Refraction Read online

  Elliott’s words penetrate my terror. I stare at his retreating back. “What? Wait, no, we have to run! You can’t fight it!”

  “Not for long,” he agrees over his shoulder, his voice tight. “Get moving!”

  Everything in me is propelling me away: to run blindly, as far and as fast as I can. But Elliott is right. You can’t outrun a Being. Not on foot. Our only chance is me hot-wiring something right the hell now and hoping Elliott can hold the Being off until then.

  I sprint, frantically scanning the rows of cars. Glass breaks behind me. I curse as quietly and creatively as I can manage, keeping my eyes on the vehicles. There! Relief pours over me, an antidote to the drowning film of fog that’s clinging to my skin. Just one row away is a ‘92 Camaro exactly like Ty’s, even down to the fire-engine red color. My luck has finally turned.

  I skid to a stop next to it. Behind me, glass shatters. There’s an awful scraping of claws against concrete and then the thud of the desk leg striking whatever passes for the Being’s flesh. The bastards are solid, but they don’t bleed, and you can never actually harm them. The best outcome you can hope for when fighting a Being is to slightly delay your own death.

  I put my hands on the Camaro, grounding myself to it, forcing myself not to look over my shoulder. Okay, okay, car theft. First check if the door’s unlocked. People are stupid, it’s not impossible. And … yes! The handle lifts in my hand and the door flies open. That cuts down on a little bit of time.

  In my peripheral vision I spot the side mirror. I jolt backwards, turn and kick at it blindly with all my strength until it breaks off and skids under the neighboring car. Then I quickly do the same to the other side.

  I throw myself into the driver’s seat. The interior is all stained gray fabric that’s worn through in spots, that’s just like Ty’s Camaro too. I remember the rearview mirror, wrench it off, toss it out. A few car lengths away, more glass breaks, and the groan and screech of metal tells me the Being has climbed atop a car. Elliott must be trying to lose it by hiding in the rows of vehicles. I hunker down sideways in my seat, both to get myself out of the Being’s view and to access the steering column. Tools, I need tools. A screwdriver and wire strippers at a minimum. By force of habit, my hand snakes beneath the passenger’s seat, where Ty used to keep his tool bag in his car. I’m already cursing myself for wasting time checking in this stranger’s car when my fingers brush something leather. When I pull my hand out, Ty’s tool bag is in it.

  I stare at the leather bag in confusion, then pull my gaze up to scan the dashboard and seats. This can’t be my brother’s car. Ty’s Camaro died last year, right after he moved me to Cisco Island. It got scrapped. We even went to the junkyard, had a little service in its honor before watching it get smashed. But then how are Ty’s tools here, in exactly the spot I’d expected them to be?

  “Callahan!” comes a muffled shout. Something crashes a few rows down. “Move it!” There’s genuine fear in Elliott’s voice now, which tells me he must be about to reach his limit. At which point the Being will kill him and come for me.

  I jolt into motion. Yank a screwdriver out of the bag, shakily remove the steering column’s plastic cover. Three bundles of multicolored wires fall out.

  A high, reedy voice echoes eerily through the garage, lilting up and down and then up again, like a song or maybe a wolf’s howl. Goose bumps rise all over me. I’m muttering a prayer beneath my breath—I used to believe in God, and it appears I still do—but I’m not even processing what I’m saying. I was wrong before when I thought the monster’s silence was worse than any noise it could make.

  I search for the battery wire. Red, it’s red. There! My hands are shaking so badly, I can barely use the wire strippers, but somehow I manage. Then I do the same to the ignition wire. Using my shirt as insulation, I twist them together.

  The lights inside the car all come on. The radio starts playing “Stand by Me.”

  “No, damn it, shut up,” I hiss, frantically jabbing at the off button. The sound dies. I hold my breath and slowly, heart in my throat, lift my head until I can just barely see over the dashboard.

  Nothing. I exhale. The Being didn’t hear.

  Then I turn my head and see the creature standing a car’s length behind the Camaro, its head cocked, its shoulders hunched, its jaw lolling open. It makes a noise, something between a cough and an eerie, foxlike chortle, and starts toward me.

