head. “Not much point in getting fake papers and going to Buenos Aires, is there? No matter where we go, they’d find us.” He faced John squarely. “You can turn her off, can’t you?” he asked.
John said nothing.
“You can do something so they won’t be able to read her signal… or mine…” Lisa said. “If you can do it, then do it. You owe us that much.”
John shook his head. “No, I’m too weak. But Allie can.”
He looked at Allie. “Find it inside you,” he said.
Allie closed her eyes.
“Do you feel it?” John asked.
Allie’s eyes remained closed for a moment, then they opened suddenly.
John peered into them. “She won’t register now,” he said. He touched her face softly. “You’re on your own, Allie.”
She nodded, and stretched her hand to his, but by the time she touched it, the hand had faded, simply guttered out like a candle, five fingers now only four, each with a double joint. She drew her gaze up his body, human skin now vanished, all human features resolved into a smooth, metallic gray.
Chapter Two
The interior of the motel was dingy, but Mary gave no notice of it. She was busy at her laptop. “They’re not registering, Chet,” she said.
Wakeman lay on the bed, his hand behind his head, feet stretched out before him. “I know,” he said.
Mary looked at him, astonished. “You know?”
“Shut off. No signal.”
“And you didn’t bother to tell me?”
“I was getting there.”
“How about their friend in the backseat?” Mary asked.