When the Sky Fell on Splendor

by Emily Henry

  Someone was coming out.

  The top of the flap curled open, like paper running from a flame, and the face behind it wasn’t Remy’s.

  The soldier stared at me for a beat, stunned into stillness, and in that second, I saw the tatters of the wall behind him, whipping in the wind.

  The room was empty—no Remy, no Droog, but signs that they’d been there!

  That they’d ripped through the other side and gotten out!

  In the next instant, as my eyes flew back to the soldier’s, he recovered.

  He shouted something and reached toward his waist.

  The last thing I saw was his fingers making contact with the gun, and then the world seemed to rip apart.

  The walls billowed inward. The roof lifted, buoyed by wind, and all down the hallway the stakes leapt out of the ground just in time for the ceiling to be thrown back downward.

  The fabric hit me on all sides, knocking me down with its speed as it tangled around me, the wind pummeling against my back. I fought against the material, pulling it away from my face to get a good breath. The wind was so loud I could no longer hear the siren.

  I pushed myself up onto all fours and stuck my arm up, tenting the material over me as I screamed for Levi and Sofía. I couldn’t hear the sound of my own voice over the wind.

  And then, just as quickly, the fabric rebounded upward, just long enough for me to spot Levi on his stomach ahead of me, one arm bent protectively around the back of Sofía’s head. The fabric flapped down again, slapping me in waves as I army-crawled toward them.

  “WE HAVE TO GET OUT OF HERE,” I tried to yell.

  Sofía understood enough to yell back, “YOU THINK?”

  Another gust flattened the tent again, cutting me off from them. Cutting me off from air and moonlight. This time, when I fought against it, it was useless. The wind was too strong; the material was too heavy, wound too tightly around me. I couldn’t get any oxygen. My arm muscles burned, and my intestines felt like they were being wound up with a roll of barbed wire.

  It was like I was drowning.

  I could fight or I could relax and slip into it, let the darkness swallow me.

  Some instinct in my brain clicked into place, and I lost control over myself, went limp. My mind felt light, like a balloon lifting out of my body.

  Even so, another part of me was screaming in the distance: I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T BREATHE I CAN’T—

  Light pierced the fabric two feet to my left, and cool air blustered in. A hole!

  Something had just torn a hole in the fabric. And then another, first a sharp puncture and then a slice as a knife drew a wide swipe in it. Nick’s knife.

  The dim outline of hands snatched at the rippling fabric, tearing the hole wider until I could see the figure crouched on the other side. Levi reached out for me and pulled me through. The fabric caught around my hips, and I kicked against it until I freed myself the rest of the way, then lurched onto my feet between my friends.

  The tent was two-thirds flattened, metal posts jabbing out of the fabric at odd, broken angles, and tattered bits waving like defeated flags. A person-shaped blob fought against the fabric three feet away from me—the soldier who’d nearly grabbed me—and all around the camp, others were rushing to help, silhouettes sprinting toward the collapsed structure, pulling people out.

  But halfway across the ravaged cornfield, one other person was standing totally still. One other person and a dog.

  Dark hair that fell to a wool-lined denim collar, turned up against his neck.

  My ankle, my stomach, my head—all the pain in my body vanished under the wave of relief that hit me.

  I hadn’t realized I’d started running until Remy did too, Droog jogging along beside him.

  We collided in a hug, his hands clutching the back of my head, running over my hair roughly, my face burying into his neck. My body shuddered, unable to cry anymore, as the wind battered us. Morning couldn’t be too far off, but it was still too dark to see much of him. I could smell him though, breathe in the bonfire smoke that always clung to his jacket and the sweet-grassy smell his skin and clothes picked up after skateboarding.

  Thank you, I thought. Thank you thank you thank you.

  He pulled back enough to kiss the side of my face, and I knotted my fingers into his jacket. Levi and Sofía reached us, slamming into us like a basketball team at the final buzzer. Levi’s arms roped around us, squeezing so tightly it was hard to breathe.

