When the Sky Fell on Splendor(95)

I braced the ax over my shoulder and ran around the massive spiral, but the man clumsily lifted the rifle barrel in my direction, and Arthur coughed something resembling my name.

“Drop it,” the man said. “Now.”

The ax handle slid clear of my hand and clattered to the floor. The man’s gun dipped and leveled as he surveyed me through the dark. “Vandalism wasn’t enough anymore?” he said in a low, furious voice. “Spray-painting my goddamn walls and knocking over my fence starting to bore you? You kids think you’re some fuckin’ angels of vengeance?”

Wind upended the lamp on the piano, sent it smashing into the wall then spinning across the floor. The man’s grip must have loosened, because Arthur snatched the gun and tumbled clear of him on the floor.

“You think I need you to remember what happened?” the man growled, lunging after him. “Every day here is a penance.”

I spun, searching for the ax. It had blown—a blade, blowing around a room—under the curve of the spiral, the handle just barely protruding. I clambered after it, snatched it, and stood as Arthur scuttled back toward the window, shakily holding the gun.

Downstairs, someone was shouting, calling our names, but that didn’t stop the man. He crawled toward us.

I braced the ax against my shoulder like a baseball bat as Arthur pushed himself up against the wall beside me.

Wayne Hastings labored to his feet and lurched toward us, a disconcerting sob racking his huge form. “And that hasn’t been enough? You won’t even let me die in peace?”

Die?

The sickly green light from the window poured around Arthur’s silhouette, catching the edges of the man’s weather-beaten face as he took one more shambling step forward.

And then the light hit him, full force, and if the gun was loaded, we must have been very lucky, because when Arthur dropped it, no bullet snapped out.

“You,” Arthur said.

His voice was all wrong.

Light, high-pitched.

It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t thick with the hate that was filling me up at the sight of Wayne Hastings and his rain-drenched tangle of gray hair, his flannel sleeves and rain-speckled denim overalls.

The expression on the man’s horrible, leathery face melted into stark confusion.

The moment held us captive, three flies caught in amber, and maybe this spell wouldn’t break for hundreds of years until scientists found us frozen beside this behemoth Fibonacci spiral.

But then something cracked overhead, a new strand of light unspooling through the ceiling as part of the roof tore away.

Wayne’s cold, dead eyes ricocheted up to it, then back to us.

“You need to get out of here,” he said, a voice as papery as the skin of a garlic clove.

Arthur took a dazed step, and my grip tightened on the ax handle. “I know you.”

Wayne’s mouth twisted hideously. “Everyone knows me.”

“I know you,” Arthur said again. “Your face. I know it. I keep feeling like—you’re her father. How is it possible you’re her father?”

I shifted between my feet. “What are you talking about?”

Was he having some kind of breakdown?

There were steps pounding up the stairs now.

Arthur’s gaze flashed toward me. “Molly. He’s Molly’s father.”

“What?”

“I recognize him. It’s not memories, exactly, or visions. I just . . . It’s a feeling. I recognize him. I know how she feels about him. I feel it.” He looked toward the scar on his hand, and my eyes followed.

It was happening so slowly that at first I thought I was imagining it, but after another second, I was sure: The wine-colored scars were retracting.

I didn’t understand. If Molly wasn’t an alien, if she was a person, then none of the rest of this stuff—our so-called powers—could be real.

But the veinlike welts were retreating, and Arthur was feeling something.

When I looked back to Wayne, what little pinkness he’d had in his cheeks had drained. He was staring at Arthur. “You . . . you knew Molly?”

“It’s her,” Arthur said to me. “His daughter is the consciousness.”

My rib cage felt like a trapdoor yanked open, my heart plummeting into my stomach.

Right then, the others burst into the room, Droog at their heels, tools-turned-weapons raised. Nick ran right toward Wayne, shovel wound up for a swing, and Remy was right behind him with a butcher knife.

Arthur threw himself between them and Wayne as the old man tripped back in surprise. “It’s not a weapon!” Arthur screamed. “He’s not building a weapon for an alien!”

“That’s exactly what I saw in my vision!” Remy gestured toward the spiral. “That’s it!”

“But it’s not a weapon,” Arthur insisted, and as if in agreement, Droog ran right toward the man and sat on his feet, crying faintly.

Levi seemed unsure. So did the others, and I was with them.

Maybe Molly hadn’t been an alien. Maybe she’d been a person, and he was her father, but that didn’t account for the stolen drawings, the creepy bunker, the march along the barbed wire fence with his gun. And if we had been infected with bits of her consciousness, she was still gone, still warning us about this man.

“He’s still a killer!” I said. “He still killed Nick’s dad, and hurt Mark—he still killed Molly!”