After a couple of minutes, Sam breaks away from me, breathless. ‘Six, whoa, what is going on?’
The look on Sam’s face isn’t what I was expecting. Yes, there’s flushed bewilderment, but mixed in with that surprise is an undercurrent of concern. It makes me look away.
‘I just really wanted to do that,’ I reply, telling him the truth. ‘I didn’t know if I’d get another chance.’
I press my face against the side of Sam’s neck and feel his heartbeat against my cheek. I’ve spent the last few days putting on a strong front, trying to keep it together with Marina and Nine both on the verge of falling apart. Finally, at least while we’re out here in the dark, I can let myself go a little bit. Sam has me around the waist, so I sink against him, let him hold me up and take a shuddering breath against his neck.
‘It can just end so quickly …,’ I whisper, leaning back to get a look at him. ‘I didn’t want to not have done that, you know? I don’t care if it complicates things.’
‘Me neither,’ Sam says. ‘Obviously.’
We start to kiss again, this time a lot gentler, Sam’s hands slowly moving up my sides. When the wolf howls – loud, echoing, nearby – my first instinct is that it’s Nine spying on us from the house and making stupid noises. But then a second and third wolf make a howling chorus and I lean back to peer at Sam.
‘What the hell is that?’ I ask. ‘Wolves in the suburbs?’
‘I don’t know –’ he starts to reply, but then his eyes widen. ‘The Chimærae. They’re warning us.’
A moment after he says it, I hear the whup-whup-whup of at least three helicopters bearing down on us. If I squint, I can see their outlines approaching in the night sky. And then there are the blue flashing lights coming from the housing development’s only access road; the lights are attached to a caravan of black SUVs, all of them speeding in our direction.
15
At the sound of screeching tires and helicopter rotors, Nine and I burst back outside, leaping over the house’s broken porch and on to the lawn. We’re just in time to see a lightning strike slice down from the sky, courtesy of Six. It’s a warning shot; the bolt erupts a piece of asphalt right in front of a black SUV that’s careening up the access road, causing it to swerve.
‘The hell is this?’ Nine growls. ‘I thought we were done with the feds.’
‘Adam said they’re supposed to leave this place alone,’ I reply. ‘Some deal with the Mogs.’
‘I guess that ended when you killed them all, huh?’
There are three choppers overhead, circling like vultures. Some signal must pass between them, because they all turn on spotlights at the same time. One of them trains on me and Nine, another on the entrance of the house behind us and a third on Six and Sam. In the bright light, I notice Sam, unarmed, quickly climbing into the Skimmer for cover. Six, her hands splayed in the air, in the process of summoning some nasty weather for our uninvited guests, goes invisible before the spotlight can really get a fix on her.
Meanwhile, undeterred by the lightning strike, a parade of black SUVs files up the access road, blue lights flashing beneath their windshields. They skid to a stop next to each other in a tight formation, eventually creating a blockade of bulletproof glass and shiny, dent-resistant paneling. Their doors fling open and a bunch of agents in identical navy-blue windbreakers leap out. The ones who aren’t yelling into walkie-talkies have guns trained on us, all of them hunkered behind their car doors for cover. It takes them less than a minute to have us pinned down in the cul-de-sac.
‘Do they really think this will stop us?’ Nine asks as he takes a step away from the house, almost daring the agents to try shooting him.
‘I don’t know what they’re thinking,’ I reply. ‘But they don’t know about the Chimærae.’
I can sense them lurking in the shadows just off the access road. These government guys might think they’ve got us surrounded, but the glowing eyes in the darkness would argue otherwise. The Chimærae hold their position, waiting for a signal.
I hear a creak behind me and half turn to find Marina on the porch, jagged icicles extending from her hands like twin daggers. That’s new. Next to her, using the doorway for cover, is Adam, holding a Mogadorian blaster.
‘What do we do?’ Marina asks.
I notice storm clouds gathering overhead. Six is ready to throw down if we need to. But so far, the government guys haven’t done anything except make a lot of noise. They didn’t come in shooting, which is the only reason I haven’t fired up my Lumen.
‘I don’t want to hurt them if we don’t have to,’ I say. ‘But we don’t have time for any bullshit. I’m damn sure not being taken in for questioning.’
Apparently, Nine interprets my words as encouragement to do something crazy. He strides forward and picks up the base of Dr Anu’s chair, which got sheared in half by blaster fire during this afternoon’s battle. The thing must weigh close to two hundred pounds, but Nine hefts it easily with one hand, swinging it back and forth as a demonstration.
‘You guys are on private property!’ Nine shouts. ‘And I don’t see any warrants!’
Before I can stop him, Nine flings the entire chunk into the air, putting it just inches from the nose of the nearest helicopter. It’s pretty obvious from my vantage point that the chopper isn’t in any real danger, but I guess the human pilot isn’t used to having superstrong Garde chucking scrap metal at him. The pilot pulls back on his controls and the chopper shakily gains altitude, its spotlight making erratic trails across the lawn. The chair piece comes down with a loud crash in the middle of the street.