Bethany rolled over to glare at us. “What?”
“I have no intention of double-crossing either of you. We need to work together, without threats between us. So if that collar goes off again for any reason whatsoever, I’ll take it out on Landon.”
Bethany’s eyebrows arched high. Ethan raised his head to stare at Teresa. I even gave her an openmouthed gape. Teresa didn’t threaten lightly, and I’d never heard her say something like that to another person—especially after just demanding “no threats” from Bethany. She was deadly serious, too. Not that I was going to call her on the odd behavior in front of the others. I’d just piss her off even more.
The only person in the room who actually looked relieved by her threat was Landon—maybe because he knew it would keep Bethany’s behavior in line.
I hoped.
“Deal,” Landon said.
“Good, then,” Teresa said. “How long before you’re ready to leave?”
“An hour? I need to talk to the council members first.”
“What are you going to tell them?”
“I’m not sure. That we won’t be back for a while, but that their food supply isn’t going to stop.” He gave Teresa a pointed look. “Since that’s part of our deal and all.”
“It is.”
“I’ll bring your car up from the park when I come back.”
“Thank you.”
He left without a backward glance at Bethany. She turned to face the wall again.
“I brought clean clothes if anyone wants to change,” Teresa said, gesturing at the duffel on the floor near the door.
Even though the promise of a shower was only a few hours away, I didn’t relish the idea of a long drive in my mud-smeared clothes. I grabbed the duffel and went outside for privacy. I trekked far enough into the woods to feel secluded, then stripped.
I’d never been a particularly modest person until I got burned. Seeing those awful, purplish scars all over my body was like looking at a funhouse mirror image of myself and hating what I saw. The self-consciousness wasn’t as bad around some of my closest friends—hell, Ethan caught me in my underwear a month ago and I barely batted an eye—but I didn’t want anyone else to see the weakness imprinted all over my body. And I definitely didn’t want Thatcher to see it.
I slipped into a pair of clean jeans and a black T-shirt. The shirt was short-sleeved, though, and showed off the burn scars on my right arm that made the whole thing useless to my Flex powers. Powers that had always seemed pretty useless to begin with.
My dirty clothes went into the bottom of the duffel, beneath two sets of men’s clothes, in case Ethan or Thatcher felt like a costume change. Instead of going back right away, I sat on a fallen tree trunk and closed my eyes. The songs of several birds fluted through the air, each call as unique as the creature it belonged to—the rusty gate call of a grackle, the high notes of a sparrow, the four-note whistle of a chickadee.
The music was beautiful, and I allowed it to lull me for a few minutes.
Or longer, because the song was rudely interrupted by “Renee!” being shouted by Thatcher. His deep voice bounced off the trees and brush.
I stood and met him at the edge of the woods. I guess I’d spaced out a bit, because Landon was back, as was our Sport.
“I was starting to worry,” Thatcher said. “You were gone for a long time.”
“Just listening to the birds,” I said in a rare feat of honesty. “I don’t get to hear them much anymore, living in the city.”
He smiled. “We’re almost ready to go.”
“Thank God.” I was more than ready to leave this small, oppressive town behind and get back to a place that didn’t remind me of my childhood every time I turned around.
As we walked back toward the shack and the cars, I looked down the road to the platform. “Think they’ll be upset if I burn that thing down before I leave?” I asked.
Thatcher followed my gaze. “I think they will.”
“Damn.”
“Something tells me it would be therapeutic for you, though.”
“Intensely.”
“When we get back to your HQ, I’ll build you one that you can tear to pieces.”
I tried to get a look at his face, to see if he was serious or not—and I just couldn’t tell.
Teresa came out of the shack, frowning. Not good.
“What?” I asked.
“I just agreed that we’d still wear blindfolds on the trip out of town,” she said. “Landon insists on protecting the town’s location until I’ve gotten them a legal supply chain.”
“How are you supposed to do that without the location?”
She shook her head. “We’ll figure it out. And the blindfolds are only for an hour or so.”
“Joy.”
The Sport was made to comfortably seat five—two in front, three on the bench seat in back. Six of us were going. Fortunately, Bethany made it easy on us. Still ticked about the orb blast, she kept up a stream of whining that would put any spoiled ten-year-old to shame, and we finally stuffed her into the rear compartment with a blanket and pillow so she could sleep. Landon was driving, and we sort of deferred shotgun to Teresa. I ended up sandwiched between Ethan and Thatcher in the backseat, and the twisty-turny back roads leading out of town had me knocking into one or the other on a pretty regular basis.
After what felt like half a day, the route straightened out and our speed picked up. Landon said we could take off our blindfolds, and I blinked at the gray, dusky world. The clouds promised rain. We were on an interstate of some sort, and after a moment we passed a road sign that clued me right in—I-76 east, the PA turnpike, heading away from the Pittsburgh area.
“When can I call HQ and let them know we’re on our way?” Teresa asked after a few miles of silence.
“When we’re closer,” Landon replied.
We tried making casual conversation, but no one seemed to know what to talk about. I amused myself by watching the landscape as we passed rest stops, small towns, suburbs, and a lot of farmland. I’d never been in Pennsylvania before, and the countryside was actually kind of pretty. Green and hilly, devoid of the scars of the War that most cities still carried, even fifteen years later.
I glanced at the clock on the dash. After one p.m. I tried to do the math in my head and figured we had another hour or so of driving before we hit New Jersey. The Sport had just rolled past the exit for Lebanon Road when Landon handed Teresa a cell phone.
“Call now,” he said.
Teresa took the phone and plugged in a number.
And that’s when the world literally turned upside down.
Thirteen
Everyone except Bethany was wearing a seat belt when the Sport went into an unexpected barrel roll across two lanes of traffic, flipped over the guardrail, and then slid down the side of an embankment into a field—all things I processed after the fact. During the fact, I had both hands braced on the ceiling so I didn’t slide out of my lap belt. I was probably one of the people screaming. I know Bethany yelled a lot between landings.
The Sport came to a jolting halt, still upside down. For a split second, there was total silence. I didn’t hear a damned thing, not even my own heartbeat.
Then the world exploded in noise. People talking, tires squealing, metal thudding, something else hissing. I was keenly aware of soreness between my shoulder blades, but couldn’t tell if it was whiplash or if someone had
