SEVENTY-SIX

How do we get out of here?” Caitlyn asked Billy and Theo. “You can take them,” Theo said. “In a fight. There’s only five. You can take them.”

“I don’t like to fight.” Billy looked at Theo, then at Caitlyn. “Both of you know that. I don’t like hurting people.”

Caitlyn didn’t want to force Billy to do anything.

“We don’t trust Razor,” Theo told Billy. “If we could trust him, why would he keep her and us here like this? Why not let us do what we want?”

“He said it was protection,” Billy answered.

“Right,” Theo said. “Protection for himself.”

Theo didn’t hide his exasperation and pleaded for help from a higher source. “Caitlyn. Do you trust Razor?”

That was the big question, wasn’t it? She didn’t know. And she didn’t know if that’s why she found Razor so exciting. She trusted Billy. But didn’t feel the same excitement around him, the almost delicious uncertainty that came with the mystery that cloaked Razor.

Did she want to wait until Razor returned? Or should she try to escape again, relying on Billy?

Billy took the decision away from her.

He stepped over to the wall of the shanty, where the framing was exposed.

“Maybe we don’t need to fight,” Billy said. He grabbed one of the beams with both hands. He leaned back, lifted one foot, and pushed it against another beam.

Billy was deceptively soft in appearance for such a big man. No definition of muscles when his body was at rest.

Here, with full exertion, his arms seemed to grow. His biceps bulged, and Caitlyn realized Billy’s arms were thicker than Theo’s legs.

It wasn’t just the framework that he needed to break, but the metal sheeting that formed the exterior wall and the assortment of nails and rivets and screws that held the sheeting to the framework.

He was fighting more than that; Billy was fighting his own strength, pulling his arms in one direction, against the push of his legs in another. Another man might have grunted. Billy’s face, however, settled into serenity as he focused all his strength on prying apart the frame. It wasn’t Billy who eventually groaned, but the framework. The popping wasn’t gristle or muscle or tendons, but the screws and nails and rivets that could no longer endure the forces against them. And finally, the opposite beam snapped, where Billy was putting all his pressure against the wood with one foot.

Billy half staggered but managed to keep his balance.

The wall had literally separated. Outside, the dusk of sky and the outlines of other shanties.

Billy breathed heavily but said nothing. Didn’t even look to Caitlyn for praise.

Theo skipped to the wall, examined the broken metal sheeting, skipped back to Caitlyn.

“Like Samson!” Theo said. “Just like Samson. Except I’m blind and Billy’s not. Nobody can stop us!”

Billy managed a bashful grin at Theos exuberance. “I think we only need a few minutes head start. They won’t know what direction we went. Plus it’s getting dark. They shouldn’t be able to find us out there.”

“Thank you,” Caitlyn said. She pushed thoughts of Razor out of her mind. She didn’t need him, and Razor was only trouble. Just like her wings. “Let’s go.”

Mason saw the wall of the shanty burst. Then saw the three of them. Coming out the back.

Perfect!

As that thought crossed his mind, Mason felt a sound. That was the best way to describe it. There was noise, but it didn’t quite reach his ears. At least not for a few moments.

Helicopter?

Mason hesitated, looked upward.

At that moment, the sky pierced him. Except it wasn’t the sky. It wasn’t the light from the chopper that tore through him.

It was unreasoning terror that collapsed him as surely as if he’d Tasered himself.

“Billy,” Theo said. He pointed upward at the dusk of the sky. “It’s the sound again.”

“What sound?” Impatience rarely bothered Billy. But they were on the run. Billy didn’t feel smart enough to judge whether the three of them were sufficiently clear to have the luxury to stop. Especially because Theo’s keen sense of hearing, combined with his usual nervousness and a vast imagination, meant the sound could have been anything.

“The night we went into the hospital. When everyone freaked out. You know, in the soovie camp.”

Just the memory of the overwhelming dread was enough to stop Billy cold. “You sure?”

“Not sure.” Theo cocked his head. “Now I’m sure. It’s closer.”

“What are you talking about?” Caitlyn asked.

“Can’t explain,” Theo said. “Just that all of a sudden it felt like a roomful of monsters were going to rip me apart and that they were backing me into a corner. I couldn’t move. The monsters weren’t like anything you could explain. More like roaring demons, smoke and fire. It’s the freakiest thing ever.”

“Where do we go?” Billy asked. “Where do we go?”

Billy wished he was better at thinking. With the shanties in all directions, there seemed like no clear path in any direction, especially with people in clusters along the paths. Until now, all the people around them had provided a perfect screen from any pursuers. Now the memory of that overwhelming dread already made him feel trapped.

“We keep walking,” Caitlyn said. “We don’t run. That’s what’s going to draw attention.”

Billy imagined he felt a breeze, then realized it wasn’t his imagination. The thump-thump sound followed. His first instinct was to pull Caitlyn close.

That’s how the spotlight pinned them.

Caitlyn in Billy’s arms. Theo, half turned, looking upward, shielding his eyes with his arms against the piercing white glare.

Something bounced off Billy’s shoulder. A small canister.

“Theo!” Billy shouted.

Theo saw it too. Theo dove on it.

It didn’t matter.

A split second later, panic overwhelmed Billy. He staggered in his desperation to pull Caitlyn out of the spotlight. But she was in a panic, flailing and screaming, and a part of his consciousness realized that to hold her, he’d have to apply so much force it would crush her.

Billy fell to his knees, dimly aware of the sounds of screams from the paths between the shanties beyond Caitlyn.

The spotlight that kept them in a circle didn’t move.

It was difficult for Billy to keep his thoughts coherent. Fear had buckled him, wrapped him so deep into himself that his leg muscles were cramping and his face hurt from the rictus of terror. Yet much as he wanted to close his eyes and wait to die, he was driven by a need to protect Caitlyn.

Too frozen to help, he kept her in his vision.

It seemed like a monster had descended from the sky, the black-masked figure swaying in midair, hanging from a shiny cable that glinted in the spotlight.

Then the figure dropped and knelt over Caitlyn, whose flailing had diminished to shuddering spasms.

Above the roaring of the machine above them and the roaring in his mind, Billy yelled in futile rage, on his side, curled in agony, unable to move.

Billy was incapable of pegging movement to time, and he swirled through a vortex of altered consciousness as he vainly tried to force his arm to reach out for Caitlyn.

The black-masked figure stood again. The cable seemed attached to Caitlyn’s body. The black figure sprang upward with distorted slow motion in Billy’s perception. It seemed like the black figure hung in the air again.

Until he was gone.

And, as if pulled by gravity, Caitlyn’s body rose upward in pursuit.