When the Sky Fell on Splendor(82)

“Where’s Levi?” I asked as we took off again.

A crash in the woods to our right answered. His silhouette waved an arm over his head as he jogged alongside us. “Let’s go,” Sofía warned.

We followed the flash of speckled white through the brush.

“Where are we going?” I hissed.

The corners of Sofía’s mouth twisted into a grimace. She either didn’t know or wouldn’t say.

I didn’t ask again. Every time I told myself not to think about the pain, it seemed to double, and when I started to stumble, Levi grabbed my elbow and hauled me back up, tugging me along. There were voices behind us. Flashlight beams. The whip of chopper blades picked up at our backs.

Wherever Droog was leading us, it had to be close—she’d started to double back to check on our progress, bounding back out of sight for a minute at a time then circling us, drawing us nearer to the destination, herding us.

Muffled voices called out through the woods as we moved, and to our left, the trees thinned and splashes of shocking light caught on something white and glossy in the distance. It stretched out indefinitely alongside us, and as a breeze rolled through, rustling the woods, the white thing rippled.

“That must be the compound,” Levi whispered, tipping his head toward it.

It was something like a massive white tent, I realized, with hallways tunneling off in different directions, nearly as big as our high school. I stopped short and stared through the dark trees, finally piecing everything together.

Halfway between us and the massive tent, there was a strip of gravel road, lined with semitrucks, blazing white under the glare of the floodlights mounted on tall structures every few yards along the tent, washing the already muted colors from the camouflage-print fatigues of the figures moving around in the street.

A taste like hot metal rushed over my tongue.

Droog had led us right back to Jenkins Lane, to the makeshift compound we’d been trying to escape.

Wind tore through the forest, making the branches whip and snap. Light sliced from the sky, and a deafening fwooop—fwooop—fwooop thrummed all around us.

Levi’s and Sofía’s hair flapped viciously in the wind as all three of us lifted our gazes to the angry sky.

A black helicopter cut across it, suspended by the furious snap of its blades.

The noise amped up as two more appeared, lights scouring the woods and field beyond.

A wave of panic raced through me, hot and electric.

Every light in the field—around and inside the tent, shining down from the helicopters, the trucks’ headlights—surged in response, went blindingly white for an instant then cut out just as fast as the power overcame the wiring.

The world plunged into darkness. The whirring overhead slowed. The wind pattern changed as something massive dropped like a cartoon anvil toward the field. Voices called out in every direction.

“FRANNY!” Levi grabbed my arm, and yelped as a spark jumped between us.

The sound—the sight of him stumbling back—snapped me out of it. The power coursing through me hit a wall, and my fragmented senses clicked back into place seconds before the helicopters would have smashed headlong into the tent and anyone inside of it.

The lights flickered back on. The blades spun to life, and the choppers jerked upward out of their nosedives.

Beside me, Levi was pulling his own hair and gasping to catch his breath like we’d been the ones to very nearly die.

“Oh my God,” I wheezed. “Oh my God, I’m sorry. I almost . . .”

Sofía touched my arm. “But you didn’t.” She nodded toward the blur of white and fur zigzagging ahead of us through the backyard of the Jenkins House. “We have to go.”

My feet finally unfroze, and we went back to running, chasing a border collie through the woods, but the block of ice in my chest didn’t thaw.





TWENTY-NINE



“WHERE ARE WE GOING?” Levi repeated my question as we ran.

“Sof?” I prompted through gritted teeth. The pain in my ankle returned with renewed fervor, competing with the dizziness and nausea that kept bending me over.

Sofía shook her head. “I knew someone was coming for us—I could see them leading the cows, but I figured it’d be Arthur or Nick or something. Now it makes sense why my viewpoint was so low . . .”

“That’s how you knew what was happening?” Levi asked, voice cracking. “You were reading Droog’s mind? Like you read ours?”

“I guess . . . I mean, she must’ve been affected by Molly too. It’s the only—” She jumped out of the way as Droog circled back at top speed, then went on. “The biggest part of the consciousness might be in Franny, but obviously there are bits in all of us, and I guess I can access anyone—or dog—that might be housing some of that.”

“Well, at least we’re getting the mechanics of this down,” Levi said, determined to be optimistic despite the choppers circling overhead.

“So we don’t know what we’re doing, or where we’re going?” I asked.

“I figured she knew what she was doing!” Sofía cried.

“My dog? Sofía! There’s being open-minded, and then there’s—” This time, I jumped out of the way as Droog wound another circle around us. My gaze followed her trail through the trees, but she made a sharp turn before she reached the Jenkins House and bounded toward a copse of trees halfway between us and the decrepit back door, on which block letters sprayed in yellow paint read murderer.