The Rains (Untitled #1)(18)
We took another step back, but we were out of room, our heels at the lip of the roof. Wolfgram kicked Cassius, and he yelped, skidding into my shins, almost knocking me over the edge. He popped up onto his legs again, snarling.
The teachers were on the roof now, coming at us.
I spun, looking out across the town square. Every last Host below had halted, each one’s focus drawn to the commotion. Countless hollow stares fixed on the skirmish atop the general store. It is difficult to describe the terror I felt standing there exposed on the rooftop before the whole town, burning under the heat of all those empty gazes.
We turned back toward the advancing teachers. They lurched forward, tangling with the dogs. Zeus’s jaws locked on Principal Delarusso’s leg. He sawed his weight back and forth, head shaking, teeth shearing. Atticus and Tanner had gotten ahold of the school librarian, ripping his pajama bottoms right off. Patrick pumped the shotgun and raised it, but there was no point. There were too many of them. And any shotgun blast would kill at least some of our ridgies, too.
“Guys,” Alex said. “We don’t run for it now, we’re gonna find ourselves crated up and carted off.”
She dropped to her butt, then swung herself off the edge of the roof, falling to the sidewalk. She landed hard, yanked down by the heavy bag around her shoulders. The hockey stick clattered to the pavement.
A jangle of bells announced the opening of the door beneath our feet. Don Weiss stepped out from the general store onto the sidewalk behind Alex. He was still wearing his shop apron. As she started pulling herself up, he reached for her.
Patrick shouted down, “Alex! Behind you!”
Alex snatched up her hockey stick, pivoted, and swung it hard up into Don’s face. The head of the stick caught him just beneath the jaw. Even from up above, we could hear the crack of bone before his head snapped around and he went airborne.
Weiss crashed to the sidewalk and lay there, his limbs twitching, his jaw unhinged.
Alex spun the hockey stick in her hands, then slotted it through her gear bag over one shoulder, like a samurai sheathing his sword. She held up her arms. “Drop JoJo to me.”
I took in the melee between dogs and teachers, the front line drawing ever closer. Patrick struck Principal Delarusso in the face with the butt of the shotgun. Rocky weaved back and forth as Mrs. Wolfgram tried to grab him. We were down to seconds.
Letting the baling hooks clatter to the rooftop, I went down on my knees, took JoJo’s sweaty hands, and lowered her over the edge. She dangled, her tearstained face looking up at me. “Don’t drop me,” she said.
I dropped her.
Mrs. Wolfgram had Rocky by the dark locks of his hair. I wrenched him free, kicking her in the gut with all my might. She flew back, and I grabbed Rocky’s arm and yanked him off the edge. I held his hand as he twisted to and fro in the air, until he shouted, “I got it!” and I let go.
He landed on his feet.
Patrick was waist-deep in the fight. Swinging, elbowing, and jabbing with the shotgun butt. “Patrick!” I yelled. “Let’s go!”
Coach broke through Princess and Tanner and dove, hitting me with a football tackle. She knocked me toward the edge. I skidded painfully across the gravel. There was no time to stop—I was going over.
At the last minute, one of my flailing hands caught the handle of a baling hook. As I flew off the building, the hook scrabbled along the rooftop, then caught in the gutter. Hanging on with one hand, I swung way out from the roof, the hook bending the gutter but somehow miraculously holding. Below I caught a whirling view of Don Weiss rising up from the pavement and beelining for Alex and JoJo. His twitching head was angled wrong on his neck.
I lunged for the other hook still up on the roof. It was too far to reach, but my fingers snagged the nylon loop attached to the handle. Spinning wildly, I managed to drag the second hook with me, and it flew by my face, nicking my cheek just as the gutter gave way under my weight. My momentum carried me beneath the overhang, and I fell back, cartwheeling my arms. My heels jarred the sidewalk, and then my shoulder blades and tailbone hammered the ground. I lay there looking up, waiting for the wall of pain to hit.
Before it could, I saw my brother take flight, an apparition streaking overhead, graceful as a big cat. He broke his fall with his feet, tumbled over one shoulder, and came up in a shooting position, blasting a shell through Don Weiss’s face as he closed in on Alex. Patrick’s cowboy hat never even shifted on his head.
Forcing myself up, I gave a whistle through my fingers. A moment later Cassius scrambled around the hillside by the edge of the store, tumbling over himself, skidding out across loose dirt. He took up at my side. I yelled for the other dogs, but they didn’t come. Far up on the hill, I caught streaks of low movement between the tree trunks, the other ridgebacks scattering. They were disoriented and couldn’t find us. Between the severe shadows thrown by the streetlights, I could make out Zeus’s loping run into the forest. I shouted again, but they kept on, the others following him until they vanished. Though I was relieved they were safe, I felt something in my chest give way. I wanted all my dogs with me. Blood dripped from my cheek, hot and sticky.
Beside me I heard Alex clear her throat, a faint noise that sounded a lot like fear. When I turned in line with her and the others, I found myself staring at countless eyeless faces all across the square. The Hosts ramped into motion, heading toward us from every direction.