“I’m staying,” I said. “But Brooke is … Listen. I have been alone my entire life.” I don’t know why I was telling him this, but it just came spilling out. “Even when I had people looking out for me, caring for me, doing everything they could to help me, I was alone because I thought I was alone. I acted like I was alone. I hated my life and myself and everything else, but now … somewhere…” I couldn’t say it in front Brooke—that somewhere inside of her was the only person I’d ever loved. That I was saving Brooke because of Marci. “Listen,” I said again. “When I’m with her I’m myself, for the first time in my entire life. She makes me, me. And I’m not going to lose her again.” I looked Mills right in the eyes. “Not to some lunatic town full of human booby traps just waiting to go off and kill someone. We can’t predict how it’s going to happen, or where, or by whom, so we get her out, we get her safe, and then I find this Withered and I make it stop.”
“Do you have a plan?” asked Brooke. Her voice was thin, but determined.
“I’ll make one when you’re safe,” I said firmly.
Mills shook his head, biting his upper lip as he looked around. “The cavalry are coming,” he said. “I just talked to DC—everything Davis said is true and it’s already in motion. This town is about to become the safest place on the whole frigging continent.”
“Are you not listening to me?” I asked. “You’re going to bring a bunch of men with guns to a place where people are randomly turning into murderbots? And you think that’s safe?”
“We can’t prove that’s what’s actually happening,” said Mills.
“You want to risk another Fort Bruce on me being wrong?” I asked.
Mills shook his head again. “Nuke it from orbit,” he muttered. “That’s the only way to be sure.”
“I was in that movie,” said Brooke.
Mills looked at her, blinking, then back at me. “Do you need to get anything first?”
“Her clothes,” I said. “And Boy Dog.”
His eyebrows rose in disbelief. “Does he make you, you, too?”
“I will kill you with my bare hands,” I said. “I don’t hurt animals or allow them to be hurt by inaction. I have rules that keep me controlled and you safe. Get my dog out of this town, or I cannot describe to you the cataclysmic ways I will make you regret it.”
Mills stared at me, then shook his head and walked toward the door. “Come on, then. And next time you see Nobody, tell her I put the cuffs on the wrong psychopath.”
We gave him directions to Ingrid’s house, and he drove in silence, presumably second-guessing this entire plan. Was he really going to just let me go? Could he possibly explain it to his superiors? Or was he going to go back on the whole thing at the last minute?
“You have to stay with her the entire time,” I said. I was in the front seat, Brooke was alone in the back. “Leave her alone for two seconds and that might be the two seconds a different personality takes over.”
“I’ll keep her safe,” said Mills. “And you have my rock solid guarantee on that because I know it’s the only way I’m getting you back again.”
“He’ll hold me hostage for your return,” said Brooke softly.
She sounded betrayed, but worse, she sounded resigned. Something horrible had happened, and she didn’t have the will to fight it. I didn’t how to respond to her, so I turned back to Mills. “Keep her away from anything that can be used as a weapon. She tried to slit her wrists with a screw from a table leg once.”
“I don’t want you to leave me,” said Brooke.
“I won’t,” I said. “I’m not. This is just like the shower at the truck stop, okay? You do one thing while I do another.”
She smiled wistfully. “I knew we missed our chance back there.”
“We’ll get another,” I said, feeling a wave of heat pass through my body. I wondered if I was blushing and what Mills was thinking, but I pushed that away and focused on Brooke. “I’m the one who walks into hell, remember? They can’t take you anywhere I won’t come to find you. I will always protect you, no matter what.”
At that moment, something massive hit the car, blocking out the light in my side window, and before I could see what it was the car was spinning out of control, swerving to the side. Mills yelled something incoherent, scrambling at the wheel, and then we slammed into something else and the airbags exploded, punching me in the face and knocking all the air from my lungs.
I blinked, stunned and deafened and trying to remember where I was. My seat moved, jostled by something, and then my window went dark again. The air was full of powder from the airbags, drifting and swirling in front me. Sounds returned slowly. A scream. A metallic rip. Another scream.
Brooke.
I tried to turn around to see her, but my seatbelt had locked itself tight. I swatted at the deflating airbags, trying to reach the buckle. When I finally released it I twisted in my seat, looking behind me. Brooke’s legs were leaving the car, almost as if she were flying. Or being pulled. Something huge was still blocking my window, I couldn’t tell what it was. I fumbled with the door handle and lock, desperate to get outside, screaming Brooke’s name. The door opened suddenly and I spilled out onto the road. I looked up.
A massive beast towered over the car, Brooke held tight in its powerful claws. It wasn’t hairy or scaly, but it had thick, rough skin, like a rhinoceros or a … a dried lake bed. I couldn’t even tell if it was flesh or mud. It roared when it saw me, clutched Brooke close to its chest, and ran.
And disappeared.
23