“Let’s do this.”
Chapter 41
Pansy
King’s End, Minnesota
Thursday, July 13
Of course I look back. Why Henry thought I wouldn’t, I can’t say. But he’s standing in the middle of the housing development, busy playing hero, so he hasn’t checked.
Which is just as well. Because I have other plans.
The pulse his umbrella sends out resounds. The saplings, the framed-in houses, the chain-link, all of it shakes and rattles. The force clears the area of Screamers. The rain stops. The wind dies. Sunlight touches my cheeks, and above, that blue, blue sky appears surreal.
This, I know, is my cue to run, to escape the development. Instead, I skirt the showcase home. If Henry does spare a glance, he’ll think I’ve gone. I can’t leave him alone. He’s just executed his signature move. And I know what comes next.
The mass gathers on the far side of the development, near that hole in the fence. From the fissure near the basement egress window, more Screamers emerge. They all but ignore me. A few dive-bomb my head, more harassment than a precision move meant to incapacitate. Then they take off as well. Henry is still sending out that pulse.
And it’s irresistible.
The Screamers gather, coalescing into a tornado again. The sky above him is that sickly green, a bruise that simply won’t heal. The air is full of static. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck and along my arms.
I inch closer, planning my next move, gauging which tactic might work best. Hit them straight on? Flank Henry and the entire mass and strike from the side or even from behind? As I consider my options, the tableau freezes me in place.
Henry, standing alone against a gathering so large, I can no longer detect individual Screamers. They are a cyclone, or a sandstorm, or possibly a mushroom cloud. They obliterate the landscape. They are destruction itself. This is what the Sight showed me at the farmers market. Seldom, if ever, is it so precise, so exact. Something always changes; there are too many variables for it not to. Except now.
I’m witnessing the end of Henry Darnelle.
And I can’t let that happen.
Chapter 42
Ophelia
King’s End, Minnesota
Thursday, July 13
Ophelia is holding her breath. Or, at least, it feels that way. She has seen Henry die so many times, too many to count. The Enclave always comes for him, and the Enclave always wins.
But she’s never seen him die like this, facing down what must be the largest gathering of Screamers outside a level five hot spot, maybe larger. Certainly, larger than the Sahara.
Now Ophelia wonders if urging Henry and Pansy to get out in front of the Screamers simply condemned them both. Because Pansy isn’t leaving, and Henry certainly isn’t. Pansy will have to drag him from the development, assuming he agrees to come at all.
But the alternative wasn’t any better. Ophelia knows this. The confrontation in the cemetery left them both incapacitated. It was so fierce that Henry’s umbrella sent out that automatic override and alerted Enclave HQ that something catastrophic had occurred, which, to be fair, it had.
Henry and Pansy never make it back home in that scenario. The Enclave—or rather, the portion that Botten controls—swoops in, finds them broken among the headstones, and then gets on with the business of ending the world.
That last looks an awful lot like what’s happening now.
If a full complement of top-notch Enclave field agents can’t fight the coming storm, Ophelia can’t imagine how Pansy and Henry might. She supposes now, at least, the Enclave—and Botten in particular—are denied any part in this. It’s a pyrrhic sort of victory.
From behind the showcase home, Pansy is weighing her options. Does she see things Ophelia can’t? Pansy swipes at her nose, that blood again, making her appear as fierce as she is.
She runs, then, not toward Henry or the Screamers, and not even toward the gate and freedom, but toward the center of the housing development. Because something is happening on the far side of the development, something Ophelia just now has noticed. A mighty force strikes Henry, strikes his heart, and sends him flying backward. He is airborne, umbrella still clutched in one hand.
He lands hard, right where Pansy is standing. With the help of that clever little umbrella, she breaks the impact. But Henry is sizable, tall, broad shoulders, all muscle. Pansy, while no slouch, most likely weighs half of what he does. Henry should crush her.
