The Rising(107)

He retracted the whip and walked straight toward the man who could only be Langston Marsh, as Sam rushed to her parents, the three of them clutching each other in a tight ball.

“Leave,” Alex told Marsh.

But Marsh stiffened instead of moving. “This isn’t over. Not even close. You’ll regret not killing me when you had the chance, when I exterminate the rest of your kind, Alex.”

“Call me Kit,” Alex said to him, again using the name of Anne Frank’s imaginary friend to whom her diary was written. “And you know who you remind me of?” And when Marsh remained silent, Alex snapped his free hand into the air. “Heil, Hitler!”

Marsh snarled, starting to back away now. “You, your kind, killed my father. And someday you’ll all pay, each and every one of you.”

Alex made sure Marsh could see him raise Raiff’s stick again. “Remember how you said I’d regret not killing you?”

Marsh moved faster and lumbered down a rope ladder leading into a Zodiac raft. Alex heard him fire up the engine and watched the raft speed out into the bay, where it disappeared into the darkness. Sam was back by his side by then. She pressed up against him, holding him tight.

“You can ace history now. I really mean that.”

Alex held his gaze on the bay, so she wouldn’t be able to see the sadness in his eyes. “Guess we’ll never know, Sam.”





EPILOGUE

THE ROAD AHEAD

The future is no more uncertain than the present.





—WALT WHITMAN


SAM KNEW SHE HAD to go home with her parents, just as she knew she couldn’t explain all that had happened to them. Impossible. When they pushed, she kept her answers just vague enough and never said a word about Alex’s true origins.

Alex …

She hadn’t heard from him since he’d taken the first-aid kit back to Raiff to tend to Dr. Donati. Donati had tried to reach her several times, but she kept putting off returning his calls.

When she awoke Monday morning in her own bed, her first brief thought was that maybe it had all been a dream. When that quickly passed, she moved to the window and was relieved to find no police car parked across the street or cruising slowly by. But she knew any ring of the bell could mean the drone things dressed as cops had returned to her door, and she felt anxious and uneasy over the fact that they knew where she lived, who she was.

Only then did she realize she was late for school, very late, so late that she’d missed her AP bio exam and could only imagine how Cara would react to her failing to produce the answers she and the rest of the CatPack needed. Maybe she’d just tell her the truth.

Yeah, we spent the weekend being chased by aliens. We saved the world, at least for the time being. Oh, and by the way, Alex thinks you’re a bitch too.

That had been hours ago and the rest of the day had passed in slow motion, nothing happening at all, until dusk bled the light from the sky.

Sam stared at the throwaway phone, willing it to ring, with Alex on the other end. The old-fashioned flip had been behaving very strangely ever since exposed to whatever had laid waste to every bit of Alcatraz prison itself, black hole or something else, leaving behind nothing other than an empty patch of ground with the color and life bleached out of it. She stared at it, wondering if she’d ever hear from Alex again. Had he gone off with Raiff? Was he going to disappear, living off the grid and everyone’s radar for years to come?

Too many questions. Sam spared any further ones when her phone rang.

*

Alex walked along the shoulder of the 101 freeway heading south, nothing but the contents of his backpack weighing him down, hoping to snare a ride before dark. It wasn’t safe for him to stay in an area where he was so recognizable, and Raiff knew as well as he did that what had happened last night changed little, if anything.

Langston Marsh was still out there, more of the drone things were still out there, and neither was about to give up the hunt for him. There was the chip in his head to consider as well, still slowly killing him even if it did somehow contain the secrets to winning this war in the long term and not just the short. Raiff was working on finding the best solution to save Alex from the leakage while coming up with a way to make sure the chip remained intact so the secrets it held could be revealed.

He missed Sam, missed his parents, did his best not to think about either since it hurt too much, leaving him near tears and unable to focus on anything else.

Like staying alive.

Raiff had given him an address in Los Angeles and nothing more, becoming very cryptic when Alex pressed him on that.

“You’ll understand when you get there,” was all he’d said.

So Alex trudged on, walking backward as he hitchhiked down the shoulder of the 101. He only wished he could do the same with his life, walk backward until his parents were alive again and he was in a position to change everything. But the ash man had said An and Li Chin weren’t dead, and what did that mean, exactly, for where the road ahead might take him?

As he began to ponder that question, an old battered white van pulled to a stop ahead of him on the shoulder. Alex jogged up to the passenger door and watched it pushed open by the driver’s hand.

“Where you headed, friend?” asked the man Alex recognized as the same guy who’d picked Sam and him up yesterday. “The Reverend William Grimes at your service. Call me Reverend Billy. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”