I roll my eyes as I bring it up to my face, but any thought of niceties or dry sarcastic jokes vanish with the onslaught of unbearable pain.
My skin burns hotter than before. It feels like it’s bubbling and blistering. I try to push out the agony with a scream but the mask is constricting my neck, pouring hot lava through my ears and right into my skull. I claw at my ravaged face but Rune pushes my hands away.
“Ride it out,” he says, gripping my hands to his chest. I growl out a slew of curses and try desperately to free my hands from his hold.
The pain disappears as quickly as it came and he stares wide-eyed down at me.
“Let go of me,” I say through a tightly clenched jaw.
His hands lift away immediately and a smile forms on his lips. “Not so scrawny,” he says so softly I hardly hear the words.
“You could have warned me. That was way more than apinch.” I want to smack him so hard his head will spin around.
“Oops,” he smirks before dropping his hands at his sides and exiting our hiding place.
“Assholeisa better fitting name for you,” I grumble.
We walk up toward the base hissing and cursing at each other under our breaths.
Just outside the entrance, humans—thousands of them—stand waiting. Each of them wearing the same blank expression. They stagger in small circles and softly bump into each other. Every one of them is well-advanced in age. Some struggle to stand and lean on each other.
“What’s wrong with them?” I ask with a shiver. “They look stoned.”
His eyes meet mine quickly then even quicker they trail down the rest of my figure and flash up and out across the crowds of people. “I’m not sure. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“That’s the first time we’ve agreed on anything,” I say dryly.
“Your sister is probably here. Give me my faceplate and go find her.”
“No she isn’t,” I say.
“How would you know that? You haven’t even looked.”
“There isn’t anyone under the age of sixty here. Just look,” I say, waving my hands at the group of elderly people.
His eyebrows arch and he scans the crowds of people. “Look harder. Maybe in the back. We had a deal. I did my part now leave me alone. Hand over my—”
I understand this isn’t a friendship, I’m not stupid. I get that this was just an arrangement born from need; just a brief oral agreement between two enemies. But if I let him leave me here, I’m on my own. What if she’s not here? Where else would I know to find her? I have to make him stay with me. What could I possibly do? “But what if Claire is inside?”
“Aren’t you afraid?”
“Not right this minute. I’ll give you back the mask, but I’m walking in there with you.”
He shrugs and takes a deep breath. “It’s your right to want to die.”
Wait. What?
There’s no time to ask him. He’s storming through the throng of drugged-up humans heading for the gates. I run after him. He slams one of the masks over his face and doesn’t even flinch from the pain. I’m momentarily awed.
Then I get over it.
Inside the walls, there’s a distinct drone of energy, but I barely notice it. I’m too fascinated by the enormity of it all. Thousands of beings, head to toe in metal—a parade of robotic men—and in the distance where the county of Queens once lay, an enormous, sleek black atrocity I can only guess is their mode of space transport.
My back straightens as I try to blend in and mirror the way these creatures walk or stand. I search their features as I do, terrified of the one creature to see me for what I really am.
Suddenly, Rune is by my side, whispering. “Don’t speak. Don’t make a sound. Stay hidden for as long as you can.” He hurries me along, pushing me by my elbow, keeping me close to the brick buildings.
A colossal stone building looms in front of us. The stones seem ancient but I’m certain they’ve only been here since the early 1800s. I remember doing a project about it in grade school when things like that were important. A small lighthouse sits on the top of the fortification overlooking the water. Once used to keep New York safe, now, it houses the enemy.