  The relief was short-lived. The sight of Droog cutting a trail through the field, galloping toward the truck, reminded me where we were.

  Across the field, the soldiers were realizing Remy was missing, shouting as they dug through the still-writhing tent. The corn had taken a beating in the wind, stalks broken and blown over in every direction. It offered about as good a hiding place as a camo jacket.

  “THERE!” I heard someone yell. The four of us leapt apart, as two soldiers came running toward us.

  It had to be the stupidest thing we could have done in that situation, but it wasn’t the stupidest thing we’d done that night: We turned and ran.

  The field was alive, dancing in the storm, grazing my skin like a hundred tiny knives as I swam through it. The wind bolstered me sideways, backward, and every step I took gave my leg muscles a feeling like being shredded—but I could see the truck in the distance, the door hanging open.

  Arthur standing outside it, beckoning us on with a blown-out cigarette still hanging from his mouth. Levi reached him first, practically dove from the edge of the field into the truck, and Sofía bounded in after him, followed by Droog. Ahead of me, Remy burst from the corn next and reached the door, throwing a look back to check my progress.

  I was still a good six yards off, fighting the pain in my abdomen, pushing my legs and swollen ankle hard as they could go.

  Arthur was still waving me on. Remy was still watching my too-slow progress from the truck’s doorway.

  His eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open, and I knew there must be someone right behind me now.

  I was only a few yards away now. Almost there.

  Remy took one step toward me, but Arthur grabbed the wool of his collar and jerked him back, screaming something I couldn’t hear as he shoved Remy toward the waiting semitruck, where Levi grabbed him.

  Remy was screaming, but Levi wouldn’t let go of him, and Arthur was coming toward me.

  My legs were numb, thudding uselessly into the wind. The world had been dark already, but now it seemed to shrink around me as my grip on consciousness slipped.

  No. I had to keep running.

  With the wind resistance and my fatigue, it felt like I was sprinting through Jell-O. Rushing into an ocean that kept pushing me back.

  Arthur was yelling my name now, running full tilt to me, his wiry arms pumping at his sides, his cigarette falling, forgotten, from his mouth.

  He was close enough that I could see the fear in his face.

  Bright, unhindered horror. I couldn’t help it. I looked over my shoulder, expecting dozens of soldiers, dozens of guns.

  But there was no one in the corn behind me.

  Only dark clouds, congealing over the field: angry, gray things that rushed like a river, spiraling. A funnel was beginning to form, stretching down toward the ground not far behind me.

  The siren was still blaring. My heart palpitated as shreds of fabric, metal shafts, paper and plastic debris skated across the ground, lifting and dropping as drafts of air caught at them.

  A metal pole slingshotted toward me, and blood spurted into my mouth as my teeth caught my tongue again.

  It was an instantaneous thought. Wordless, more like a feeling really, but had it known language, or had time to be translated into English, it would’ve been something like END.

  Something grabbed hold of me and jerked me
sideways, and the metal pole spun past, smashing into the side of the truck trailer. I spun to face Arthur. His bushy eyebrows were high up his forehead, and his mouth was taut.

  I tried to say his name, but no sound came out. I couldn’t feel any part of my body. My legs were giving out. He clutched me to him and screamed into my ear, “I GOT YOU, FRAN.”

  And then we were moving, my feet barely kicking as he pulled me along to the open door. I couldn’t make my legs work, but Remy and Nick were reaching down and Arthur was boosting me up, and then without any climbing, I was inside.

  THIRTY-THREE

  REMY PULLED ME ONTO the cot in the back with the others, and Nick hit the gas so hard the passenger door flung shut, and I fell across Remy and Levi both. Lightning struck somewhere to our left, and the thunder cracked out within a second of it.

  “Where are we going?” Remy asked as he pulled me over to sit between him and Sofía. “I mean, what are we doing? Fleeing the country?”

  A look passed between Arthur and Nick.

