Mr. Byrne laughed again, but this time with genuine enjoyment. “Oh yes. Our research is quite advanced. The Nox are significantly more sentient than we give them credit for. More like a dolphin than a dog in their ability to intuit our intentions. As soon as they discovered that we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement, they naturally got on board.”
Nick tilted his head. “Mutually beneficial arrangement?”
“Of course. We have to work together, you know. They provide certain services to the Grid as required. Like your little friend. And I make sure they are healthy, prosperous”—he paused and shrugged—“and plentiful.”
The intensity of the shrieking increased, almost as if the Nox were getting impatient. Something bumped against one of the windows. Then another, harder. The Nox were trying to get out. Josie remembered the way they’d come tearing into the warehouse—a fierce, merciless attack—and shuddered.
Mr. Byrne pressed another button on the wall and this time Josie heard the sounds of two deadbolts being thrown. Her stomach flip-flopped. He’d just unlocked the two doors behind them. “Now the lights are the only things keeping them at bay. So I suppose the choice is yours. You can play nice and I’ll make sure to kill you both quickly and cleanly before I let them in. Or not, and I’ll shoot you both in the kneecaps, feed you to the Nox, and pick through your bones.”
Josie glanced around the lab, desperate for a means of escape. Bare tables, dormant lab equipment, a desk, some chairs. Her eyes drifted upward to the overhead light illuminating the room, its humming made dormant by the shrill cries of the Nox behind them. It was a single, massive fluorescent bulb that ran practically the length of the room. But just one, and it was the only light in the lab.
Josie bit her lip. They’d come so far, were so close to the finish line. Her mom, Jo, Penelope, not to mention the entire human population of both their worlds—so many people were counting on her. She couldn’t let them down. Not if she could help it.
That night in the forest, the Nox hadn’t directly attacked her—more like accidentally found her in the darkness when she cried for help. And in the warehouse, when Nick had been the focus of the attack, the Nox barely touched her—even seemed surprised and scared when she lashed out at one. It was as if they didn’t know she was there.
Like she wasn’t in their world at all.
It was a hypothesis only. A theory developed from a logical examination of the facts. But Josie was about to bet her life—and Nick’s—that she was right.
“Well?” Mr. Byrne said.
Nick squeezed Josie’s hand and turned to face her. His eyes were sad, defeated. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.
Josie smiled. “We’re not dead yet.”
Nick’s brows drew together with a question he never got a chance to ask. Without warning, Josie spun around, grabbed a Bunsen burner off the table, and heaved it at the overhead light.
“No!” Mr. Byrne screamed.
Nick gasped. “What are you doing?”
For an instant, nothing moved. The burner seemed to hang in midair, locked onto the long fluorescent bulb above them. There was no sound, just a frantic blinking that happened in slow motion as the fixture swung violently back and forth on its moorings. Josie held her breath. She wasn’t sure if she wanted the light to go dark or not. If she was wrong, she and Nick were in for a horrific death. But at least they’d be taking Mr. Byrne with them.
The room went dark for a split second and Josie heard repeated thuds as the Nox propelled themselves against the cell doors. The light blinked back on, bathing the room with its sterile blue-white glow for a half second, then with a crack that Josie could feel more than hear, the bulb broke free of the fixture and plummeted to the ground, submerging the room in total darkness.
Without warning, life kicked into regular speed. She grabbed Nick by the arms and pulled him to the ground just as the muzzle of the gun flashed. But Mr. Byrne and his handgun were the least of her problems.
The sound of a crash pierced the room and suddenly the shrieks of the Nox were twice as loud. Josie felt the rush of air as they swooped into the lab.
Nick wrapped his arms around her to try and shield her from the Nox, but this wasn’t the time for chivalry. “Curl up into a ball,” she whispered.
“What? Why?”
“Stay quiet.” She didn’t have time to explain. “Trust me.”
Without waiting for him to comply, Josie forced him onto his side, then climbed on top. She wrapped her arms tightly around him, resting her head directly on top of his. Maybe, just maybe, they wouldn’t be able to sense Nick with her covering him.
A scream tore through the chaos. Not an animal this time—human. It was close to them, just on the other side of the table, and Josie could feel the terror of it seeping into her bones.
“No!” Mr. Byrne cried. “Not me. Not me!”
His screams shifted, less pleading and more pain. Excruciating pain, the kind of cries Josie imagined from a fourteenth-century witch burning at the stake. The air beat around her, faster and faster, a torrent of ecstasy in the kill.