When the Sky Fell on Splendor(92)

“And the tornado is certainly a complication!” Levi added just as a spruce branch struck the metal guardrail on our left.

“Your scars.” I reached for the hem of Remy’s shirt. “Are they gone?”

He peeled the fabric off his stomach

Relief gushed through me as I let out a breath. “Gone,” I told Nick and Arthur, who were craning their necks to see even as Nick was maneuvering the semi over the bridge.

“I don’t understand—how did they just go away?”

“They’re linked to the energy,” Sofía explained. “Physical markers. As for how we know: long story.”

“That guy you and Franny were secretly e-mailing turned out to be a murderous psychopath who tried to kidnap Fran and in so doing revealed some more information about how this alien parasite operates,” Levi said. “So not that long a story.”

Remy’s gaze wrenched toward mine, and his dimple appeared along with an angry twist to his mouth. “Bill tried to kidnap you?”

Nick punched the brakes and turned the wheel sharply, spinning us onto Old Crow Station, and I stifled a scream as the back of the trailer slammed into something we hadn’t managed to clear, then scraped along it.

Remy was still waiting for an answer, brow dented.

“I’m fine,” I promised. “Sofía saved me.”

He grabbed for my hand and squeezed it, as he studied me for a few seconds, and then he let go. He caught the sides of my face in his hands and kissed me. It was warm and rough and short and right in front of everyone, which made it embarrassing and wonderful and weird and completely normal. It was perfect, even if it didn’t last very long, and even if it never happened again.

“What in the Sam Hill?” Nick cried from the driver seat. My cheeks were on fire, but Remy looked totally unembarrassed and calm and Remyish.

“Obviously,” Sofía said. “What good do those huge eyes even do you, Nick?”

“About time!” Levi held up both his palms to us. “Up top, Fremy.”

“Please, no,” I said.

“What, do you prefer ‘Renny’?”

“Absolutely not,” Remy said.

Arthur had been watching the whole display. “Weird,” he said, brow furrowed, then turned back in his seat, disinterested by the whole thing.

Sofía cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m officially out of power. What about you, Levi? Have you checked your scars since last night?”

He twisted on the cot so she could pull his shirt collar down his back. “Gone,” she confirmed.

“That just leaves Arthur and me.” Nick steered us onto the access road that ran to Wayne’s cabin in the woods.

It was almost morning now, but the sky had gone darker than it was an hour ago as the funnel cloud in the distance behind us pulled everything into it.

As we drove past our house, the shed door blew open and smacked the side of the building. Shingles were ripping loose from our roof, and grocery bags and plastic bottles picked up by the wind down the road were flying through the sky.

Dad’s truck wasn’t in our driveway.

Where was he? At a job? On his way home?

We rumbled into the woods, curled up the drive, but stopped before we reached the cabin.

“What’s the goal?” Remy shouted as we jumped out of the truck and into the wind. “To find the machine or find Wayne?”

“We need both,” I said.

The machine to save the world.

The man to save ourselves.

As for how we’d get rid of Arthur’s scars before Agent Rothstadt and the others showed up, I still had no ideas. Fleeing the country was looking better.

“In this storm, he’ll be down in the cellar!” Arthur said.

“But the machine’s not!” I screamed over the tornado siren.

“The storm’s too dangerous—we’ll get it after! Come on!” Arthur led the way, wielding a random pipe he must’ve found in the truck like a baseball bat.

The padlock on the cellar hadn’t been replaced, and Arthur threw one green door open, pinning it back against the wind as we raced down the steps with nothing to protect us but our sheer number.

All we had to do was subdue him and keep him there until the others showed up.

But the light wasn’t on, and in the jade glow coming from above, the cellar appeared to be empty. Nick reached the pull chain and tugged, but the power was out here too.

“He’s not down—” I turned toward the stairs, and my words dropped off.

Arthur was still standing at the top, looking down at us. With one hand, he held the metal pipe, and with the other, he clutched the cellar door.

“What are you doing?” I asked. “Get down here!”

His eyes were sharply focused on me, and his wide mouth was tensed.

For a second, as I watched his matted blond hair cycloning around his freckled face, everything seemed to go silent. Arthur’s mouth opened. He shook his head, and then his voice cut through, calm and quiet and sure: “Like a brother, Franny.”

I lunged for the stairs. “No!”

Arthur was already closing the cellar door, shutting me off from him and whatever he was about to do.

I flung myself up the steps and slammed my palms against the door just as it dropped into place, cloaking us in perfect darkness. The door jogged an inch, but no more, and I heard the metal pipe scraping along the surface on the far side, as Arthur slid it through the handles to lock us in.