“Wait. Seriously?” Benji said as Dr. Z and I crawled into his car.
“Let’s go!” I screamed.
Benji scrambled into the driver’s seat and turned the Mustang in a perfect doughnut in the road, tires squealing, and then he stomped on the gas, racing toward the chaos.
Apolonia’s ship lifted higher into the sky, still targeting the soldiers and vehicles on the ground. The pulses coming from the ship were rattling Benji’s car. I clicked my seat belt and steadied myself with both palms on the dashboard.
Cy was far enough away from the mayhem but still waving his arms. She was blowing up everything. The surrounding trees were ablaze, and almost all the military vehicles were incinerated. He was right. Apolonia was emotional. He hadn’t shown up at the correct time, so she was going to punish those who had come in his place.
“This is insane!” Benji said.
“Yes, but it’s important! Go!”
Benji jerked the wheel left, turning the Mustang off the road and into the grass. We sped over the uneven ground, stopping less than one hundred yards from the burning woods. I reached for the door handle, but Benji grabbed my arm.
“What are you going to do?” he asked, panicked.
“I’m going to get him out of there! He won’t leave until he’s in that ship or until he gets himself killed!”
Without waiting for a reply or permission, I jumped out of the car and immediately broke into a sprint, running toward Cy. He was still waving both arms toward the sky, hoping Apolonia would see him. Fire blazed all around us. We didn’t have much time.
Crocodile Boots had gotten inside the last remaining Jeep, but it was spinning its wheels, centered over bodies and the wreckage of another vehicle. The Nayara suddenly turned all her guns on his struggling Jeep.
Cy saw what was about to happen and ran to stand between Crocodile’s vehicle and the Nayara.
“Apolonia! I’m here! Stop this!” Cy said. He took another deep breath and yelled something long and beautiful in what had to be his native language.
Just as the Nayara powered up to fire, silence fell. No pulsing, no foghorn, just the flickering and popping of the burning vehicles and earth around us. The ship lowered to the ground.
A door opened. Cy didn’t hesitate. He bolted for the opening and disappeared inside.
The man in the crocodile boots stepped out of the Jeep, took off his belt, and threw it into the Nayara. It wasn’t until it disappeared that I realized what it was—a grenade belt.
“Cy!” I screamed.
Crocodile Boots wrapped his arms around mine, barely struggling to keep me in his grasp. He watched and waited, and then he smiled when the front of the ship exploded, sending it to the ground on its side.
The earth cratered under the Nayara’s weight, and the ship pushed a massive mound of dirt in our direction. Crocodile Boots didn’t move. He just watched as the huge craft barreled toward us.
The Nayara came to a rest, lying lifeless on the other side of the mound of dirt that had stopped just a few yards from the toes of my boots. Her underbelly was no longer glowing, and a gaping hole exposed her insides.
“Easy now,” Crocodile Boots said in a raspy voice. A toothpick bounced between his lips as he spoke. His shoulders were broad, and his smile was just as sleazy and cheap as his suit.
The five soldiers in the Jeep jumped to the ground and surrounded us. Their AK-47s were pointed at Nayara’s wound.
“Should we proceed, Dr. Rendlesham, sir?” one of the soldiers asked. He was speaking to Crocodile Boots.
He has a name after all.
“Inside. We just want Cy. Kill everything else.”
“No!” I said, fighting him with every step.
Finally, he threw me to the ground and straddled my hips. He gripped my wrists and held them against the dirt. A piece of steel was lying beneath my left arm, and it dug into my skin.
Unable to move, feeling sharp metal slicing through my skin, I was in our hotel room again. Sydney was crying in the bathroom, and my mother’s eyes were staring into mine. They were bloodshot, and the skin around them was wet and smeared with mascara. Blood was dripping from the wounds in her skull from where they’d nearly beaten her to death with the telephone.
You’re not alone, her eyes had said.
I’d managed a muffled, “It’s not your fault,” from behind the dirty rag tied across my mouth.
I wish I had told her then that I would come back. I would come back, so I could stop this idiot piece of shit sitting on top of me from destroying the world.
Rendlesham’s disgusting voice brought me back to the present. “You’re quite the pain in the ass, Rory. More than one little girl should be.”
The more I struggled, the more the twisted steel cut into my forearm, but I ignored it and smiled. “I’m not finished yet.”
“Oh, you are. You’re finished all right,” he said, leaning into my face. When he spoke, spittle dropped from his mouth and landed just under my eye.
Suddenly, Rendlesham was tackled from the side and knocked to the ground. I scrambled to my feet. Benji was holding Rendlesham to the ground, and the soldiers were trying to decide if they should open fire.
“Run, Rory!” he yelled, struggling.
Conflicted, I took a step toward Benji. He was going to get himself killed.
“Get the hell out of here!” he yelled again.
I turned on my heels and climbed the dirt hill. One of the soldiers grabbed for my ankle, but I kicked him in the face and kept climbing.
“Shoot her, idiots!” Rendlesham said.
“No!” Benji screamed.
A few bullets hit the dirt beside me before I rolled over the top of the mound and then scrambled into the hole of the hull. Stripped sharp pieces of charred metal scraped my legs and arms as I crawled along the wreckage, but the soldiers were already over the hill and shooting at me.
Farther inside, I tripped and stumbled through the darkness. I could see the beams of flashlights shining on the walls of the ship several yards behind me. They were inside. It was my first instinct to find someplace safe to hide, but hiding wouldn’t help me find Cy. If he was still alive, he was probably critically injured and needed help. I had to keep going until I found him.
“Cy?” I half-whispered, half-yelled. I crawled on my hands and knees, feeling in front of me, hoping to come across the door Cy entered. He couldn’t be far from it. “Cyrus!”
Within moments, I was in a narrow corridor. My hand landed in something cold and slimy. Hard bits also rolled around on my fingers. I reached out farther, and I felt a sharp edge and then a nose and a chin.