We get out and toss our cups into a trash can, rousing a flurry of black flies. A bee buzzes past us, doubles back, and hovers close until Julio bats it away. Every caw of every bird has us holding our breath. It’s only a matter of time until they find us.
We’re all jumpy as we watch the sky above the highway for signs. The sedan’s parked along the curb, our exit unobstructed, the tank topped off with fuel.
In theory, Jack’s plan should work.
He paces beside the car. He’s second-guessing himself, I know it. I can read the burning question on his mind in every line etched in his brow.
What if I’m wrong?
Up until now, the only thing he doubted was his logic. Now, thanks to Lyon, he’s questioning everything—his instincts, his motivations, his choices. He stops pacing when I take his hand. I draw him close and kiss him, a single lingering touch of our lips, reminding him why I’m here. “This isourplan. We control it. It’ll work,” I tell him. “I know it.”
He catches my face as I pull away. When he bends to return the kiss, it’s slow and strong, vulnerable and deep, his eyes closed and his soul bared to me.
“I love you,” he whispers, leaving me breathless and reeling, struggling to form coherent thoughts.
Julio pushes off the trunk of the car. He points to a patch of dark sky in the distance. “Are you all seeing this?”
I shake off the buzzing in my head and force myself to focus.
Amber inhales deeply, her nose tipped to the wind. “Winters coming from the northwest.”
Jack’s eyes fog over, distant, as he says, “I’m getting Autumns from the south.”
We all squint, struggling to make out anything in the early-morning light, but it’s all farmland on either side of the highway as far as the eye can see. “They must be coming on foot,” Julio says, watching the fields.
“Not all of them.” I point at the still-dark stretch of road in front of us. A tight procession of headlights appears on the horizon, two lanes wide and several cars deep. Jack was right. This is worse than the beach. Worse than the cabin. This is every Season, in every territory in the region, closing in on us at once.
Jack tosses me the keys. Amber and I get in and I start the engine. Julio and Jack stand shoulder to shoulder in front of the car.
“Ready?” Jack asks him.
“As I’ll ever be.”
They turn back to back. Julio faces south, his upturned face catching the light of the rising sun and his fists clenched at his sides. A warm breeze builds. It crests over the fields, balmy and hot, whipping my hair through the open window of the car. I scrape it from my eyes as a swarm of black birds rises from the southernmost field and launches into the sky. Three figures stand in the middle of the sowed acres of dirt, shielding their faces from the dust devils swirling up from the ground.
“Three on foot to the south, less than a mile out!” I shout.
Jack faces north, a mirror of Julio. The warm southerly wind flows over him, hardening when it makes contact with his skin, cloaking him in a layer of frost.
“Uh-oh.” Amber points into the field to our right.
“Jack!” He turns to me, his eyes clouded white and his lashes laced in ice. “Three more coming in!” Jack lifts his face to the sky. Clouds gather, ominous and black, as a rolling thunderhead builds over the field. A burgeoning line of rain falls like a shadow below it and the incoming Seasons hunch against the sudden downpour.
Cold misty wind begins to beat against the side of the car. Amber rolls up her window. “How long is it supposed to take? Why hasn’t it formed yet?”
“I don’t know.” I tap an impatient beat on the steering wheel.
The Seasons in the fields press in on both sides, leaning into the wind. The headlights ahead draw closer.
Amber gnaws her thumbnail. “This could all go really, really wrong.”
“It won’t,” I tell her. It can’t. It’s too late to come up with anything else. This storm is our only hope.
Julio’s muscles strain. His skin shines with mist and sweat. Icicles coat Jack’s hair, his ears, his clothes...
“Nothing’s happening,” Amber says, her voice rising.
I grip the wheel. The headlights in the distance are close enough to count now.
