I sneaked a sideways glance at the agent who sat stiffly behind the wheel, hands at ten and two. Nothing about this guy struck me as the exaggerating type.
So if he wasn’t exaggerating, what did that mean for us?
How would they do it? Would they invade in waves, destroying everyone and everything that stood in their way? Would innocent people be sacrificed because they were incapable of fending for themselves? I imagined my mom and my little brother, ravaged by the perils of war. I imagined starvation, untreated diseases, festering injuries, and people turning on each other just to survive.
Or would the aliens just end it all at once? Destroy everything, the entire planet in one fell swoop?
That would be simpler, it seemed. More efficient.
My eyes slid downward to the watch dangling loosely around my wrist. Even fastened at the shortest notch, Chuck’s beefy arms had been giant-sized compared to mine, but that didn’t stop its rhythm from settling my rattled nerves.
Blinking about a million times, I tried to focus on the city whirring past in the dark—businesses of all shapes and sizes, some packed together in neat little strip malls and some freestanding with drive-throughs or giant parking lots. We’d driven all day and now neon signs flashed, and billboards and streetlights glared, all backed by hillsides dotted with houses and churches and more businesses, some lit and some not.
Whenever a car pulled alongside us, I’d dropped my head, keeping my chin low so whoever was in the other vehicle wouldn’t see me. The last thing we needed was for someone to notice my eyes—eyes that glowed in the dark and could probably be seen even from behind the tinted glass.
It wasn’t right to be here, with Agent Truman, when I’d been avoiding this . . . running from him for so long.
We’d stopped once so he could call “his guy” in private. His guy put him in touch with the next guy who knew how to reach a group that was not only unlisted, but was even deeper underground than the Daylight Division.
It didn’t surprise me that clandestine was a language Agent Truman was fluent in. But whoever he’d gotten in contact with seemed willing to help.
It was that same willingness that made me uneasy. That and the secrecy. If it weren’t for the whole brink of extinction thing, I’d be worried Agent Truman had another agenda . . . maybe planning an auction of his own so he could sell me off and spend the rest of his days on the beaches of Bali sipping mai tais.
But, so far he hadn’t taken us into custody, and I couldn’t help thinking he was genuinely concerned over the possibility we were facing an alien invasion. I mean, of course he was concerned, right?
Still, every time we asked where we were headed, Agent Truman said our destination was on a need-to-know basis, deeming that neither Thom nor I had that kind of clearance.
He was such a jerk.
I’d tracked our progress anyway . . . as we’d traveled through Oregon into California. I’d noted the names of cities on road signs along the way—places like Portland, Eugene, Medford, then Sacramento. I felt feverish, my limbs trembling, as the number in my head had rolled from eleven to ten somewhere just past Redding.
Now the midmorning sun was high as we veered onto the more isolated roads that led into the California hills.
Ten.
If we were counting down days, did that mean there were only ten left? Just over a week?
I was reluctant to share what I suspected, because what if I was wrong? What if it was something else, this crazy obsession with numbers? What if it had nothing at all to do with a possible impending war?
Being cramped in the car with these two for the past sixteen hours hadn’t gone far to getting us better acquainted.
Unlike Simon, Thom had always been the more silent type. He still didn’t trust Agent Truman, and I didn’t entirely blame him. But there was more to it than that. I figured he was probably still licking his wounds over the whole Natty situation.
As far as Agent Truman, I hadn’t tried to have any heart-to-hearts with him or anything, but I’d definitely started to get a feel for subtle shifts in his demeanor. For his part, he’d actually attempted to break the ice with us. Even gone as far as trying to crack a joke or two, which had been nothing short of awkward. The corners of his eyes had gotten squintier than usual, almost as if he wasn’t quite sure of the proper procedure for smiling. Like it was a lost skill. But even after hours of traveling together, he hadn’t given us a first name so he was still just Agent Truman. Maybe “Agent” for short.
The one time I’d tried to broach the subject of Griffin, he’d frozen over like arctic tundra.
But of course Agent Truman wasn’t the buddy-buddy type and we weren’t friends. Agent Truman was more the shoot-your-daughter-and-leave-her-for-dead type.
The only reason we were together at all was to stop an alien race from invading the planet.
Message received.
CHAPTER TEN