When the Sky Fell on Splendor(40)

Levi stood at the steps, his glassy eyes fixed on the door.

If he heard me crashing through the bramble, he didn’t show it. I stepped between him and the door, waving a hand in his face. “Levi? Levi! Are you okay?”

He stared right over my head.

“We have to go.” I pushed against his shoulders, but he didn’t budge.

“Molly,” he mumbled.

Molly? I didn’t know any Molly.

I shook my head. “Franny.”

Levi pushed past me and took the first step toward the front door.

“Levi!” I hissed, grabbing his elbow.

“Molly,” he said roughly, and took the next step in a slow, belabored way, like he was moving through maple syrup.

“Save ’em . . .” he grumbled. “Nottalottatime.”

My skin went cold. The hair follicles prickled on my thighs and arms.

“You’re dreaming,” I said. “It’s a dream, Levi . . .”

“Mol-ly,” Levi mumbled. “It’s Mol-ly. Save ’em. I told youhaveto save ’em.”

Goose bumps crept over the backs of my arms. “Levi, come on!” I tugged on his elbow. He shoved me backward so hard I sprawled out at the base of the steps, a metallic taste flooding my mouth. A yelp tore out of me, loud enough that some of the birds startled.

My pulse sped, my chest tightened, and a cold sweat sprung up on my neck. A hum picked up under my skin, and the lights in the windows began to flicker. A radio burst to life inside the house, the classical music blaring out through the woods, like a call to arms. The rest of the birds exploded like a mushroom cloud from the roof, squawking angrily.

Shit. Now we really had to go.

I grabbed the first stick I could find on the ground and hurled it at Levi’s back. “Wake up!”

He whirled around to face me, mouth open and eyes wide and blinking.

“Franny?”

“Thank God!” I gasped. “You’re awake.”

The flashing stopped, the music stopped, and in the newfound silence, another sound had picked up behind the house.

Footsteps trudging through fallen leaves, breaking up the silence like a sledgehammer against concrete. The quick gait of someone climbing up from the bottom of the valley that curved around the back of the house, coming to see what the commotion was.

Wayne Hastings was going to find us here, at his front door.

Worse, he was going to think we’d been in his house, flashing his lights, messing with his stereo.

“We have to hide,” I said, barely louder than a breath. I clambered to my feet and snatched Levi’s hand, nearly pulling him off balance as I darted for the cover of the bush snarled in wild grape and Virginia creeper. We dropped into a crouch behind it, and the bear trap of anxiety around my heart loosened: Wayne Hastings was cresting the ridge, ambling toward his house, but we were out of sight. We were safe. Probably.

And then I saw them, running through the dark, right into the clearing where Wayne was headed.

“What’s going on?” Levi whispered.

I officially had no idea.

Arthur, Nick, and Sofía were sprinting through the woods, still dressed in pajamas, just as a massive silhouette was moving toward the clearing from the other side, a gun propped against his shoulder.

They stopped short in the shadows when they spotted him, tried to hide behind a thicket of honeysuckle, but it was too late.

Wayne Hastings’s rattling voice lashed through the night like a whip.

“What are you doing on my property?”

I’d never heard his voice before. A knot twisted through my throat at the sound of it, and a buzz rose in my skull, as if trying to block it out.

“Whoever’s there,” he growled, “you’re trespassing.” He took a step toward them, and the buzz spread through my bloodstream like a million angry wasps. “And I have the right to protect my property.”

He dropped his rifle into position, the buzz swelling until I was no longer sure it was inside me, that the electric hum was just within my skull.

The gun faltered, jerked toward the house as the music exploded out of it again, the yellow-gold wash of the windows flaring, intensifying to blinding white so fast the world seemed to disappear before my eyes.

So fast it was like a star had crashed in front of us, cracked like an egg, its runny light gushing out over everything.

The trees, the man, the gun, the house, the others’ faces—everything washed out for a millisecond, all sound lost beneath the orchestral blare.

And then the bulbs on the porch sparked, popped, shattered. Every light in the house flashed in a brief and brilliant explosion, and silence and darkness surged up like jaws to swallow us.

“We have to go!” I grabbed for Levi’s hand and took off in a random direction, pulling him along with me through the disorienting dark.

I heard the others more than saw them, barreling through the woods in the same dizzy fervor as Levi and I. My vision adjusted in time to spot the creek ahead, and I snapped out a warning to them as Levi and I leapt across.

Legs pumping, throat burning, I sprinted up the far side.

The man was yelling after us, but his words unraveled beneath the thunkthunkthunk of my heart. I released my grip on Levi as he overtook me. Sofía ran past next, followed by Nick. Arthur came even with me next and slapped a hand on my back as he passed, spurring me on.