The Edge of Everything (The Edge of Everything #1)(10)

But then she heard Stan hacking at the ice on the lake with the poker, trying to stab his way down to the water. And that’s when she looked.

He was making a hole to drown the dogs in.

There were binoculars on the coffee table. Zoe grabbed them. The night was black and starless. A void. The world had just been … shut off.

Stan was working by the light of his truck’s headlights. He struggled to hold Spock as he chipped deeper and deeper. For a second the dog managed to squirm out of Stan’s arms—but he couldn’t move fast enough on the ice. He slipped and slid desperately until Stan grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and threw him into the hole.

Then Stan pushed Spock’s head under the water with his foot.

When he was sure the dog couldn’t climb out, he loped back to his truck for Uhura.

For the next few moments, he didn’t see what Zoe saw.

He didn’t see the lake begin to glow, gradually at first and then—though it made no sense—brighter and brighter until it looked like the ice covered not water but fire.

And he didn’t see the figure at the farthest edge of the lake moving toward them—moving across the ice, moving calmly, yes, but as fast as a galloping horse.

Zoe was at the window now, with no memory of having stood up and walked toward it. It was the window, she realized later, that made it possible for her to watch all this without thinking she’d lost her mind: not just because the pane of glass separated her from everything happening out there, but because it was like a screen and, if she was going to be honest, she’d watched a lot of crazy stuff on TV.

She walked out of the living room. Out of the house. It was like she was being pulled by a rope.

Stan slammed the door of his truck. He had Uhura locked under his arm—it was her turn for a “bath”—and he’d clamped her mouth shut with one hand. The dog was seething but helpless.

Zoe had the binoculars trained on Stan when he turned back toward the lake and saw it blazing in the darkness—and when he first noticed the figure shooting toward him, covering hundreds of feet in an instant.

Stan was terrified.

But, almost immediately, his face turned cocky and hateful again, as if he believed stupidity could protect him from anything.

“Now what in the hell is all this shit?” he said.

Stan had hardly gotten the last word out before the figure was on him. He dropped Uhura so he could defend himself. The dog ran to Zoe, who was standing off in the darkness, and leaped into her arms.

Stan tried to look tough and raised his fists. Instead, he just looked ridiculous. He hopped around the stranger like an old-timey boxer.

The stranger was X, though Zoe wouldn’t call him that for days.

X was so pale that his face seemed to give off a light all its own. From a distance, she couldn’t even guess at his age, though she could see he had beautiful long hair that was actually messy and uncared for, not just styled to look that way. He was wearing a long coat—deep blue, with an iridescent shimmer like a soap bubble. He didn’t have a hat or gloves or a scarf, but the cold seemed not to touch him anyway. His face had a thin sheen of sweat, as if he were feverish.

X didn’t say a word. He took Stan by the coat and hurled him onto the glowing ice. He didn’t do it in anger. He didn’t do it like an action hero. He just did it like it had to be done.

He never once looked at Zoe, but she could tell that he knew she was there.

Stan skidded across the frozen lake, toward the hole he had made. He came to a stop, one side of his face clawed red by the ice.

In a flash, X stood over him.

Stan looked up, trying to understand what was happening—and how he’d lost control of the situation.

“I don’t know what you want, superfreak,” he said, “but whatever it is, you ain’t gettin’ it. This is my party.”

X still didn’t speak. It was clear to Zoe that he wasn’t going to bother until somebody said something worth responding to.

X walked toward the hole and pulled out Spock. The dog was wet and shivering, like he’d just been born, but he warmed instantly in X’s arms. Then Spock did something he’d only ever done to Jonah and her: he licked X’s cheek. X patted his head tentatively, as if he wasn’t sure how. It was a tiny gesture but because of all the pain and weirdness of the last few hours, it made Zoe’s eyes fill with tears.

She dropped the binoculars into the snow and went closer. Somehow, she wasn’t afraid. She wanted X to see her. Who was he? Why was he here? Why wouldn’t he look at her?

While X was comforting Spock, Stan tried to stand.

X merely shook his head no, and Stan’s feet went out from under him. He fell back onto the ice.

X removed his coat. Beneath it, he wore a rough short-sleeved shirt, though (to be honest) all Zoe saw were his arms. They were ropy with muscles and covered with primitive tattoos of, among other things, animals she didn’t recognize.

He wrapped Spock in his coat and set him down gently. The coat shimmered in the darkness, like a dying fire.

He turned to Stan, who was still clinging absurdly to the idea that he could talk his way out of this.

“Okay, superfreak,” Stan said. “Tell me what you want and maybe you can have it. I’m a reasonably reasonable person.”



What happened next was like a ritual from some secret society in the woods or from the Middle Ages, maybe—a trial where everybody knows ahead of time that the verdict will be “guilty.”