  “Guys?” Remy pressed. “There is a plan, right? You didn’t just steal me from—from the U.S. Armed Forces and the FBI without a plan. . . .”

  “People can’t be stolen,” Levi said. “We either abducted or rescued you.”

  “And that,” Remy said, “will depend somewhat on where you’re taking me.”

  Nick spun the wheel suddenly down the curvy, wooded road that connected to Old Crow Station just under the train tracks. The tail end of the truck skidded one way through the rain then back the other as Nick corrected. “The plan is to save the world. Everything beyond that is somewhat up in the air right now.”

  “Okay,” Remy said. “Then how do we save the world?”

  Tree branches were tearing loose ahead of us, flinging themselves across the road. Either a train was passing over the tracks now or the tornado was making a comparable sound.

  Sofía made a face. “That’s somewhat up in the air right now too.”

  “TBD,” Arthur confirmed.

  “And the tornado is certainly a complication!” Levi added just as a spruce branch struck the metal guardrail on our left.

  “Your scars.” I reached for the hem of Remy’s shirt. “Are they gone?”

  He peeled the fabric off his stomach

  Relief gushed through me as I let out a breath. “Gone,” I told Nick and Arthur, who were craning their necks to see even as Nick was maneuvering the semi over the bridge.

  “I don’t understand—how did they just go away?”

  “They’re linked to the energy,” Sofía explained. “Physical markers. As for how we know: long story.”

  “That guy you and Franny were secretly e-mailing turned out to be a murderous psychopath who tried to kidnap Fran and in so doing revealed some more information about how this alien parasite operates,” Levi said. “So not that long a story.”

  Remy’s gaze wrenched toward mine, and his dimple appeared along with an angry twist to his mouth. “Bill tried to kidnap you?”

  Nick punched the brakes and turned the wheel sharply, spinning us onto Old Crow Station, and I stifled a scream as the back of the trailer slammed into something we hadn’t managed to clear, then scraped along it.

  Remy was still waiting for an answer, brow dented.

  “I’m fine,” I promised. “Sofía saved me.”

  He grabbed for my hand and squeezed it, as he studied me for a few seconds, and then he let go. He caught the sides of my face in his hands and kissed me. It was warm and rough and short and right in front of everyone, which made it embarrassing and wonderful and weird and completely normal. It was perfect, even if it didn’t last very long, and even if it never happened again.

  “What in the Sam Hill?” Nick cried from the driver seat. My cheeks were on fire, but Remy looked totally unembarrassed and calm and Remyish.

  “Obviously,” Sofía said. “What good do those huge eyes even do you, Nick?”

  “About time!” Levi held up both his palms to us. “Up top, Fremy.”

  “Please, no,” I said.

  “What, do you prefer ‘Renny’?”

  “Absolutely not,” Remy said.

  Arthur had been watching the whole display. “Weird,” he said, brow furrowed, then turned back in his seat, disinterested by the whole thing.

  Sofía cleared her throat. “Anyway, I’m officially out of power. What about you, Levi? Have you checked your scars since last night?”

  He twisted on the cot so she could pull his shirt collar down his back. “Gone,” she confirmed.

  “That just leaves Arthur and me.” Nick steered us onto the access road that ran to Wayne’s cabin in the woods.

  It was almost morning now, but the sky had gone darker than it was an hour ago as the funnel cloud in the distance behind us pulled everything into it.

  As we drove past our house, the shed door blew open and smacked the side of the building. Shingles were ripping loose from our roof, and grocery bags and plastic bottles picked up by the wind down the road were flying through the sky.

  Dad’s truck wasn’t in our driveway.

  Where was he? At a job? On his way home?

  We rumbled into the woods, curled up the drive, but stopped before we reached the cabin.

  “What’s the goal?” Remy shouted as we jumped out of the truck and into the wind. “To find the machine or find Wayne?”

  “We need both,” I said.

  The machine to save the world.

  The man to save ourselves.

