“Come on,” said Fenella crisply. “We’d better get going before these lunatics show up with rifles and a human taxidermy kit.”
She startled a laugh out of him. “No, wait. I can build a radio.”
“With what, three twigs and a mini screwdriver?”
He held the bag open, letting her peek into it. “I have a lot more than that.”
“I don’t see a transformer.”
“I can build it.”
“An oscillator?” she asked.
“I can build that too,” he replied.
“Seriously?”
“Sure. Have you ever built a radio?”
“I’m not stupid!” The yell abruptly burst from her. Fenella’s fists were clenched, her face bright red.
He was baffled by her sudden anger. “Not knowing how to build a radio doesn’t make you stupid.”
“Well, I do know how to build one! I don’t see all the parts you need, that’s all.”
“Okay.” Still confused, Carter fished through the bag, showing her everything he needed. “See, here’s an inductor… and I can use these to make capacitors…”
“Okay, okay.” She still seemed irritated, but had cooled down considerably from her first outburst. Glancing around, she said, “Why don’t we start paddling, and you can work on it on the way?”
“We need to stay in one place once we signal, and building it won’t take me long.” Now he was getting annoyed. Why didn’t she believe him? He was literally famous for building things.
“How long?”
“Twenty minutes. Thirty, max. I’ll send an SOS, and we’ll be airlifted out of here within the hour.”
“Okay, fine. Let’s give it a try.”
She watched him intently as he worked. Normally he didn’t mind that. In fact, when it was someone like Fenella who understood what he was doing, he even enjoyed it. But a nagging voice muttered at him as he made the components and put them together, a voice that was not a monster’s but his own, speaking doubts he’d never had before he’d disappeared.
He wasn’t worried that it wouldn’t work; he knew it would. He didn’t doubt his own skill; that hadn’t changed. But ever since his snow leopard had been murdered and a mob of monsters had been crammed inside him, sometimes when he worked on electronics or even went near them, things went wrong.
It’s one of you, isn’t it?Carter accused his inner monsters.One of you is an electric eel or a platypus or something like that, and you zap things.
The monsters hissed and snarled and screeched and flashed their angry denial. He didn’t believe a word—or color—of it.
Well, don’t do it now,he told them.You can keep on trashing my life because God knows I can’t stop you, but Fenella Kim is innocent. Grouchy and touchy and vengeful, but innocent. Let me get her out of here, and then you can blow up my refrigerator on your own time.
He was so absorbed in his work that he barely noticed time passing until he had finished. He stretched and looked up, right into the dark and beautiful eyes of Fenella Kim.
“It looks good,” she said, a touch grudgingly. “And I think you’re within thirty minutes.”
Her praise was unexpectedly pleasing. Of course he’d made it well and on time. He was Carter Howe, wasn’t he?
“Time to get out of here.” With a proud smile, he turned it on.
There was a muffledwhumpand a flash of light as the radio exploded.
He instinctively lunged to shield Fenella just as she flung up her arms to cover her face. Her elbow hit his cheekbone with a sharp crack, adding yet another bruise to his growing collection. Both of them went down into the squishy ground.
