The Flight of the Silvers (Silvers #1)(93)

“Oh thank God. I don’t know how much longer it’ll stay open.”

“I’m here. I have it.”

Hannah shielded the portal from all prying eyes while Mia tore a pen from its packaging. She ripped a careful swatch from the back of her journal and then double-checked the archive of her original message. She didn’t know why she bothered. The words had been laser-burned onto her psyche.

They hit you all at sunrise. Sleep with your shoes on. Get ready to run.

During the eighty-two long seconds of Hannah’s absence, Mia had considered all the things she wished she could write in place of that vague warning. With the right words, she could have ensured that the building was evacuated hours in advance. Nobody would have died.

Conversely, she pictured what would happen if the portal closed without any warning sent at all—a revised chain of events in which Rebel and his people killed everyone in their sleep. It was too terrible to think about. It was worse to think that it could still occur retroactively, just because Mia didn’t have the right pen.

Mia rolled up the note and deposited it into the breach. As the portal vanished silently into the ether, she wrapped Hannah in a delirious hug of relief.

“Oh God. Thank you so much. I’m sorry I made you go running like that. And I’m sorry if I was ever cold or mean to you. It’s just stupid jealousy. You’re so pretty and you have this amazing body. But I know you’re a good person too. And I promise from now on . . .”

She suddenly realized that Hannah wasn’t returning the embrace. Mia pulled back to find her white-faced with horror, stammering as if Mia had stabbed her.

“You knew.”

“What?”

“Your note. I saw it. You knew we were going to be attacked today and you didn’t say anything.”

Mia tensely shook her head. “No. Hannah. I didn’t know. I mean not for sure.”

“‘They hit you all at sunrise’? ‘Get ready to run’? What did you think it meant?”

“You don’t understand. I’ve gotten bad notes before. Conflicting notes. I wasn’t sure what was happening and I didn’t want to worry people without—”

“You didn’t want to worry people?”

In hindsight, it sounded pretty bad to Mia too. “Hannah, I’m so sorry.”

The actress didn’t care about Mia’s remorse. She didn’t care how this whole scene looked to the bystanders who were watching. Her mind was trapped six hours in the past, lost in battle with the Motorcycle Man.

“I went out jogging at sunrise,” she cried to Mia. “Do you think I would have done that if . . . do you know how close I came to dying?”

“I’m sorry!”

“Sorry doesn’t fix it, Mia! People died! Czerny died! Erin got cut in half, all because you didn’t want to worry people!”

The tears flowed wildly on both of them now. Hannah held up a trembling hand.

“I can’t even look at you.”

She retreated down the aisle, crashing into a fellow shopper as she brusquely turned the corner. Both their handcarts fell to the floor.

“Oh God. I’m so sorry.”

“My fault,” the man assured her.

He wasn’t wrong. It took five rewinds for Evan Rander to stand in just the right place for a spilling collision. Now he shined a cordial grin as he stooped to gather Hannah’s belongings.

“Oh, you don’t have to—”

“No, no, no. I insist. What kind of gentleman would I be?”

Even in a better state of mind, Hannah wouldn’t have recognized him from their first encounter. Evan had swapped his ostentatious cowboy getup for a simple gray business suit. His hair had been respectfully parted to one side, and he wore soulful blue contact lenses behind rimless glasses. He was the humble good Samaritan now. He was Clark Kent.

Soon he presented Hannah with a refilled handcart. She sniffed and wiped her nose. “Thank you.”

“No worries. I sense you’re not having the best of days.”

“Yeah. That’s putting it mildly.”

“I saw you arguing with your sister back there. Listen, I have siblings myself. These things always blow over.”

Hannah rubbed her eyes. “She’s not my sister.”

“Oh.”

“Look, I’m sorry. I really need to go.”

“Of course. Of course. I understand. You take it easy now, all right?”

There was very little for Hannah to find creepy or suspicious about this incarnation of Evan. And yet as she made her brisk journey to the restroom, a dark voice in her head urged her to not look back. She couldn’t shake the feeling that the man was still standing at the scene of their accident. Still watching her. Still smiling.

—

David studied the map on the picnic table. The nearest cradle of civilization was ten miles to the north. Their abandoned van lay a scant eight miles to the southwest. It wouldn’t be long before the police search made its way to Ramona, if it hadn’t happened already.

“We can’t do ten more miles today,” Amanda insisted. “We can’t even do two miles. Look at us, David.”

Over the boy’s grumbling objections, the Silvers bought two rooms in a cheap motel off the main drag. The accommodations were pitiful compared to their suites in Terra Vista, but each room had two beds and each bed was soft. By three o’clock, they were all out cold.