Sekou screamed over the roar of zombies and the sounds of the battle above us, “Hailey, you got any more juice in that thing? Just like last night!”
Yes! The whistle. That could buy us a little bit of time to get everyone out.
Hailey stood up, taking in a deep breath. We all put our hands over our ears. She pulled out the cylinder, shook it hard, and pressed the button.
In the crumbling house the sound was louder, reverberating against the weak and porous walls. The abalsoms dropped to the ground writhing, screaming. Some fell back through the huge hole in the floor, crashing into the exposed pipes below. Fumes of gas began wafting up from it and we started to cough.
My grandmother and Effie broke apart. Effie roared, her hands flying to her ears. Nana Ama bared her teeth and went after her sister. They flew up into the second floor.
Lyle picked up Naira from the floor, threw the front door open, and went through. But I wasn’t going to leave my grandmother. No way. I wouldn’t leave her, not when she’d come back for me.
Luke had found a lighter, golden cased and bloodied, in Franco’s pocket. I knew what he meant to do. I tried to tell himto stop. To wait because my grandmother was still in here. Somewhere upstairs where I could hear her and Effie still going at it.
Luke flicked it open. “Tell Naira I love her,” he said as Sekou pulled me toward the front door.
“No. Let me go. We can’t leave her. Not here,” I cried. I tried to pull myself away from him, but he was unbelievably strong, even for me.
Lyle had returned for Hailey, who refused to let go of her brother’s hand. “No, Luke! Not when I’ve just found you again,” she said. “You can beat this. You can.”
But he couldn’t. He knew it. I knew it. We all did. Even Hailey. This was Luke’s last stand. A way to absolve himself of the things he’d done these past weeks under Effie’s control.
“Too late for me,” he panted out. “I feel her will running through me. I’ll be like them soon. I… can’t.”
Lyle yanked hard on Hailey, just as Luke managed to slip his hand from hers. They ran out the door.
Nana Ama reappeared. She held Effie in her claws and was about to rip her throat out. Nana looked at me. Looked at Luke and what he held and at the abalsoms once again emerging through the broken floorboards. My grandmother understood.
“Let her go, Nana! Please,” I begged, my hands reaching out to her. Sekou flung me over his shoulder and ran toward the door.
“Nana!” I screamed once more.
But she’d already turned, tossing an unmoving Effie and lowering herself to face the horde of abalsoms advancing on us. For a suspended second, our eyes locked—mine terrified and pleadingwith her not to stay, Ama’s full of fire and fury—I saw the entire world of my people, Nyame, and his kingdom Above in her eyes.
I saw the strongest person I’d ever known and would ever know in my long, long life.
I tried to change into my form, to break free and snatch her before Luke lit the fire. But I couldn’t concentrate. My adze self would not come.
We jumped over the threshold onto the brittle porch that nearly caved in from our weight.
The legion of abalsoms swarmed Ama.
We hit the last step, onto the path, then began running over the uneven dirt away from the house. Luke flicked the lighter, but it failed to produce a flame.
Effie bellowed, “No!” and I could feel the anger, the fear, the hate coiling like vipers all around us. She tried to escape through the door, but Ama tackled her and held her down as the abalsoms swarmed around them.
The lighter finally flicked. And then with a spark and awhoosh, the flames caught on the gas fumes. Then I heard the swell of abalsom screams as the fire spread like the hollowing, consuming them all.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
We must have been knocked out because suddenly someone was calling my name, shaking me. My eyes opened and I hoped this had all been a bad dream, that my grandmother hadn’t given her life for me. But the acrid and sweet smell of burning aged timber told me otherwise. Told me,Ada, this is nothing like a dream.
My eyes focused on the shapes hovering above me, and the image cleared. It was Sekou and Hailey. Their voices sounded as if they were a million miles away but were growing closer, rushing in like a semitruck.
I didn’t know what was going on. Where I was.
But then it all came back like a punch to the gut. Nana Ama! I had to save her!
I shot to a sitting position, my head on a swivel as the massive heat from the raging fire came at us in waves. The plantation home burned like a box of matchsticks. I searched the flames as if I could see through them and pick out where my grandmother might be.
