Natalie has already jumped down, and I do the same, afraid that they heard me. Billy drops beside us.
Only Justin is still on the fire escape.
A tall man with greasy black hair gets out of the truck and aims a gun at Justin. The razor blades protruding from his arms glint in the sunlight.
“Don’t move, Jenny,” he says with a dark laugh. “Don’t even think about it. You might be strong, but you can’t outrun a bullet.”
Justin glares down at him. “We all need to get out of here. There’s a Xua frenzy headed this way.”
“Yeah? What is that?”
“More aliens than you can count, ready to kill you and everyone on this block.”
“You high?” the guy asks with a smirk.
Just then, the guy’s buddies start to return to the truck, all proudly calling out what they stole. Food, liquor, prescription drugs, jewelry, guns, and ammo. One of them opens a bottle of Johnnie Walker and slugs it down as he walks.
Natalie and Billy crouch down beside me. She holds a gun in her right hand like it’s a new piece of jewelry, like she’s always carried a firearm. I shake my head. That was how she died in her last life, a gunshot wound.
I’ve already lost my brother and my parents. I can’t bear to lose my best friend, too.
Instead, I stand up and push my way in front of both Natalie and Billy.
“You want to know what a Xua frenzy is?” I call out to the gang leader. “It’s every dream and hope you’ve ever had, destroyed in an instant. It’s every person you’ve ever loved, dead. It’s your city burned, your country invaded, your world served up on a platter for alien thugs who will never be satisfied—”
“Sara, don’t,” Justin calls from the fire escape.
The gang leader turns toward me, a dangerous grin on his face. He flexes his forearms, showing off the line of blades that could easily shred flesh, and aims his gun at me. “I can do that with one bullet. Right between your eyes.”
Shadows move across the street, and something glints beside a dumpster. That’s all the warning I get before the street comes alive with tatted thugs, sixteen muscular guys strategically positioned up and down the street, all of them carrying guns aimed at me and Justin and all the East Side Dragons.
At first I think they’re Blood Lords, but I’ve never seen any gang do this before. Then I realize some of them are my neighbors, some are Blood Lords, and some are Manny’s cousins. L.A. has turned into a war zone in the past twenty-four hours, and it looks like the people in my neighborhood are determined to survive.
It doesn’t matter whether the invaders are human or Xua. Nobody’s going to get away with hurting the people who live here.
A familiar figure joins the crowd, strolling casually down the center of the street, like he owns this part of town and all the people in it. It is his territory, I guess.
“Take your fight somewhere else,” Manny says. Three of his boys walk behind him, all of them carrying rifles.
“Manny,” I call out. “Don’t shoot us.”
At first, Manny frowns, while everyone keeps their guns aimed, just like before. Then he flashes me a crooked grin.
“Get down on the ground, Sara,” he says, and I breathe a sigh of relief. “You and all your friends. Tell your Jenny to jump and then get on the ground.”
We do as he says, even though I can tell Justin isn’t really on board with it. I keep my head turned so I can see what’s happening. Natalie’s lying beside me and Billy beside her. Manny and his boys cluster in front of us, their guns aimed at the invading looters.
“Get back in your truck,” Manny says to the guy with black hair, seemingly not intimidated by the amount of metal these guys have in their bodies. Must be the sheer firepower he’s got at his back. “And give us back those drugs,” he adds. “My grandma lives in that house, and if you took her prescription meds, you’re gonna regret it.”
The guy eyes him and the rifles currently pointing his way, then shouts, “Ronan, Kristof—give this guy his granny’s meds.”
“How much time do we have before the frenzy gets here?” I whisper to Natalie.
“A couple of minutes. We’ll need to go east to avoid it,” she says in a low voice.
A heartbeat passes, and the Santa Ana wind blows down the street, carrying debris from trees, stirring up the heat. Finally, two guys wearing jean jackets come warily toward Manny, their hands raised. They stop about three feet away, so close I can smell the scotch on their breath. One of them tosses a plastic bag filled with prescription bottles to Manny. He examines the contents of the bag, then nods.
Manny’s boys knee the looters in the crotch. The two East Side Dragons crumple over, covering their heads while the Blood Lords kick them again and again with their heavy steel-toed boots.
We have to get out of here; we don’t have time to wait for these rivals to come to some sort of agreement. I bite my lip, and my hands curl into fists, nails digging in my palms.
I know it’s my imagination, but I feel like I hear the frenzy getting closer, people choking to death, bodies falling to the ground; I think I can smell blood and ash on the wind.
“We have to get out of here,” I call out to Manny as I climb hesitantly to my feet. “All of us do. The aliens are coming. Haven’t you seen how they take over people? How they turn into smoke and get inside and possess everyone—”
“Yes,” he says, his voice coming out like a cold wind. He turns to look at me, and his gaze turns icy, his eyes unfathomable. Shadows from the building fall over his black eyes and the intricate pattern of blue-black symbols on his face. “Yes, I’ve seen them. One of their demons got inside Gregor, and he came at me with a machete.” His voice thickens, and he pauses before speaking again. “I had to shoot him.”