  But before I have time to throw myself out of the car and flee, something wooden flies end over end from farther down the aisle and smacks the Being in the side of the face. The desk leg. “Hey!” bellows Elliott. He’s standing in the middle of the aisle maybe thirty feet away, exposed and now weaponless. He’s trying to draw the thing away from me.

  It works. The Being turns. It crouches low and then springs an inhuman distance, its freakishly long limbs carrying it ten feet in a single leap. Elliott takes off running with a curse, weaving through the cars.

  I jerk my attention back down to the wires. The starter, where’s the starter … there! I yank it upward, strip it—the wire is live, and I’m shaking so much it’s a miracle I don’t electrocute myself—and touch it to the connected battery and ignition wires.

  The car roars to life. I shove myself upright in the seat and mash my foot on the gas to rev it before it has a chance to stall. The engine sputters, then levels out.

  I slam the car into reverse and crank hard on the steering wheel, breaking the steering lock. The car screeches and peels out of its space. Its rear bumper bangs against the neighboring truck and then I’m free. I hit the brakes and shift into gear, twisting around to find the Being, to find the best exit route.

  A muffled shout of pain. Elliott. I glance out the back. He’s huddled beneath a car door that the creature must have torn off earlier, using it like a shield—but he’s pinned down. The Being is lashing out with its claws, tearing through the metal of the door to get to Elliott. Sparks and metal shrapnel fly in every direction. The door will only provide maybe a few more seconds of protection.

  And then the Being will come for me. I flash back to the bodies I’ve seen on the posters: torn apart, mutilated, half-eaten. Terror beats its wings inside my chest.

  I swivel in my seat, stare through the windshield. The exit ramp is straight this way. All I have to do is put my foot down hard on the gas again and I stand a chance at escaping.

  Elliott is my enemy. I can’t risk death to save him. He said earlier that I’d abandon him as soon as it was convenient, and he was right. It’s who I am. And this isn’t even about convenience—it’s life or death. Heroism is stupid, I’ve always known that. Plus, I can’t find Ty if I’m dead.

  But in the back of my mind, a little voice whispers: Give me a reason not to.

  I curse out loud and shift the car into reverse. I’m not a hero, but I can’t just abandon the stupid Boy Scout without trying to save him. He’s still my best chance at long-term survival, after all. This is nothing but self-preservation—my specialty.

  I hit the gas and then crack my door open and stick my head out. “ROLL!” I shout over the screech of the tires and the roar of the engine. Elliott must hear, because he shoves the car door upward and releases it, rolling sideways into an empty parking spot. The Being stays where it is, not realizing yet that Elliott is gone, too busy tearing off a chunk of the door with its jaw.

  It looks up a second before I hit it. It crouches, ready to leap again, but the Camaro is moving just fast enough and slams into it before it can move, throwing it backwards a good twenty feet.

  I lean over and shove the passenger door open. Elliott is staring at me from the asphalt. “Get in, idiot!” I shout. He scrambles up just as the Being shakes itself and stands, not even affected by the crash. The second Elliott’s inside the car I shift gears and take off, the tires squealing and smoking. The momentum of it slams the door shut almost on his fingers.

  The Being gallops after us. Its gaping, foxlike muzzle opens wide in anticipatio
n. Shadows curl off its legs, off the things that are almost arms.

  We hit the exit ramp. The fender skids against the guardrail, throwing off sparks. Then we’re into the street. Rain streams across the windshield and I flick the wipers on as fast as they’ll go. The fog is thick and soupy in spots but wispy in others, allowing me to make out a clear road to the left.

  I don’t bother wondering why it’s clear when it should be littered with dead vehicles and corpses. I just crank on the steering wheel and bear the gas pedal all the way to the floor. The creature howls a threat, loping after us. It’s fast, but when the Camaro hits seventy miles per hour, the Being falls behind and finally, eventually, disappears into the fog behind us.

  I speed up to about ninety—beyond dangerous, when I can barely see through the rain and fog—and don’t ease up for a solid ten minutes.

