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Colin screamed, a bit too late, and Quinn fired at Sita. Jem couldn’t tell if the shot went home, but Sita yowled, and she released Dusty. She loped away from the enclosure, and the darkness swallowed her.
The hum of engines. The smell of blood and offal and gunpowder. In the distance, the sanctuary truck—which must have been on cruise control—was still trying to power through the concrete platform, tires skidding and spinning.
“Get on the fucking ground,” Emery said.
“Kill them,” Rod said.
Quinn glanced up at the pair of headlights. “There’s four of them.”
“Kill them, or that fucking tiger’s going to kill all of us, get it?” Rod waved at the safety gate where Jem and Tean huddled. “Colin, shoot them. I’ve got to get to the dart gun.”
Tean tugged on Jem’s arm, and when Jem risked a glance, Tean nodded at the feed box again.
Then a UFO descended, playing Billie Eilish.
That was Jem’s first impression, anyway. Farther down the enclosure, lights and music blazed to life. Lines of red and green and blue and white danced across the ground. The music was ear shattering even at a distance. Rod, Quinn, and Colin turned to look.
Behind Colin, Theo stepped out of the darkness, a baseball bat cocked over one shoulder. He swung, and the bat caught Colin in the back. Colin lurched forward. The gun flew from his hand and disappeared into the shadows. For a moment, it looked like Colin might steady himself, but then Theo hit him again: a big, brutal motherfucker of a swing. Colin went down.
The music was still thundering.
Colin had been standing behind Rod and his brother, and when he fell, neither man seemed to notice; their attention was still fixed on the two vehicles parked up the hill.
Auggie appeared at the exterior gate, a pair of bolt-cutters slung over one shoulder. He set the blades to the gate’s steel wires and began cutting. Theo darted glances at him and back at Quinn and Rod, who were shouting over the music, arguing about something. The wires fell away easily under the bolt cutters, and Auggie already had half the gate’s lower panel clear.
As he worked, Auggie was laughing uncontrollably. He shouted over the music, “Stole the lights and sound system from the resort!”
Jem looked over at Tean, who was watching Auggie work, and he had a clear view of Tean’s mouth as he said to himself,Holy shit.
Swear jar, Jem thought.
Theo waved to catch their attention and pointed at the gate, where Auggie had cleared the bottom half of the door. Without waiting for Tean and Jem, Theo grabbed Auggie and pulled him into a run, the two men heading away from the light show and into the dark. Jem had a small moment, long enough to hope they knew about Sita, to hope they’d be careful. Then he was helping Tean through the mess of clipped wires. He followed him out of the enclosures in time to see Quinn pull the pin from a grenade. He did it with his teeth, probably because he was a dead-eyed drone who’d watched too many bad movies.
Then he lobbed the grenade at the vehicles parked up the hill.
A burst of gunfire came from above. Quinn broke right while Rod broke left. Colin still lay on the ground, writhing in pain, screaming but unable to make himself heard over Billie Eilish still singing “Bad Guy.” Jem waved for Tean to follow as he tore after Rod.
Then the grenade went off.
Even at a distance, the boom was concussive, like someone had clapped a hand against the side of Jem’s head, and the heat rolled over him like a wave. Glass shattered. Metal popped and tore. The headlights made a wall of light, and behind it, all he could make out was the silhouette of twisted metal.
God, he thought. Please let them be alive.
Then he ran faster.
Tean believed in exercise. Tean believed in meeting a minimum number of minutes that some group of doctors somewhere had decided was a good idea. Tean believed in walking at brisk speeds and in hiking as something recreational and not as something you were forced to do by your loving and wonderful and sometimes slightly demented husband. Tean, in that sense—maybe in every sense—was in much better shape.
But Jem was younger, and he was wearing sneakers instead of Keens, and he had accepted the grace of his savior Ronald McDonald, which meant he had actual fuel for his body instead of somehow surviving on one bean and a single flake of red pepper. Plus, he’d learned how to haul ass when he was a kid. There wasn’t anything to teach you how to haul ass like LouElla coming after you with the antenna.
So, he hauled ass, and heartbeat by heartbeat, Tean drifted behind.
Jem kept his focus on Rod. The other man’s stringy mullet flopped as he sprinted toward the welcome center. The dumbass boots had no grip on the lawn, and Rod must have spent half his energy staying upright, slowing down every time his feet were about to slide out from under him. Even at a distance, his breathing sounded labored. That little belly was slowing him down. Too much beer. Too much easy food. Too much time sitting around jerking off to tiger porn, or whatever a guy like Rod watched. The gap between them closed to twenty yards. Then fifteen. Then ten.
Something moved in the periphery of Jem’s vision. He didn’t look. He didn’t want to look. If he saw those demon eyes following him, full of their green fire, he’d shit himself. While running. In a really sweet pair of shorts (palm trees and sharks on green plaid; if he had to pick a pair of shorts to die in and, presumably, wear forever as a ghost, these shorts would be at the top of the list).
But he did glance back, and Tean was charging along behind him, face grim with resolve.
The sound of metal on metal drew his attention. Rod had stopped at the welcome center’s side door, hunched and favoring his side—probably a stitch—as he tried to work a key into the lock. He gulped for air, and his free hand white-knuckled the door jamb as he steadied himself. He missed on the first try, the key bumping off the lock and scratching along the face of the door. On the second try, he got the key home, and he jerked the door open.