I move slowly, cautiously, out of my hiding place behind the bushes. “You have to let us go. Or shoot us, because we’re running now. And you should, too.”
“Go ahead,” Manny says. “This isn’t your fight. Here. Take this with you.” He extends his arm, rifle in one hand.
“Thanks.”
“It’s what we do, right? We stick together and fight the enemy who’s trying to take over our turf.”
His face softens a bit as I take his weapon. Neither one of us wants to admit it, but we have something in common—we both do whatever we can to protect our little corner of the universe.
33
The sky darkens overhead as the sun disappears behind a swift procession of ominous gray clouds. A soft rain starts to fall as we climb onto our motorcycles. We’re almost ready to go when Justin glances behind us. He frowns, then shakes his head.
“What is it?” Billy asks.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just have a bad feeling about this.”
“What?” I ask.
Justin’s got an uncanny sixth sense at times. I’ve often wondered if he can remember things from my past jumps.
“Don’t worry about it,” he replies. Then to Billy he says, “Follow me. Natalie says we need to go east if we’re trying to get away from that frenzy.”
A heartbeat later, the motorcycle thunders beneath us, and the street unwinds before us, revealing events from the previous evening. Apparently while we were all sleeping in apartment 4A, a quiet battle raged in Santa Ana. I count five dead bodies between Edinger and Dyer, two car wrecks, an overturned police car in a parking lot on Main, a house being lit on fire, and two more houses being looted as we pass.
We make a sharp right on Bishop and when we do, a Rottweiler charges out of a nearby backyard, the gate left open, a body lying in the driveway. Wearing a thick studded collar and trailing a leash behind it, the dog growls and snaps at my feet, chasing us for three blocks until we turn onto a different road. The dog stands in the intersection for a few heartbeats, barking, before it trots back in the direction it came, proba
bly to protect its dead owner.
Loyalty. It doesn’t stop, no matter what happens.
An image of Gabe comes back to me, him turning around one last time to look at me on the freeway, his eyes meeting mine, the realization that I failed him.
Aerithin didn’t tell me the truth about the invasion. Maybe there’s more to all this than I know.
Maybe there’s still a way to save my brother and I just haven’t figured it out yet.
I add finding out to plan C.
…
Drops of rain spatter me on the face and arms and the wind turns cold. A few weeks ago, I would have been glad to see our drought finally ending. Today, all the rain means is that our solar bike could run out of power at any moment, and that we need to be more careful because the roads are now slick and dangerous. Southern California’s infamous for long periods of drought followed by sudden flash floods. But instead of being careful, Justin and I lean forward, flying bullet-fast over rain-mirrored streets, beside gutters filling up, water already spilling onto sidewalks and pooling in driveways. We splash through an intersection, rear wheel sliding sideways, my heart thumping when I think I might fly off the bike. A second later, we’ve got traction again and we’re thundering through a world of gray rain, my skin drenched despite my clothes.
The rain is so thick it’s impossible to see more than a dozen yards in any direction, but I feel something. It’s almost like I’m picking up on that spooky premonition Justin had before we left. I look over my shoulder.
A dark shape flashes just at the edge of my peripheral vision, some sort of vehicle, masked behind a veil of rain. Is someone chasing us?
“Go faster!” I shout in Justin’s ear, hoping he can hear me over the storm. His body tenses and the bike whines into a higher gear, a speed I didn’t even realize this motorcycle was capable of. We’re blinded, the whipping curtain of rain narrowing down our visibility even further.
Then there’s a dangerous metallic sound that repeats over and over, echoing dull and threatening. The rain muffles the noise, but it still shoots terror through my veins.
Because I know what it is. I’ve heard it in too many lifetimes.
Gunshots.
Someone behind us is shooting, maybe at us.
We have to stop. Now.
I grip Justin’s waist. “Pull over!”
We almost lose control of the bike. The motorcycle slows, then slides. We almost get thrown off into the water that washes down the side of this humpbacked street. All four of us ditch our bikes and we run, looking for cover, a house or a garage, something that can protect us.
I can still hear that awful metallic sound, and it’s even closer now.
Definitely gunshots.
We’re somewhat shielded from sight by the rain, but at any moment one of those bullets could slice through the sky and take us down. Justin and I run side by side; Billy and Natalie morph into gray shadows that hulk beside us, leading us away from the road. We run, crouched low.
I still can’t see whoever is shooting.
Who are they?
“Over here,” a voice calls from the street.
I don’t care who it is—I’m not going back out there. I’d be in the line of fire.
Justin doesn’t pause. He wraps one arm around me and pulls me away from the street. Together, the two of us jog across a lawn, still hunched over. Shots smolder in the near distance, some of them ringing so close I can feel them whizzing past, mere inches away. I hold my breath, try to make myself smaller, huddling close to the ground. A cinder-block wall looms up ahead, a dividing line between two properties.
“Not that way!” the voice calls again. It’s a girl, but I can’t see her.
I run the last few feet, land with my back against the cement wall.
I squint through the rain, looking toward the street, and I think I see a girl with black hair, dressed in camouflage. “Is that Carla?” I ask. “Is she shooting at us?”