  Elliott looks out the rear windshield one last time and then exhales, sagging in his seat. Then, after a long moment, he reaches up and buckles his seat belt.

  I burst out laughing.

  He stares at me for a second, then, ruefully, grins. “Safety first.”

  “Sure,” I say. I feel giddy, my joints loose and slippery with relief.

  We’re heading out of the city now and into a forested area. The road is lined by towering longleaf pines, their trunks pencil-straight and crowded close together, their sparse green tops hidden far above us in the thickening gray. I slow to fifty as heavier fog patches start drifting across the road, then, thinking better of it, I let the speedometer creep back up to fifty-five. This’ll be tricky; I need to go slow enough to compensate for the fog, but fast enough to outrun the Beings that are surely roaming through it.

  That’s not our only worry, either. Judging by the fuel gauge we’ve only got a few gallons in the tank. We’re going to have to find some gas pretty quick if we want to keep our getaway car running. But for now at least, we’re safe.

  Elliott is looking at me. His earlier smile is gone, a speculative look in its place. “For a second back there I thought you would leave me.”

  My hands tighten reflexively on the steering wheel. I don’t need him thinking I’m going to “turn good” or be redeemed or whatever. Being good only means tying yourself to someone else’s set of rules, and following rules is as likely to kill me as anything else out here. “I’ll leave you next time,” I promise.

  He raises his eyebrows but says nothing, instead pulling off the length of cord that’s still looped around his shoulder and chest. He starts working to untangle it. “So what do we do now?”

  I’m silent for a moment. The giddiness starts to fade and my earlier fatigue filters back in. I’m going to need to sleep soon—but not yet. Not until I’ve got some sort of plan.

  Ahead, a radio antenna looms out of the fog, its base overgrown by brown wire grass. The grass is about waist-high, spindly with tufted tops, and it almost manages to hide the claw marks gouged deep into the metal. This must be the antenna we saw from the helicopter, its snapped-off top sticking out above the fog. I’m almost positive it’s also the same antenna my brother promised we would climb together when he got back. This has to be the road we drove last year, when he moved me to Cisco Island.

  I keep my eyes on the antenna until it recedes into the fog. Then I clear my throat. “I remember there being a small regional airport a few hours’ drive from here.”

  Elliott finishes detangling the cord and tosses it in the backseat, then roots around in his pockets. “Let’s take inventory. We have an extension cord that we could use as rope, a pair of surgical scissors, and some general first-aid supplies. Aspirin, gauze, bandages.” He raises his eyes to me. “None of those things will help you fly a plane.”

  I set my jaw. “I know that.”

  “And you want to go anyway? What’s the point?”

  “We’ve got to go somewhere.”

  He hesitates. “We could try to sneak back to the island.”

  I roll my eyes. Of course that’s his first thought. “And what happens when we get caught again?”

  “You’ve got someplace you’re stashing all those mirrors and illegal telescopes, right?” His voice is sharper now. “Why don’t we just hide out there?”

  The phosphate mines offer plenty of hiding spots, it’s true. We could lie low there for a while, if we made it all the way back to the island, but before long we’d need to buy food. With rations being carefully policed, there’s no way we could go long without being spotted. And that’s assuming Elliott wouldn’t just give me up to his mom the second we set foot in her city again.

  In any case, Cisco Island isn’t where I want to be. “No,” I tell Elliott. “We’re going to the airport. We’ll figure out the next step when we get there.”

  “The next step toward getting to London, you mean?”

  Silence falls over us. “Yes,” I say through gritted teeth.

  He doesn’t respond. Then, finally, he sighs. “I’ll fly us.” His tone is tired, stretched, and he’s looking out his window instead of at me.

  I blink. “What?”

  “I said I’ll fly us.”

  “You’re … a pilot?”

  He turns, faces forward, looks out the windshield into the fog. “Remember the guards arguing over who would pilot the helicopter and how bumpy the ride was? That was because I’m the most qualified pilot on the island—those guys can barely fly straight. I’ve got a license for single-engine fixed-wing planes, too.”

