My mouth opens a little, I lean forward and down. My eyes shut…
His lips on mine. Soft. Warm. My world is the sound of crashing water and the feel of his mouth, the taste of his breath.
His hands on my face, sliding to the back of my head. Fingers in my hair. My hands shoot out, cup his cheeks, pull him closer. I feel the tip of his tongue touch mine.
Something hits the pool, boom, boom, an explosion of water.
Bishop pulls away, looks toward the heavy splash we just heard, putting his body between me and the unknown danger.
Farrar breaks the surface, gasping for air—a second later Spingate does the same. I hear a yell from above, look up in time to see Coyotl leap off the waterfall. His legs kick and his arms flail as he plummets down. He plunges down between Farrar and Spingate, who are already swimming toward us.
They jumped?
Bishop launches himself into the pool, heads for Spingate. She swims like a fish, already leaving Farrar behind. She doesn’t need help, but Bishop goes to her anyway.
Coyotl pops up, gasping, swims toward me as hard as he can. He’s terrified.
I look up at the waterfall, and I see why.
The late afternoon sun silhouettes something, a shape blurred by the nearly blinding light. Long, jointed legs—a segment pointing up connected to one pointing down—Matilda’s memories rush forward, flash an almost matching image of that rough, horrifying form.
They aren’t that big, they can’t be that big, but there it is, larger than Bishop and Farrar and Coyotl combined.
A spider.
My hand thrusts into the water, my fingers find my spear. I point the metal tip at my new enemy.
Spingate is the first out of the pool. She scrambles over the boulders, out of my line of sight. I can’t see her, but I hear her shouting.
“Run! That thing is chasing us!”
My feet won’t move.
Bishop, Farrar and Coyotl rush out of the water. They snatch up their weapons.
I stare up at the spider, a spindly shape blurred by the shimmering sun. Perfectly still one second, the next it’s scurrying along the top of the waterfall, each step kicking up a high splash of water.
We’ll never outrun that.
It stops at the stone steps. Long legs reach down, tap at the first switchback step. Reach, tap, pull back, reach, tap…
The spider turns away and is instantly gone from sight.
It wouldn’t use the steps. Why? Are they too steep for it?
Hands on my waist—Bishop flings me over his shoulder. In an instant he bounds onto the big rocks, then down to the vine-covered street.
“Bishop, let me go!”
He does, fast and firm. He’s terrified. As big as he is, that thing, that nightmare, is much bigger.
I see the backs of Farrar, Coyotl and Spingate. They’re running the way we came, headed for the shuttle or maybe the warehouse. But the warehouse is an hour away, the shuttle even farther. If that thing finds another path down from the cliff, we won’t make it—it’s far too fast.
There is only one place we can go.
I raise the spear high and scream with the same voice that rallied us in the Garden when we fought the Grownups.
“To me! To me!”
They all stop. Spingate and Farrar come running back, instantly trusting me. Coyotl pauses, turns to run away, stops, snarls, then follows Spingate and Farrar.
Bishop grips my shoulder. His touch was tender before; now he forgets his own strength and it hurts.
“Em, what are you doing? Didn’t you see that thing? We have to run!”
I whip my arm up, knocking his hand away.
The others reach us. They are on the edge of panic. That shape, the way it moved—it frightens us at a level we can’t deny.
I look each of them in the eye as I speak.
“We’re going to that gate.”
Coyotl shakes his head.
“We should have run,” he says. He gestures wildly with his thighbone, left, right, all over. “Now we have to hide in one of these buildings.”
“It took Spingate forever to get into the warehouse,” I say. “We can’t be caught in the open if that thing comes. The gate is close. If the spider can’t handle stone steps, it can’t climb the city wall. We shut that gate behind us, we’ll be safe.”
Farrar clutches his shovel to his chest.
“The door could be stuck,” he says. “Will it close?”
I have no idea if it will move at all, but I’m not going to waste a moment second-guessing myself.
“It’s our best chance,” I say. “Move!”
We run south down the vine-choked street, heading for the larger road that runs east-west. Spingate trips, regains her balance, runs hard at my side. She’s so slow.
Bishop stays beside me. I’m sprinting all out, yet he looks like he’s barely jogging. Farrar and Coyotl could easily run out ahead of us, but they stay a few steps behind, protecting our backs.
We reach the intersection. We turn left—away from the shuttle and the warehouse—and see the gate far off down the road. Tall doors set into a taller archway.