stay upright as the floor vibrated beneath me.
But just as suddenly as it had begun, the rumbling stopped. My palm still flat against the limestone bricks, heart pounding in my chest, I looked up at the ceiling above me as I waited for screaming and footfalls and other telltale signs of the aftermath of the Earthquake That Ate Chicago.
There was only silence.
I snapped my gaze to the left as hurried footsteps echoed toward me from that end of the hallway and tried to swallow down the panic.
I flicked on my flashlight and swung the beam into the dark, the arc of light barely penetrating the blackness, even as I squinted to get a better look.
And then I saw them—Scout and Jason behind her, both in uniform, both running toward me as if they were running for their lives. I dropped the beam of the flashlight to the floor to keep from blinding them, afraid that’s exactly what was happening.
“Scout?” I called out, but fear had frozen my throat. I tried again, and this time managed some sound. “Scout!”
They were still far away—the corridor was a deep one—but they were running at sprinter speed . . . and there was something behind them.
It almost didn’t surprise me to see that they were being chased. After all, I’d already helped Scout try to escape fromsomething . But I’m not sure what I expected to see chasing her.
As they drew closer, I realized that behind them was the blonde we’d seen outside the pillar garden on Monday—the girl with the hoodie who had watched us from the street. She ran full-
bore behind Scout and Jason. But even as she sprinted through the corridor, her expression was somehow vacant, a strange gleam in her eyes the only real sign of life. Her hair was long and wavy, and it flew out behind her as she ran, arms pumping, toward us.
Suddenly she pulled back her hand, then shot if forward, as if to throw something at the two of them. The air and ground rumbled, and this time, the rumble was strong enough to knock me off my feet. I hit the ground on my knees, palms extended.
By the time I glanced up again, Scout and Jason were only feet in front of me. That meant the blond girl was only a few yards behind. I saw the look of horror on Scout’s face. “Get up, Lily!”
she implored.“Run!”
I muttered a curse that would have made a string of sailors blush, and ignoring the bruises blossoming on my knees, jumped to my feet and did as I was ordered. The three of us took off down the hallway, presumably for a safer place.
We ran through one corridor, then another, then another, heading in the opposite direction of the path I’d taken with the brat pack—probably a good thing, since there was no giant metal door in that part of the convent to keep them out.
To keepher out.
Whatever juju the blonde used before, she used again, the ground rumbling beneath our feet. I don’t know how she managed it, how she managed to make the earth—and all the limestone above it—move, but she did it sure enough. We all stumbled, but Scout reached out a hand and grabbed at the wall to keep her balance, and Jason caught Scout’s elbow. I caught limestone, the stones rushing toward my face as she knocked me off my feet again. I braced myself on my hands, the pads of my hands burning as I hit the floor.
They were on their feet again and yards ahead before they realized I wasn’t with them.
“Lily!” Scout screamed, but I was already looking behind me, watching the blonde. The earthquake- maker just stood there, and I figured if I was already on the floor, there wasn’t much else she could do to me.
Of course, that didn’t mean the guy who stepped out from behind her couldn’t do damage. He was older than she was—college, maybe. Curly dark hair, broad shoulders, and blue eyes that gleamed with a creepy intensity. With a hunger. And all that hunger and intensity was directed at me.
I swallowed down fear and panic and tried to make my brain work, tried to make my arms and legs push me up from the floor, but I was suddenly puppy-clumsy, unable to order my limbs to function.
The boy stepped beside the blonde, muttered something, and just as she had done, whipped his hand in my direction.
The air pressure in the room changed, and something flew my way, something he’d created with that flick of his hand. It looked like a contact lens of hazy, green smoke, but it wasn’t really smoke. It wasn’t really athing . It was more like the very air in the room had warped.
Still on the floor—only a second or two having passed since I fell to the ground, time slowing in the midst of my panic—I stared, eyes wide, mouth open in shock as it moved toward me.
Nothing in my life in Sagamore, or my week in Chicago, had prepared me for . . . whatever it was. And whatever it was, it was about to make contact.
They say there are moments in your life when time slows down, when you can see your fate rushing toward you. This was one of those times. I had a second to react, which wasn’t enough time to move out of the way, so I turned my back on it. That warp of air slammed into me with the force of a freight train, pushing the air from my lungs. It arced across my body like alien fire,
like a living thing that tunneled into my spine, through my torso, across my limbs.
“Lily!” Scout screamed.
The floor rumbled beneath me again, and I heard a growl, a roar, like the scream of an angry animal. I heard shuffling, the sounds of fighting, but I could do nothing but lie there, my body spasming as pain and fire and heat raced through my limbs. I blinked at the colors that danced before my eyes, the world—or the portions of the floor and room that I could see from my sprawled-out position on the floor—covered by a green haze.
I must have passed out, because when I lifted my eyelids again, I was in the air, cradled by strong arms. I looked up and found bright eyes, eyes the same blue as a spring prairie sky, staring back at me.
“Jason?” I asked, my voice sounding hollow and distant.
“Hold on, Lily,” he said. “We’re going to get you out of here.”
The world went black.
I woke blinking, my eyes squinted against the sunlight that streamed through the wall of windows on my left, and bounced off white walls on the other three sides of the room I was in. I looked down. I was on a high bed, my legs covered by a white sheet and thin blanket, the rest of me wrapped in one of those nubby, printed hospital gowns.
“You’re awake.”
I lifted my gaze. Scout sat in a plastic chair across from my bed, a thick leather book in her hands. She was in uniform, but she’d covered her button-up oxford shirt with a cardigan.
“Where am I?” I asked her, shading my eyes with a hand.
“LaSalle Street Clinic,” she said. “A few blocks from the school. You’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. The doctor was in a few minutes ago. She said you didn’t have a concussion or anything; they just brought you in since you passed out.”
I nodded and motioned toward the windows. “Can you do something about the light?”
“Sure.” She put aside the book and stood up, then walked to the wall of windows and fidgeted with the cord until the blinds came together, and the room darkened. When she was done, she turned and looked at me, arms crossed over her chest. “How are you feeling?”
I did a quick assessment. Nothing felt broken, but I had a killer headache and I was pretty sore —as if I’d taken a couple of good falls onto unforgiving limestone. “Groggy, mostly. My head hurts. And my back.”
Scout nodded. “You were hit pretty hard.” She walked to the bed and hitched one hip onto it.
“I’d say that I’m sorry you got dragged into this but, first things first, why, exactly, were you in the basement?”
There was an unspoken question in her tone:Were you following me again?
“The brat pack went down there. I was invited along.”