  I spit out a few curses. When my mind is clear enough to answer rationally, I glare at him, incredulous. “You’re a pilot and you’re only telling me now? Are you freaking serious? You could’ve hijacked the helicopter yourself when they were dropping us off! They barely even had you tied up!”

  “You should be glad I didn’t,” he answers coldly. “The first thing I’d have done afterward is push you overboard.”

  I remember him holding me over the edge of the roof, my hands clutching his fist, the look in his eyes when he said he wished he was like me.

  “No. You wouldn’t have,” I say, a little calmer now.

  He glances at me sideways, his mouth a flat line.

  I inhale, wrapping my mind around the new information he’s given me. Outside, the rain has lightened to a sprinkle, though from what I can tell, the sky is still dark and ominous, promising that another band of the hurricane is on its way. “Okay. So … we’ll go to the airport, find something you can fly. Can single-engine planes cross the Atlantic?”

  “Depends.”

  “We’ll figure it out when we get there.” A smile creeps onto my face as my anger at Elliott fades. For the first time since we’ve been exiled, I have a plan that actually stands a chance at getting me to Ty. Although … if I’d have known Elliott was a pilot before today, I wouldn’t have been around long enough to get exiled in the first place. I would have done whatever it took, including kidnapping him, to get in the air.

  Lucky for him, I had no clue he’d even existed until yesterday. Which on an island the size of ours is a near miracle. I glance at him. “How can you be a pilot and the mayor’s son and, apparently, a shadowseeker, without anyone knowing about you?”

  He’s silent for a moment, and I don’t think he’ll answer. Then he sighs. “Remember when I told you I used to be a failure? I was being literal. I got expelled my sophomore year and never finished high school.”

  I blink, taken aback by his confession. “You got expelled? What’d you do, lecture someone to death?”

  “No. I put my principal in the hospital.”

  I take my eyes off the road to look at him. He’s staring straight ahead, jaw set. “Seriously?” I ask, trying not to sound impressed.

  He hesitates again, then shrugs. “Yeah. My mom was city treasurer in Madrigal at the time, running for mayor there. The guy running against her—who also happened to be the principal of my school—kept airing these awful, really personal attack ads, telling all sorts of lies about her. It was working, making her drop b
ehind in the polls. Mom was devastated. I was so angry that he could do shit like that to her and just get away with it. So I dug up his home address and confronted him. Things … escalated. We got in a fight. He ended up in the hospital. Afterward, unsurprisingly I guess, he expelled me.”

  I raise my eyebrows. “You beat up a dirty politician, huh? On behalf of every American, I thank you.” Unwilling to break our semi-truce, I don’t mention that his mom was probably just as terrible as the other guy.

  I squint into the fog ahead. There should be road signs around here at some point, and I don’t want to miss them. I’m pretty sure we’re going the right way—the regional airport I remember is near a town called Pidgeton, I think—but it would be nice to know exactly how far we are from it. Plus, we still need to find gas somewhere. The fuel gauge is hovering on E now.

  At my reaction, Elliott relaxes a bit. “My mother didn’t see it that way. ‘Woman sics violent son on opposition’ was the headline of every newspaper, talk show, and political blog in a hundred-mile radius afterward. That asshole blamed her for my ‘attack’ and ended up winning their race anyway.” His words are easy, but his tone is hard, brittle. “Mom was furious; she blamed me. She said if I’d left things alone she could’ve at least gotten some sympathy votes, but after what I did everyone hated her. When we picked up and moved to Cisco Island to start fresh, she made sure no one would use me against her again. She kept me home, had me study to get my GED instead of putting me in another school. She asked me to ‘stay out of the public eye.’”

  “So you did,” I say, mentally slotting in another piece of the puzzle that is Elliott. Not only did he take the blame for what had happened, he tried to make up for it by letting his own mother pretend he didn’t exist.

  “So I did,” he agrees, one corner of his mouth tilted up in a humorless smile. “While she thrust Braedan into the spotlight, I stayed home, stayed anonymous, and tried my best to make her proud of me again.”

  “Flying lessons,” I realize. “Eagle Scout.”

  “Yeah.”