“He’s dead,” Rissa says, voice sounding normal enough, but over the static of the wind in the earpiece, it’s hard to tell.
“Oh . . . sorry, Rissa,” Ben says.
“It was a while ago.”
Silence falls around us, just the sound of engines and wheels over gravel. It lasts a full two minutes before Ben says, “So, are we there yet?”
“Stay off the commlink, Ben,” I tell her, tired of her nervous chatter. “And keep your eyes open. When it comes for us, we won’t have much warning.”
“It?” she squeaks, shifting on the seat behind me. She moves closer to me, wrapping her arms tighter around my waist and leaning against my back.
The sun inches steadily downward, the darkness growing. There’s no moon, and what stars there should be are lost to thickening cover. The only light for miles is a narrowing band on the far horizon and that’s fading quickly. Rissa flips on her headlight, and I follow her lead. I lean into the headlight almost instinctively. But I can tell immediately that the bright light compromises my night vision, and if I want to see more than fifteen feet in front of me, I’m going to have to lose the headlight. So I flip the switch to kill it. And in that split second between light and dark, I see it.
A flash of movement high and to my right.
I whip my head around, but my sight hasn’t recovered. A strong breeze passes close to my face, a feeling of a presence. The wind screams in my ear. I instinctively swerve.
Ben shouts behind me, her grip tightening.
“Maggie?” Rissa’s voice is high and worried.
“Did you see that?” I shout.
“See what?”
I strain through the darkness, searching for whatever came close to my face. Nothing. “I felt . . .” But what did I feel? The wind? A bird? No. It’s dead out here. No birds in this wasteland.
“What was it?” Rissa demands.
“I don’t know, but—”
Rissa shouts, and I hear her tires slide on the asphalt. She recovers and accelerates back up to come parallel to me.
“Something’s out there, flying around,” she says, voice grim. “I can’t see it, but it’s out there.”
Of all the things we considered, an assault from the air was not one of them. I search the tops of cliffs, looking for motion, a shine, anything that may give away the location of whoever’s got eyes on us. But it’s just black, as the last of our sunlight dies.
“Should we stop?” Ben asks anxiously.
“And make it easy for them?” Rissa says “Hell no.”
“You see anything, Mósí?” I ask the Cat, the one with supernatural senses. But the Cat is asleep, curled up in an uncomfortable-looking ball in her sidecar. Impossible. “Will somebody wake that damn cat—”
“What is that?” Ben shouts. She’s behind me, so I can’t see where she’s looking. But I don’t have to. I can feel it. A thrust of air so strong that it catches my bike and sends it sideways. I wrench the bike upright against the sudden gale. Ben clutches my waist and presses her head into my back.
Sweat breaks out on my forehead, sudden and cold, and I tighten my grip. I’m well aware that if I lose control out here, going this fast, we’re both roadkill.
Ben hammers on my shoulder, frantic. She points up.
“Is that a . . . ?” Rissa’s voice trails off.
The airplane buzzes low, feet from our heads, a dense winged shape in the dark. We can sense more than see it arc wide, turning to make another pass. The roar of a propeller’s steady tap, tap, tap fills the air. And behind the plane, small dark shapes trail like ducklings. Battery-powered drones, the eyes on the Malpais, waiting for travelers like us.
“They’re going to try to run us off the road,” I yell, searching for somewhere to take cover. I spot a narrow entry, a path snaking between a break in the canyons. It looks wide enough for the bikes but impossible for the plane’s wingspan. The drones will follow, but the twisting canyon will make us harder to target. “There!”
“Do we take it?” Rissa shouts. “It could be a trap.” The plane has completed its turn and is coming in fast, the trajectory of its dive putting us directly in its path.
“It’s going to try to bring us down. We either run for the canyon or we’re road splatter.”
The rumble of the engine permeates the sky, the turn of the propeller filling my vision.
“Maggie?!”
“Wait for it. . . . Wait . . .” And when the plane is so close that I can see the pilot briefly illuminated in Rissa’s headlight—a hunched figure in a leather aviator cap and googles—I yell, “Now!”
I wrench the bike right, barreling off the road and onto the rocky terrain. Bounce hard and come down, teeth rattling. Ben’s arms crush my ribs so hard I can’t breathe. I hear Rissa’s wheels hit dirt behind me and we haul ass for the crevice. The plane buzzes past, the wind from its passing pushing against my back.
We hit the canyon at full speed, walls closing around us immediately. Rissa kills her headlight too, and we fly blind, inches from the rocks on either side. Honágháahnii flares, and my vision improves, but the night is dense, almost a physical thing, and we’re moving fast. I squint into the darkness, clocking cliffsides and looming boulders as we speed past. My arm catches a jutting rock. Pain rips across my biceps, bright and hot. I bite my lip to keep from crying out, let off the throttle instinctively.
A wall comes up fast. I slam the brakes, dirt flying. Make the turn and keep going.
“You okay, Ben?” I ask, panting through the stinging pain on my arm. I reach back to feel the spot, and there’s a rip in the leather, and under that, wetness.
“You’re bleeding!” Ben says.
“I’m fine. It just hurts like a sonofabitch. Are you okay?”
“I’m okay. But I can’t see Rissa.”
I brake, the back wheel spinning. Brace my feet on the ground. Turn the bike until we’re facing back the way we came. She’s right. No Rissa. I wait a few minutes to see if she’ll appear, but nothing. Maybe she couldn’t make that tight turn with the sidecar.
“Hold on. We’re going back.”
I accelerate slowly, moving back toward the mouth of the canyon. “We’re headed back to you, Rissa,” I say through the commlink. “Eyes open.” There’s no answer. And that worries me more than the possibilities of a sudden collision.
“They couldn’t have just disappeared,” I mutter to myself. “Unless—”
Light bursts bright and blinding in front of me. I skid to a halt. Raise my hand to my eyes, trying to block the sudden flood of light and preserve my night vision.
“Turn off your engine,” comes a voice from somewhere in the brightness. Male, commanding. The kind of voice that expects to be obeyed. No way I trust that voice. I rev the motor, ready to make a run for it.
“I know you are considering disobeying. I would advise against that. Any lack of cooperation on your part won’t go well for your friend.”
He has to mean Rissa. Damn. I let the engine idle and think about making a run for it. Because it’s better if Ben and I make it out of here than if no one makes it out of here. I have no idea what to expect from this man hiding behind the spotlight. But this is the Malpais, and I’ve never heard anything good about the people who survive out here. Bandits, thieves, and worse. For all I know, Rissa and Mósí could already be dead. Surrender could do us no good, and there’s still a chance we could make it out, hide somewhere deep in the canyons where they can’t find us. And I could still make it to Kai. Or at least one of us could make it to Kai.
“Off the motorcycle, if you please,” says the voice again, the irritation ratcheted up a notch. “I must insist.”
“I can’t see!” I shout, stalling. And hoping to get a better look at our odds. “Turn off the light and I’ll turn off the engine.”