PART ONE
TIMBERS
1
NICO
The ground leaped up to smack Nico in the face.
Air exploded from his lungs as he tumbled down a steep slope. The drone barely missed him, buzzing the grass before shooting out over a cliff choked by dark, swirling mists.
Nearly killed by my own quadcopter. Jeez.
Nico heard pounding feet. A wide-eyed Tyler Watson appeared at the top of the rise, sunglasses wedged into his old-school box haircut. A moment later Emma Fairington appeared beside him with the remote in her hands.
“Sorry, sorry!” Tyler gripped his head. “I think the controller jammed or something!”
“Nothing jammed,” Emma snapped. “You forgot how the switches work. Pressdownto go up, genius.”
“Who makes controls like that?” Tyler shot back.
A moment later the drone zoomed out of the fog, arcing high above the cloudy Pacific Northwest coastline. Nicogrunted in relief, pushing chestnut-brown hair out of his eyes. “Good flying, Emma. I owe you the ice cream of your choice.”
Emma nodded in full agreement. “Rocky Road. Duh.”
“See? Everything’s fine.” Tyler heaved a sigh, then held up a finger. “Now, theimportantthing is that Nico’s drone is safe. So let’s not waste time figuring out who almost killed who with what.”
“Right.” Nico rolled his eyes.
“Could’ve been anybody, really.” Tyler was short and skinny, with dark skin and an infectious smile. He peered down at Nico, who was sprawled only a body-length short of aloooongdrop over the same fog-shrouded cliff. Now that he knew his friend was okay, Tyler could barely contain his laughter. “You, uh … you all right there, Nico? That looked painful.”
Nico felt lucky to be in one piece. He liked to play things cool, but there was nothing cool about throwing yourself down a hill to avoid a streaking thirty-pound drone. Not with his dad upriver at a forestry station, and his brother away at college. Twelve was considered old enough to take care of yourself in the Holland family, but not if you ended up in the hospital.
“I’m great.” Nico spat grass from his teeth. “But next time, try not to kill me with my own invention.”
“Yourinvention?” Tyler snorted as he tromped down to lend Nico a hand. “You’d never have gotten it out of the boxwithout us.” His laughter escaped, and Nico joined in. That’s just how it was with Tyler.
“It was my fault, too,” Emma admitted as the boys walked uphill to join her. “I was giving Ty flight directions. We were trying to re-create that scene inRogue Onewhere X-wings attack the beach.” Her blue eyes twinkled as she mimicked a dive-bombing action with her hands. Emma was always talking about movies, both her sci-fi favorites and the ones she meant to film someday. Nico usually found it entertaining, when he wasn’t in the line of fire.
“We gotepicfootage,” Tyler said. “Dude, your face as you ran for your life? Priceless.”
“It’s really great!” Emma waved her phone. “Wanna watch yourself flip over in slo-mo?”
“Pass.” Nico blinked to clear his head. “I’m seeing three phones right now.”
Emma’s face fell, but Nico bumped her shoulder with his to show he was kidding. She glanced into the fog behind them and shivered. “Let’s check the drone. Maybe we should fly it somewhere else.”
Tyler nodded quickly. “Anyplace away from this nightmare factory is fine by me.”
Nico understood. No one liked being this close to Still Cove. They jogged back across the grass to inspect the quadcopter.
They’d biked to this remote field—five miles northeast of Timbers, beyond even the old fort at Razor Point—because itwas the flattest stretch along this area of Washington shoreline, and the winds were milder there than anywhere else. Plus, it bordered no-man’s-land, which meant they’d be alone.
Nico glanced back at the mist. Every kid in Timbers had grown up on horror stories about Still Cove, a dead-end backwater ringed by cliffs and covered by perpetual fog. With sheer walls, jagged rocks, and odd currents, the inlet was considered too dangerous for boats. And then there were the whispers about the Beast.
Those kept people away for sure. Tourists might chuckle about Skagit Sound’s legendary sea monster, but the locals didn’t. Too many boats had gone missing.
Yet Nico had wanted calm skies to test his quadcopter. He’d spent four weeks and six hundred bucks building it. That was all his money in the world. He jumped as Emma put a hand on his shoulder. She didn’t notice, staring grimly into the mists. “I’ll never get used to this place,” she said quietly.
