I don’t think we’d have gotten this far without Neal. And not just because of the passports he brought us.
“All right.” I clear my throat, just enough to get their attention back on me. “Then we need to do this now, before someone finds us and takes the phone, and hope it spreads.”
Jules finally speaks again, still holding my hand, his voice almost steady. “It’s good timing. It’s noon here, so it’d be eleven a.m. in England,” he says. “Six a.m. on the east coast of the US. A lot of people will be awake to see it.”
My brows lift, focus derailed the tiniest bit. “You just know that off the top of your head?”
Jules lifts his eyebrows right back at me, and now his gaze is steady. “I looked it up. I had a compelling reason to learn what the time difference would be between, say, Oxford and a suitably anonymous town on the east coast of America.”
He doesn’t addwhen this is all over. But it’s there in his eyes, in the determined set of his jaw. I haven’t forgotten the promise I made him—that we’re in this together, from now on, no matter what—and for the first time, I wonder if it could really turn out that way.
So I don’t try to hide the smile those words spark, and I don’t suppress the flutter of excitement that he’d been looking up our time differences, and I don’t turn away to hide my blush.
“We’ll have everyone on the #IBelieveInAddison forums to help spread the word,” Neal says, head down, already fiddling with his phone. “And my followers.”
“You have followers?” I ask.
“Many. He posts pictures of the Oxford water polo team,” Jules says beside me, dry. “Our uniform doesn’t involve shirts.”
I blink slowly, and just give my brain a minute. It’s been through a lot lately, and that’s quite an image.
Neal is logging in to his accounts and setting up a stream, while explaining to Jules the information he’ll need to give about building a frequency jammer—once he’s convinced everyone he’s for real.
Jules is nodding, brain working overtime as he memorizes it, expression dubious. “I’m going to convincingly tell them we can stop the portals opening and save the world with a secondhand microwave and some duct tape?” he asks. “Why don’t I just throw in some chewing gum and a shoelace?”
“If you like,” Neal replies. “As long as you look a lot less disbelieving when you say it.”
“And,” Dex says, from where he’s studying Dr. Addison’s equations, “you gotta do it quickly, before someone realizes we’re here and imprisons us. Jules, if you can convince enough people, itwillwork. My people gotta have the portals to shift the virus planetside, distribute it to the cities. There’s not enough of us trained in Earth gravity to invade head-on, and all our shuttles are already down on the surface, most of them self-destructed by now.”
“And what’re the odds they’ll just drop a rain of bombs on our heads or something out of petty vengeance?”
Dex’s eyebrows rise. “And destroy the only habitable planet we’ve ever known?” He shakes his head. “Without the portals, I don’t think they’ll have any choice but to leave, or negotiate some kind of peace.”
Peace.
A week ago I would have scoffed, pointing out the sheer inhumanity of the invaders at our doorstep, and claiming there was no possible way this would end peacefully. But Dex—and the rest of his unseen Nautilus operatives—have reminded me that even enemies can be complex. Even enemies can become allies.
Jules starts muttering his script to himself, head down, as Neal positions the camera. I spin away to pace, and stop short when I abruptly realize there’s someone staring back at me through the observation window in our locked cell door.
His perfect black hair is still perfectly in place, and his perfectlyshaped eyebrows are lifted just a little, but there’s something a little wild about Director De Luca’s eyes.
“Guys,” I say, and the warning in my tone grabs everyone’s attention, so that a second later, the only sound in the cell is the soft hum of the door as De Luca opens it.
“No,” he says, turning his head to speak to someone outside, and I catch a glimpse of an armed soldier. “Stay outside. Close the door behind me.”
“Director, I—”
De Luca silences the protest with one raised hand. “You don’t have security clearance for this conversation,” he says, and steps into the room.
A moment later, the door hums closed behind him. And then it’s the five of us.
The silence stretches as we all face the man in the doorway, trying to get his measure. His eyes sweep across us, coming to rest upon Dex.
He breaks the silence with one question, voice low. “Is there a cure?”
I’m glancing at Dex before I have time to register the implications of that question. The Undying boy draws a quaking breath and shakes his head. “For Lyon? No.”
De Luca’s face tightens, and this time I can see the fear in his eyes as he gazes at Dex. “Your people,” he says, and then pauses for a few long heartbeats, struggling with the question he’s about to ask. “Are they human?”