“There were two vehicles following us.” Justin peers through the rain. “Carla was in one of them, but there’s another one out there, too. Whoever’s in that second vehicle is shooting at us.”
A spray of bullets hits the wall beside us, sending bits of cinder block flying. Justin yanks me under him onto the ground. “Stay down!”
“No! We have to find Natalie!” I wrestle away from him and frantically scan the street, looking for her. Rain strikes the ground with such force it bounds back up, a cascade of water so heavy it erases things in the distance.
I can’t see. I can’t find her.
Finally I spot a pair of shadows—crouching low as they try to run, as if that can give them protection. I hope it’s Natalie and Billy. I want to yell, Hurry, hurry, run faster! But then that thought fades away because shots ring out again—a thin, wet sound almost like drumbeats.
Natalie spins away from Billy.
She’s been hit!
Her feet lift off the ground, her body turns and flies. She’s a dark shadow with wings, airborne, a shadow that falls to the ground with a muddy thump.
No! No!
Justin tackles me before I even realize I’ve moved and pins me down. I scream her name into a mound of wet grass, each syllable rocking my body with fear.
“Natalie!”
Somewhere nearby, an engine rumbles and flares to life. There’s a flash of headlights, like teeth in the darkness, and a jeep lunges across the grass toward the street. It passes a few yards to my right, and it takes all my courage to hold still. I’m desperate to escape.
“Don’t move,” Justin breathes in my ear.
It slogs into the rain-filled street. Somehow it misses both Natalie and Billy, but it crunches over both our motorbikes. I catch a glimpse of several strong-jawed soldiers inside the vehicle, all of them carrying rifles.
I clench my fists, still listening as the jeep charges down the street, my eyes searching the curve of lawn and driveway for Natalie and finally finding her. I pull away from Justin, horribly aware of the fact that Natalie isn’t moving. Rain washes over her, wave after wave, and she blurs in the gray mist. She’s so still. I run across the driveway and stumble to a stop over her body. Billy hunches at her side, one hand on her arm as if that’s all it will take to revive her, a puzzled expression on his face.
“Natalie? Are you okay? Natalie!”
Billy and I say the same thing, over and over.
She can’t die. She just can’t.
I kneel at her side, looking for a wound, but the rain runs down my face, getting in my eyes. If there is a bullet wound, shouldn’t I be able to see it? It’s not until I run my hands over her jacket that my index finger snags on two small holes in the leather, right next to each other, both so small I almost missed them. But once my finger touches one of them, blood oozes out, thin and bright, mixing with the rain, sliding pink over my hand.
Her blood on my hands.
No, no, not again, please no…
“We have to get her to a doctor, right away,” a girl says beside me. It’s Carla, her arms clutched tight to her chest. “I know where to go. Come with me.”
Justin slides his hands beneath Natalie and pulls her to his chest, her arms and legs limp.
That’s when I see the pool of blood spreading across the grass. There’s so much blood—how will she survive this?
“Get in the car,” Carla tells us, taking charge. “I’ll drive you guys to a military clinic that’s still open.”
Justin and I follow Carla to her car, the windows shattered and the doors riddled with bullet holes. Together, the three of us brush aside the glass and get Natalie inside.
“Why are you here, and who was shooting at us?” Billy asks.
“Later,” Carla says as she climbs in the driver’s seat.
“No,” he insists. “No one was following us until you sho
wed up. Were they with you? Tell us now before—”
His last words get cut off as Justin shoves him into the front seat.
“I don’t know how they found us,” Carla says. “I was only able to track you because of the marker I gave Sara.”
Wait. That red poker chip she gave me in Snake City was a tracker?
“Who else has access to the data?” I ask, a sinking feeling in my gut.
“No one,” she says firmly. “I destroyed the tracking tech as soon as I found you.”
I breathe out a small sigh of relief. If she hadn’t and the Xua got their hands on it, we’d never be safe. Still, I’m throwing away that chip.
“I swear the last thing I wanted was for one of you to get hurt,” she says as we pull away from the curb. “Everyone else I know is already dead.”
She’s tough and she’s a take-charge girl, but her hands are trembling, and now and then her voice cracks.
I’ve been there. It sucks.
We race down the street toward the military clinic, Justin and me in the backseat, Natalie sprawled across our laps. I take off my jacket and press it against the bullet holes in the center of her chest, trying to stop the flow of blood. Her eyes flicker open and she stares at me, although I can’t tell if she sees me or not. It’s like she’s focusing on something far away.
“You’re gonna be okay, Nat,” I say, trying to sound more confident than I feel. She has to make it. I can’t do this without her. We haven’t even come up with plan C yet. How am I supposed to save the world without Natalie?
Her lips tremble and her face grows pale. That gun tumbles from her pocket, snagging her bracelet on the way to the floor. With a rolling jingle, all those jade and gold beads scatter across the carpet, like her life force is being drained out. But I can’t let that happen, so I lean down and scoop up as many beads as I can find and stuff them in my pocket. Then I pick up the gun and hold it between two fingers, far away from my body. I want to toss it out the window.
“Give it to me,” Justin says, extending his hand.
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