I manage to twist to my side, even though my left kneecap collapses in on itself when pressed against the floor. All the air in my lungs whooshes out again, but a few well-placed orders from Caleb gets me to roll once more before the Elder can strike me again. The floor is not so lucky; the wood splinters where my sternum once lay.
I focus on the table long enough to hurl it at the Elder. It emits a low-pitched shriek, so unlike all of the others I’ve ever heard from these things, and ends up catching the table. I rip the hutch off the wall and shove it at the monster, too.
Black smoke stretches thin and regroups enough to envelope and crush the hutch, absorbing the sound like a black hole or something. I try to push myself forward, but my wrist refuses to hold my weight. My chin hits the floor; warm blood gushes down my neck.
MOVE, Caleb orders.
But I can’t. Instead, I slam a barricade down in between me and the Elder, one that stretches wall-to-wall, ceiling to floor. Then I slam one down on what I assume to be the other side of the Elder, boxing it in. Finally, I slam a third down on the other side of me, so I’m boxed into the house, too. The Elder beats against our shared wall, reminding me of the relentless pounding on the cave months before. Still, it refuses to scream.
Why isn’t it screaming? They always scream. It’s their thing. Screaming.
It’s like I’m underwater. My ears buzz.
FOCUS, Caleb roars in my mind.
I can’t, I can’t, good lords above, I am in paaaaiiiinnnnn.
It’s not howling because it doesn’t want the Guard to know it’s here, Caleb snaps. You need to LET THEM KNOW.
I fumble for my phone. It’s not in my pocket. I’m in my pajamas; the phone must be in my room. My room is close to where the Elder is. Gods my head aches. I can’t focus. It’s hitting the wall a lot. I’m blocked in a small swath of space in between the living room and dining room.
I need to call Jonah.
It takes me three tries to get a phone right. The first one has no buttons. How can I dial with no buttons? The second has no way to talk. It’s all buttons, no talkie parts. The third, please gods let this phone work.
My wrist is broken. I can’t dial with those fingers. I lay the phone on my stomach and pray that I’m getting the number right, but I’m not right handed. My fingers are stubby against the buttons. I need one of those old people phones that have big buttons. I should make one of those.
FOCUS.
Someone named Jilly who sounds like she’s six answers. She asks if I want to talk to her mom. I think I say no, but Jilly screams when I moan and hangs up on me. My ears feel like they’re bleeding now, too. Buzzin’ and bleedin’.
I try again. Another wrong number. I gurgle out an apology and then try again. And again. Why can’t I get this right? All I want to do is sleep. I hurt. I hurt.
I hurt. Gods, do I hurt.
Dial, Caleb urges. Call Jonah. You can do it.
I manage to get it right after two more tries. Jonah tries to say something, like hello, maybe? But I tell him, “Hurt. Come?”
Although, things are sort of numb now. Not so painful. Sleepy. So sleepy.
Jonah doesn’t say anything. Did he hear me? I let the phone drop. I want to nap.
The Elder finally starts screaming. This is how it’s supposed to be. These things scream. They’re screamers. I want to scream, too, but can’t, because it’s sort of hard to.
I push myself up on my good elbow right as the wall in front of me crumbles. Karl shakes wall stuff off his fist. “What is it with you and walls, Chloe?”
He’s funny, that Karl.
Jonah pushes past him to get to me. He says a lot of sweet things. I’m glad he’s here. He picks me up and holds me like . . . like . . . like in a movie or a book. A good one, with a hero. That’s it. He’s a hero. My hero. I want to throw my arms around his neck, but one arm is all crooked.
I go to tell him that I think it’s broken when I realize my hero is spitting fire. ‘Cause he’s yelling at the Guard who’ve followed him and Karl in to find me, and—whoa. He’s red he’s so angry.
He stops long enough to say to me, “Don’t go to sleep.”
Ha. Haha. Right.
“Don’t. Go. To. Sleep,” he warns.
“Heroes aren’t bossy,” I inform him. But damn him, he makes it so I’m super awake before he yells at those poor guys some more.
Everyone is saying they truly thought they had the house covered. And, they did—I’ll give them that—but the Electric tasked with watching the back entrance had to use the bathroom and left his post for a couple of minutes. Which means the Elder must’ve been watching us for quite awhile, biding its time until it had the perfect opening.
The guy’s genuinely contrite, apologizing to me multiple times. I try to tell him it’s no big deal, everybody has to pee sometime, but Jonah isn’t down with any of his or anyone else’s excuses.
“We’re leaving,” he tells Karl, but the big guy is blocking the exit he’d created just minutes before.
“We need Chloe to help contain it. You know it’ll escape if she doesn’t.”