Alex …
She hadn’t heard from him since he’d taken the first-aid kit back to Raiff to tend to Dr. Donati. Donati had tried to reach her several times, but she kept putting off returning his calls.
When she awoke Monday morning in her own bed, her first brief thought was that maybe it had all been a dream. When that quickly passed, she moved to the window and was relieved to find no police car parked across the street or cruising slowly by. But she knew any ring of the bell could mean the drone things dressed as cops had returned to her door, and she felt anxious and uneasy over the fact that they knew where she lived, who she was.
Only then did she realize she was late for school, very late, so late that she’d missed her AP bio exam and could only imagine how Cara would react to her failing to produce the answers she and the rest of the CatPack needed. Maybe she’d just tell her the truth.
Yeah, we spent the weekend being chased by aliens. We saved the world, at least for the time being. Oh, and by the way, Alex thinks you’re a bitch too.
That had been hours ago and the rest of the day had passed in slow motion, nothing happening at all, until dusk bled the light from the sky.
Sam stared at the throwaway phone, willing it to ring, with Alex on the other end. The old-fashioned flip had been behaving very strangely ever since exposed to whatever had laid waste to every bit of Alcatraz prison itself, black hole or something else, leaving behind nothing other than an empty patch of ground with the color and life bleached out of it. She stared at it, wondering if she’d ever hear from Alex again. Had he gone off with Raiff? Was he going to disappear, living off the grid and everyone’s radar for years to come?
Too many questions. Sam spared any further ones when her phone rang.
*
Alex walked along the shoulder of the 101 freeway heading south, nothing but the contents of his backpack weighing him down, hoping to snare a ride before dark. It wasn’t safe for him to stay in an area where he was so recognizable, and Raiff knew as well as he did that what had happened last night changed little, if anything.
Langston Marsh was still out there, more of the drone things were still out there, and neither was about to give up the hunt for him. There was the chip in his head to consider as well, still slowly killing him even if it did somehow contain the secrets to winning this war in the long term and not just the short. Raiff was working on finding the best solution to save Alex from the leakage while coming up with a way to make sure the chip remained intact so the secrets it held could be revealed.
He missed Sam, missed his parents, did his best not to think about either since it hurt too much, leaving him near tears and unable to focus on anything else.
Like staying alive.
Raiff had given him an address in Los Angeles and nothing more, becoming very cryptic when Alex pressed him on that.
“You’ll understand when you get there,” was all he’d said.
So Alex trudged on, walking backward as he hitchhiked down the shoulder of the 101. He only wished he could do the same with his life, walk backward until his parents were alive again and he was in a position to change everything. But the ash man had said An and Li Chin weren’t dead, and what did that mean, exactly, for where the road ahead might take him?
As he began to ponder that question, an old battered white van pulled to a stop ahead of him on the shoulder. Alex jogged up to the passenger door and watched it pushed open by the driver’s hand.
“Where you headed, friend?” asked the man Alex recognized as the same guy who’d picked Sam and him up yesterday. “The Reverend William Grimes at your service. Call me Reverend Billy. But you knew that already, didn’t you?”
Alex climbed in and closed the door behind him, eyeing Reverend Billy’s pinkish skin and mangy hair and let his gaze wander to THEND COMES tattooed across all ten fingers. The back of the rusted-out van was still packed with Bibles, but the stacks seemed to have come down a bit since the day before.
“What are the odds, son, the odds of me being fortunate enough to pick you up off the road two days in a row?”
“Not very good.”
“No, they are not, unless it was no accident, no coincidence at all.”
Alex’s hand strayed to the passenger door, ready to pop it open and drop back to the road.
“Bet you’re wondering whose side I’m on,” Reverend Billy continued. “Bet you’re wondering how it is I’m able to show up like this yet again. Bet you’re wondering what I know that you need to.”
Alex eased his hand away from the latch. “Wondering and listening, sir.”
Reverend Billy almost laughed. “I’m no ‘sir,’ ’less you got the worst set of eyes in God’s creation. If all this is happening, it stands to reason it’s according to His plan. I’d ask you to consider that, for starters.”
“Little difficult under the circumstances.”
“Then let me explain what I’m getting at…”