  As for how we’d get rid of Arthur’s scars before Agent Rothstadt and the others showed up, I still had no ideas. Fleeing the country was looking better.

  “In this storm, he’ll be down in the cellar!” Arthur said.

  “But the machine’s not!” I screamed over the tornado siren.

  “The storm’s too dangerous—we’ll get it after! Come on!” Arthur led the way, wielding a random pipe he must’ve found in the truck like a baseball bat.

  The padlock on the cellar hadn’t been replaced, and Arthur threw one green door open, pinning it back against the wind as we raced down the steps with nothing to protect us but our sheer number.

  All we had to do was subdue him and keep him there until the others showed up.

  But the light wasn’t on, and in the jade glow coming from above, the cellar appeared to be empty. Nick reached the pull chain and tugged, but the power was out here too.

  “He’s not down—” I turned toward the stairs, and my words dropped off.

  Arthur was still standing at the top, looking down at us. With one hand, he held the metal pipe, and with the other, he clutched the cellar door.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “Get down here!”

  His eyes were sharply focused on me, and his wide mouth was tensed.

  For a second, as I watched his matted blond hair cycloning around his freckled face, everything seemed to go silent. Arthur’s mouth opened. He shook his head, and then his voice cut through, calm and quiet and sure: “Like a brother, Franny.”

  I lunged for the stairs. “No!”

  Arthur was already closing the cellar door, shutting me off from him and whatever he was about to do.

  I flung myself up the steps and slammed my palms against the door just as it dropped into place, cloaking us in perfect darkness. The door jogged an inch, but no more, and I heard the metal pipe scraping along the surface on the far side, as Arthur slid it through the handles to lock us in.

  “What’s he doing?!” Nick shrieked.

  I couldn’t answer through my tears, through my fists pounding uselessly against the wood as I screamed his name.

  “There were lanterns,” Remy said somwhere in the dark behind me. “I saw them the other day.” There was a rustling along the metal shelves and then a click, a flood of fluorescent ligh
t just as Sofía raced up the steps. She thrust her shoulder against the door while I kept pounding on it, but it didn’t budge.

  She looked at me, wide-eyed, confused. “Did he lock us in?”

  “Why would he do that?” Levi asked.

  I couldn’t answer. The door was rattling on its hinges. The storm was deafening. I pictured Arthur being swept up by a gust and slammed into a tree.

  Shot by Wayne Hastings.

  Forced into the back of a black SUV by Agent Rothstadt.

  Taken somewhere I’d never see him again.

  Maybe his plan was to do all three.

  He still has scars.

  A wordless scream tore through me. I pounded harder against the door.

  Not him. Not him too. Mom may have never belonged to me, but Arthur was mine. Even when he held me back, even when he rode out ahead, he was mine.

  “Fran, you’re bleeding,” Remy said. I shook him off and ran back down the stairs, Nick jumping out of the way as I beelined for the wall of tools.

  I pulled an ax down and headed back for the stairs.

  “There’s a tornado out there, Franny!” Levi said.

  “My brother’s out there,” I screamed.

  Because no matter what he was willing to say to get me to climb, Arthur had always been my safety net.

  He’d always been there, waiting in case I fell, and I knew he couldn’t always be, that life made no promises. But right now, in this moment, I still had him, and he still had me.

  “My brother’s out there,” I repeated, “and I’m going to get him.”

  “The worktable.” Sofía jogged back down to the wall of tools. “Anyone who wants to stay should barricade themselves in with it when we’re gone.”

  I looked at her as she hauled a sledgehammer down from a hook on the wall. She shrugged at me. “Your brother can’t get all the credit for saving the world.”

  “I wasn’t saying I’m not going, by the way,” Levi said. “Just establishing the stakes!”

  “And I just wanted you to stop breaking your hand bones,” Remy said seriously.

  Nick pulled a shovel off the wall. “I came back for a reason, y’all. I’m with you till the end. I swear to God.”