comes charging up from the riverbank. He’s out of breath but excited, his tongue falling from his mouth and his tail whipping in the air a thousand miles an hour. I bend down and pet him.
“Good job, buddy!” I say, planting a kiss on the top of his head.
And then it happens, a quick end to a celebration that was only just beginning.
While I’m on bended knee, a second copter shoots up over the hill behind us, instantly hitting us with its bright spotlight.
I bolt to my feet, blinded at once by the glaring beam.
“Run!” Six says.
We do, sprinting up the nearest hill. The helicopter drops down and hovers so the wind off its rotors beats against our backs and causes the trees to bow. The forest floor is a haze of debris, and I drape my arm across my mouth to breathe, keeping my eyes squinted to alleviate the stinging dirt. How long until the FBI is called?
“Stay where you are!” a male voice blares from the copter. “You’re all under arrest.”
We hear shouts. The officers on foot can’t be more than five hundred feet away.
Six stops running, which causes Sam and me to do the same.
“We’re toast!” Sam yells.
“Okay, you bastards. We’ll do this the hard way,” Six says under her breath. She drops the bags, and for a second I think she plans to make Sam and me invisible. While I have no problem with leaving the bags behind, what does she expect me to do with the Chest? She can’t make all of us invisible and that, too.
A brilliant stroke of lightning splits the night sky in two, followed by the deep groan of rolling thunder.
“John!” she yells without looking away.
“Right here.”
“Take care of the cops. Keep them away from me.”
Now I understand. I shove the Chest into Sam’s arms, who stands beside me, unsure of what to do. “Guard this with your life,” I tell him. “And stay down!” I turn to Bernie Kosar and communicate that he needs to stay with Sam in case our plan falls apart.
I sprint down the hill as another bolt of lightning, chased by a clap of thunder dark and menacing in tone, flashes across the sky.
I reach the bottom and hide behind an oak. The voices draw near, moving swiftly towards both pillars of light. Rain begins to fall, cold and heavy. I glance up through the thick drops and see both helicopters struggling against the gale-force winds, but somehow still keeping their beams steady. That won’t last for long.
The first two officers blow past me, followed closely behind by a third. I reach out with my mind when they’re fifteen feet away, grab all three in midstride, and yank them towards the thick oak. They surge backwards so fast I have to leap out of the way to keep from being hit. Two of them fall lifelessly to the ground, knocked unconscious by the tree. The third lifts his head, confused, then reaches for his gun. I tear it from its holster before his hand even touches it. The metal feels cold against my palm, and I turn to the two copters and hurl it like a bullet at the nearest. That’s when I see the eyes, doleful and black in the middle of the storm. Soon the old, withered face takes shape. The same face I saw in Ohio when Six killed the beast that wrecked the school.
“Don’t move a muscle!” I hear behind me. “Hands in the air!”
I turn to the officer. Without his gun, he aims his Taser straight at my chest.
“Which is it, hands in the air or don’t move a muscle? I can’t do both.”
He cocks the Taser. “Don’t be a smartass, kid,” he says.
Lightning cracks, followed by a roar of thunder that makes the officer jump in surprise. The officer looks towards the sound, and his eyes open wide in alarm. The face in the clouds, it’s awoken.
I rip the Taser from his hand, then punch him hard in the chest. He sails thirty feet backwards and crashes into the side of a tree. While my back is still turned, the crack of a nightstick slams against my skull. I fall face-first in the mud and sparkling fuzz fills my vision. I turn as quickly as I can, lift my hand towards the cop who hit me, and get a firm grip around him before he’s able to hit me again. He grunts, and with all of my might I throw him as hard as I can straight up in the air. He screams until he’s up so high I can no longer hear him over the copter blades and rumbling thunder. I feel the back of my head and look at my hand. It’s covered with blood. I catch the officer when he’s within five feet of dying. I let him hover a few seconds before tossing him against a tree, knocking him unconscious.
A loud explosion tears through the night, and the whir of the copters cuts off. The wind stops. The rain stops, too.
“John!” Six screams from the top of the hill; and somehow in the pleading, desperate tone of her voice, I know what she needs me to do.
The lights in my hands snap on, two glowing spotlights every bit as bright as those just extinguished. Both helicopters are wrecked and twisted, and smoke pours from them as they free fall. I don’t know what the face has done to them, but Six and I must save the people aboard.
As they torpedo down, the helicopter farthest from me jerks upwards. Six is trying to stop it. I don’t think she’ll be able to, and I know that I can’t. It’s too heavy. I close my eyes.
Six’s copter hits the ground at the same time as mine. The explosions reach out over the treetops, two red balls of fire floating up from the twisted steel. I hold the three men in the air a safe distance from the damage, and bring them carefully to the ground. Then I race back up the hill to Six and Sam.
“Holy crap!” Sam says, his eyes wide-open.
“Did you pull them free?” I ask Six.
She nods. “Just in time.”
“Me too,” I say.
I grab the Chest from Sam and thrust it into Six’s arms. Sam picks up our bags.
“Why are you giving me this?” Six asks.
“Because we have to get the hell out of here!” I say. I grab Sam and drape him across my shoulders. “Hold on!” I yell.
We sprint away, deeper into the hills away from the river, Bernie Kosar in the lead as a hawk.
It’s hard running with Sam on my shoulders, but I still keep a pace three times faster than what he could run on his own. And a far faster pace than any of the officers. Their yelling voices fade away, and after both helicopters just crashed in a heaping mess, who’s to say they’re even following?
After twenty minutes of a full-on sprint, we stop in a small valley. Sweat runs down my face. I shrug Sam off and he drops the bags. Bernie Kosar lands.
“Well, I imagine we’re going to be all over the news again after that,” Sam says.
I nod. “Staying hidden is going to be a lot harder than I thought.” I bend over at the waist, catching my breath with my hands on my knees. I smile, which quickly changes to a kind of incredulous half laugh over what just happened.
Six grins crookedly, adjusts the Chest in her arms, and begins climbing the next hill.
“Come on, guys,” she says. “We’re far from out of the woods just yet.”
Chapter Eight
WE HOP A FREIGHT TRAIN IN TENNESSEE, AND once we are settled Six tells us about her and Katarina being captured while they were in upstate New York, just a month after narrowly escaping the Mogadorians in West Texas. This second time around, after botching the first attempt, the Mogadorians had planned well; and when they stormed the room, they totaled more than thirty in number. Six and Katarina had been able to take a few down, but they were quickly bound, gagged, and drugged. When Six woke up-having no idea how much time had
