mean that.
With minds full of questions and hearts heavy with regrets, they fled from the angels and their impossible machines.
FROM NIX’S JOURNAL
Tom taught us that you can’t prepare for every emergency or every threat.
“The trick isn’t to practice too many specific danger scenarios, but to learn the skills that are common to all. A smart warrior is always observant, always aware of his surroundings, always aware of his resources, and always ready to adapt to situations as they change.”
30
“Nix,” puffed Benny as he slowed to a walk, “maybe we’re doing this wrong. Maybe we should go back and try to talk to those people.”
She made a face. “Really? That’s your plan?”
“I—”
“Or is that what you think Tom would do?”
That stung.
“Now wait a minute—” he began, but she shook her head.
“No,” she snapped, “don’t you have a clue as to how you’re behaving lately? You keep telling me and the others to back off so you can handle things. You were going to charge those lions and—”
“What does that have to do with Tom?” he demanded.
She peered up at him, her green eyes surrounded by a sea of freckles and wild red curls.
“Look,” she said, “I know you think that because you have Tom’s sword, you have to be the great warrior, but here’s a news flash, Benny: You’re not Tom. The sword doesn’t give you superpowers.”
Benny felt his face grow hot. “I never said—”
She pointed back toward the field. “You think Tom would have just waltzed in there and sorted this out?”
“I know he would. This is the sort of thing he was good at.”
“No, he wasn’t,” snapped Nix. “He was never out this far. He doesn’t know these people. We stepped into the middle of something big and nasty that doesn’t concern us. It wouldn’t have concerned Tom, either. He’d have steered us around this and left these people to sort out their own troubles.”
Benny seethed for a moment before he tried to speak. “Tom would never have walked away from that little girl.”
Nix’s eyes were as hard and cold as green glass. “Tom brought us out here to find that jet, not to solve the problems of everyone in the world.”
“So… what? Are you saying we should just walk away from Eve?”
“She’s with her parents,” she said, “and here’s another news flash: Eve’s parents tried to kill us back there. I’m going out on a limb here, but I pretty much think that means they don’t want our help.”
“That’s because they were looking for her and were probably scared out of their minds, Nix.”
“Doesn’t change anything.”
“And they thought we were reapers.”
Nix cocked her head to one side. “It’s that bald girl, isn’t it?”
“What?”
“You want to go back and talk to that bald girl with the slingshot.”
“Oh, for—”
Screams tore through the air behind them. A male voice, but high and filled with terrible pain. The sound was cut off in a way that suggested the worst.
The air was filled with screams and the roar of quad engines.
“Chong—?” Benny gasped. “We have to—”
“No, that’s not Chong,” Nix said with a firm shake of her head. “Chong made it to the woods before we did. I never saw him run that fast before. He’ll be okay.”
There were more screams and shouts, male and female voices; and every now and then the blast of a shotgun.
“Sounds like a full-out war,” said Benny.
“You still want to go back?” asked Nix.
Benny said nothing.
“Look,” Nix said, “Chong knows which direction Lilah took. He’ll head that way, and if those machines chase him, then Lilah will hear it. She’ll know what to do.”
When Benny still said nothing, Nix touched his arm.
“Benny, let’s find the others and see what they want to do, okay?”
He sighed and nodded, and kept to himself so many things that needed to be said.
Before Nix turned away, they shared a moment of silent eye contact. Benny ached to say so many things, and he was sure Nix did too. It was just that… he was afraid to hear what those things were. Her thoughts, and his.
He turned away first, and the ground seemed to be tilting under him, as if the world was no longer properly mounted on its axis and everything was tipping the wrong way.
Deep inside his mind, Tom whispered,
They began walking, angling through a dry wash that was thick with tumbleweeds.
“I like the slingshot,” observed Benny, half because it was true and half because he felt a peevish desire to score a point on Nix. “Quiet and nasty. We should get one. Chong used to be pretty good with one; maybe we could all learn.”
“Slingshots are stupid,” muttered Nix. “Something a kid would use.”
“That girl was pretty tough,” Benny said.
“You thought that cow looked pretty?”
“I said ‘pretty tough,’ Nix. Don’t start, okay? She was tough and dangerous with that slingshot and the firecrackers and all. Saved us from the lions.”
“Oh, please,” sneered Nix. “And what kind of name is ‘Riot’ anyway?”
Suddenly there was movement behind them, deeper inside the forest. They spun around and saw another man standing a mere dozen paces away.
The stranger was tall, with dark eyes set so deep that they made his pale face look skeletal. His head was shaved, and his entire scalp was tattooed with a pattern of thorny vines. He wore black trousers and a billowy black shirt, and his legs and arms were wrapped with bloodred ribbons. On his shirtfront was a beautifully rendered chalk drawing of angel wings.
A reaper.
In Benny’s mind, Tom’s voice whispered,
31
