“Because they wanted to capture them.” My eyes widened. “Or recapture them.”
“Holy hell. You’re right.” He pointed out the window. “Look, a house. Hopefully we’re not too far from a town.”
Twenty minutes later, the road curved and a huge cluster of lights appeared in the distance.
I glanced at the clock: 5:13 a.m. Nothing was going to be open at this hour.
I turned off the main road, and we drove slowly through deserted streets, searching for something that was open. Everything was dark and locked up tight.
“What do the French do when they want to make cookies at three a.m.?” Edan said. “If we were in New York, we would have passed, like, ten open stores by now.”
“We would have seen at least one twenty-four-hour Walmart by now if we were in Texas.” I peered past Edan at the stores on his side of his street. The word boulangerie popped out at me. I hit the brakes.
“Oof.” Edan jerked in his seat.
“Sorry.” I pointed. “But look. A bakery.” The store front was dim, but I could see a hint of light in the back. “Bakers get up early.”
“That’s brilliant.” He unhooked his seat belt. “Do you want to wait in the van while I run in?”
“Sure.”
He climbed out, pausing to look back at me. “What’s the French word for phone?”
“I have no idea.”
“I’ll figure something out.” He shut the door and jogged to the bakery. He’d left the van window open, and I could hear as he banged on the door and yelled, “Excuse me!”
A man in a white apron appeared and spoke to Edan for a moment. He opened the door, and Edan disappeared inside.
Edan reemerged a few minutes later, smiling at the man and shaking his hand. He jogged back to the car and hopped inside.
“You talked to Grayson?” I asked.
“Yep. The French word for telephone is téléphone, by the way.”
“Well, that seems . . . obvious.”
“Grayson definitely thought we were dead. And he’s pissed that I never bought a local SIM card. Apparently he’s been calling every half hour.” He held up a piece of paper with several lines scrawled on it. A map. “But I got directions once he calmed down.”
“Where are we going?”
“Back to the scrabs.”
28
The sun rose as we got closer to the nest. Grayson told Edan that the teams were waiting until daylight to go back and search for us, but that they hadn’t had much hope. Apparently the team members who’d been in the van with us had searched until they saw the scrabs outside the house and then were forced to hightail it out of there. I couldn’t blame them.
I stopped the van on the side of the road. I couldn’t see the house where we’d hidden from here, but I knew we were close.
I swallowed down a wave of fear as I looked out at the empty field. It had only been a few hours since Edan and I made a run for it, both of us convinced those minutes were our last. I sort of wished Grayson had told us to go back to Paris. I wanted a bed and a shower, not more scrab fighting.
A Jeep appeared on the road, followed by several more, and a long line of vans and trucks. About ten all-terrain vehicles zipped around them into the grass.
Grayson was in the passenger seat of the first Jeep, and he jumped out before it had completely come to a stop. Edan and I stepped out of the van.
Grayson rushed to Edan, almost knocking him over as he hugged him.
“You asshole,” Grayson said as he released him. “I thought you were dead.”
“I would have been, if it weren’t for Clara.” Edan smiled at me.
Several members of team seven jumped out of the Jeeps, and I was suddenly crushed between Patrick and Priya.
“You’re not dead!” Priya exclaimed, jumping up and down with her arms around my waist.
“Not yet,” I said with a laugh. I was actually sort of delighted by how happy Priya was that I wasn’t dead.
The rest of the team stood a few steps away. Noah was grinning. Laila and Madison were laughing about something. Even Gage looked moderately happy to see us. Behind them, Naomi and the rest of UK team nine waved from their Jeep. I waved back.
“Julian?” I asked.
“Still in Paris,” Noah said.
“We thought for sure you were dead when we saw all those scrabs over the hill,” Laila said, leaning against the van. “Noah started video tributes that he was going to post after they notified your families.”
“Oh god, you didn’t notify my family, did you?” I asked Grayson.
He shook his head with a smile. “No. It’s policy to wait forty-eight hours after you go missing to notify.”
I let out a breath. “OK. Good.”
“This is an MDG van?” Grayson laid his hand on the hood.
“Yeah,” Edan said. “What should we do with it?”
“Just leave it here. I’m sure they’ll be back to this area soon.”
“Edan told you what we saw? The scrabs they were . . .” Training? Controlling? I didn’t know what to call it.
“What?” Madison asked. “What did you see?” The rest of the team looked at us curiously.
“Let’s deal with these scrabs first, and then we’ll talk about it,” Grayson said. “Team seven, will you go back to your Jeeps and get ready? Edan, Clara, grab some weapons. I need you two to lead us to the nest.”
“They’re hard to miss,” Edan muttered. We walked to the second Jeep, where Laila was waiting with several weapons in hand. She gave both of us a machete.
“You guys can support me and Noah first,” she said. “Noah and Madison came up with a plan to keep us mostly together, so you can squeeze into the Jeep with us.”
I glanced over to where Noah and Madison were talking. They came up with a plan? Why hadn’t Julian left Paris right away when he heard we were missing? Or when he’d heard there were scrabs?
