“I don’t think I can.”
“We need to get him out of the street,” my mother says.
My mother takes his hands and I take his feet, but before the two of us can hoist him, I see the pickup truck again. It is stopped in the middle of the street, facing the opposite direction. Its taillights flash red and the tires squeal as it comes back our way.
My mother and I hurry my father to the sidewalk as the truck spins around, doing a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn, then revs its engines as it tears toward us. My mother steps back into the street, clamps her hands down on our wrecked car, and much to my surprise gives it a hefty push. It skids down the street on its roof, sending up sparks in every direction, then slams into the truck before the driver can react. The truck topples over on its side, crushing the men sitting in the back. There’s an explosion, and both vehicles catch fire.
“The money!” I cry.
“It’s not important,” my mother says.
“Do you at least have the ID?”
Mom shakes her head. “They were in my pack.”
My father groans and I lean down to him. “It doesn’t matter anyway. The guards at the blockade are watching for us by now. We’re stuck.”
“There’s one place we can still go,” my mother says, turning her gaze in the direction of the beach.
My father shakes his head. “That’s a terrible idea.”
“The Alpha?” I ask.
“We have to,” my mother says. “We’ve got no other options.”
“They’ll try to kill you,” my father says to her.
“We have to try!”
“Can we decide?” Bex says, pointing down the street. There are cop cars coming right at us.
My father tries to stand but collapses again. “Go without me.”
“We don’t split up!” I shout.
“I can’t walk.”
“I’ll carry you,” my mother says.
“No, you can’t move me. The bone could impale an organ. I’m better off with the police,” he says.
My mother shakes her head. “I won’t leave you. They’ll take you to that camp!”
“Then you’ll just have to rescue me,” he says.
My mother gives him a kiss. “You are my selfsame,” she says.
“Take care of your mother, Lyric.”
“NO! We’re not leaving!”
My mother latches her hand onto my wrist and drags me. I fight and scream, but there’s no use. I can’t break her grip. Bex follows, and the three of us zigzag down alleys to avoid cop cars. It’s slow going because the trash and filth are everywhere and I am putting up a tremendous struggle. I curse her while she drags me up the ramp, but she doesn’t stop, even when we are confronted by a mountain of muck and garbage stacked for miles in both directions. It’s made from hundreds of years of lazy people’s waste: bicycles, toys, dirty diapers, rusty cans, soaked clothes, license plates, car tires, and a billion broken bottles stacked four stories high. Foster and the rest of the soldiers who are supposed to guard this boardwalk are gone. I hope they ran off and aren’t buried alive under this heap.
Unfortunately, the heap is blocking our path to the beach.
“We have to get their attention,” my mother says, then releases a booming thrum just as loud and long as the one I heard the night the Alpha arrived. It shakes the air and causes goose bumps up and down my arms. For an excruciatingly long moment we stand beneath the wall, waiting for some kind of response. My mother calls out again. Still nothing.
I hear footsteps on the boardwalk and turn to see that the missing soldiers are back. They run in our direction, aiming their rifles at us and shouting something I can’t make out.
“They’re coming!” Bex says.
One of the men fires his gun into the air. Now I can hear them telling us to get on the ground, but there’s water there, seeping out from under the wall, pouring over my shoes, swirling around the three of us, and then a section of the trash spills out and flows past us, revealing an archway to the other side. Standing in it are twenty of the biggest, most heavily armed Selkies I have seen so far. They carry spears and bark something at my mother that she responds to in their language.
Terrance Lir appears in the opening.
“Summer, you realize what this means?”
“What does this mean?” I ask.
She nods. “I’m ready, but you have to take in my daughter and her friend.”
Terrance gestures to the guards. They snarl but step aside, and my mother pushes me through the door. Bex follows, and before the soldiers can get us, the water returns. It swirls around the trash like it’s alive.
“How?” I shout.
My mother looks just as surprised as me.
“That was me,” Ghost says. He’s standing right behind us with his glowing metal glove, gesturing toward the trash that rises off the ground and into the hole in the wall, sealing it tight.
Suddenly, two Selkies clamp their hands on my mother’s arms.