“I’m OK.”
“Jesus, that’s what it feels like?” Quincy asked.
“It does now. It’s constantly trying to draw me in.”
“I don’t care what happens,” Jane said. “It’s the only way to block it—”
“I’m not putting you all at risk any more than I already have,” William said.
“If it can’t touch you when we’re connected, what harm is there if it can see us?” Jane was demanding now. “As long as we’re not in the dream and you’re controlling the communication, who cares if it’s blocked but knows we’ve connected? I’ll happily do it. And give it the middle finger in the process.”
“I do like her,” Quincy said, flicking his thumb towards her.
William looked back. As she had worn it since that first day in the hospital, Jane’s hair was pulled back in an efficient ponytail. Not a stitch of makeup allowed a scattering of freckles to show. Her eyes caught the light, showing gold and green among the brown.
“I don’t want to risk it,” he said, turning once again to the smoke. “Maybe it’s just holding back and now it can even penetrate our communications. Quincy, just look for a way to get in.”
They continued along, Quincy occasionally flooring the gas when it looked as if the smoke was about to conceal the road.
“Wait,” William said suddenly. “I feel him closer. He’s not far. He’s through there.”
“You mean through those miles and miles of black smoke? How are we supposed to get through that?”
Jane leaned forward. “Are you sure, William?”
He nodded once. “It’s almost like a scent. I know it’s him.”
“Quincy, stop the truck,” she said.
“What—”
“Just do it.”
As he hit the brakes, she opened her door and jumped out.
“Jane?” William asked.
He watched her scramble to the front of the truck, standing before the smoke.
Quincy tilted his head. “What is she doing?”
William felt it, the swell of her. “Jane!” he said, reaching for his door handle.
She turned back to hold up her hand in warning.
The winds rattled the truck, sweeping in with such force that Ryan and Lily rocked in the back seat. William braced himself, watching the winds tear at Jane’s shirt and blow her hair wildly.
As the wind rushed past her, the smoke cleared.
Stumbling, she fought against the gusts to make her way back. Ryan tried to open the back door of the quad cab, but the force outside was too strong.
She saw it too. With a single look in the direction of the winds, the force bent around the truck, calming while still pummeling the smoke. As she jumped in the truck, the torrents once against picked up outside.
“Drive Quincy!” she said.
Rain hit them, falling in waves. Quincy slammed the gas, turning down a split in the road and barreling onto the path through the smoke. The winds made it nearly impossible to stay straight.
“I can’t keep on the road!” Quincy yelled.
“I can feel him. We’re not far,” William said.
“Can you calm the winds or something?”
“It has to be strong enough to keep the smoke blowing away,” Jane said.
“Crap,” Quincy muttered, keeping the gas pedal to the floor, the smoke barely at bay around them as the winds cleaved a path. The rain was now falling so hard that the wipers couldn’t keep up.
William reached for Jane. She nodded.
“Are we clear?”
“Almost! OK! Now! Now!”
The moment he laid his hand on her leg, he felt it coming, like a freight train whose brakes had failed.
He felt it slam against whatever invisible barrier he and Jane forged together in their communication. As in those times isolated from everything but each other in the SSA’s confinement, he didn’t just see Jane, but the emitting brightness around them. He saw Lily and Ryan in the same manner, the outside world fading away in a tunnel created only for them.
He dared to look away from Jane for just a moment.
The blackness thrashed, a horde of thick, twisting strands of viscid oil. It pummeled against the barrier, hammering to get through. And from the distorted feelers began to emerge something from which the tentacles were born.
Once again, he was seven years old, his hand dropping from his grandmother’s fierce clutch in a dark hallway. He could barely see the creature ratcheting itself to its full height—
William yanked his hand off Jane’s leg, shattering the connection.
Jane gasped, her eyes blinking. “It was on us.”
William stammered for breath as Quincy righted the truck, the winds around them calming.
“Ok, we’re through,” Quincy said. “Fires haven’t gotten this far yet.”
“What is it?” Jane asked. Lily looked over at her in fear. “What is it?”
The girl then turned to William, sadness in her weary face.
The pull, the sensation of the other was immediately so strong that he jerked back to look out the window. “He’s right here. I can feel it. Wait, what’s that? Right there.”
“That’s a truck hauling ass,” Quincy said. “It’s coming right through that orchard. It’s headed for the road.”
“Get in front of it. He’s in that truck.”
The grayness had begun to dissipate, revealing lush, untouched orchards in the near distance. Quincy once again slammed on the gas pedal, easily reaching the beginning of the dirt road the other truck was barreling down. He parked, completely blocking the way.
William slid out to walk to the center of the road. As the truck came to a stop a yard away, the driver began to lean on the horn. William held up his hands. “I just need to talk to you,” he called out.
The driver waved at him to move the truck. William shook his head, yelling out again that he wanted to talk. He started to walk when he saw movement just above the truck’s roof.
A worker leaned on the metal, aiming a gun.
William felt the bullet whiz by, miss his shoulder by a breath. He cowered, waiting for the second bullet to strike.
Instead, he felt Ryan.
The man with the gun was tossed from the truck, hitting the ground hard. Two other men jumped from the bed, rushing to him as he tried to stand. One pummeled him in the face, the other punched him in the gut. The driver of the truck jumped out of the cab, walking towards the beating.
“Ryan, stop!” William yelled.
“You made me do it!” Ryan responded.
My God.
Just as he had done with Lily. With Jane. The instinct to protect himself, to kill or hurt, happened in a heartbeat.
He ran towards the fallen man, blocking Ryan’s commands. The three men stopped their assault and staggered back, clearly confused by their own sudden, unexplainable violence.
As William reached them, the man in the dirt scrambled for the pistol that had fallen a few feet away.
“No! I don’t want to hurt you!” William said.
“Diablo!” he gasped, clutching his stomach as he lurched for the pistol.
William scrambled to reach it first, sticking it in the back of his jeans. “Listen, please.”
“Mary, madre de la gracia,” the man responded, struggling to kneel. “Protegeme. Mary, madre del la gracia…”
Touch him. Just once.
William reached down and put his hand on the man’s shoulder. The man hissed at the connection between them. He scurried away from the shock, the electrical current that startled William at its intensity. “Diablo! Mantente alejado Diablo!”
“He saying to stay away, devil,” Jane said, she and the others cautiously approaching.
“Can you tell him we’re not here to hurt him?”
“No querer hacer dano,” Jane said.