“Probably. I mean, it started right after they arrived.” It would be weird not to have it, but it was also weird having it in the firstplace.
Part of me wanted to open my mind to Damien right now and try to read him, but I drew the line at those types ofintrusions.
“Do you think Jeremy would… change?” I asked him delicately. I remembered he’d said his brother changed when the ghouls landed, but I wasn’t sure howmuch.
Damien reached for another tool. “Probably, but he was always different even as a child, so it’s hard to say by how much. The doctors said he was somewhere on the milder end of the autism spectrum, but then the ghouls landed and he sort of… got overloaded. The massive data processing and extreme intellectual ability might scale down a bit if theyleft.”
It was fascinating and scary that the ghouls had that kind of power over some of us. I mean, I could freaking read minds and control people if I wanted to. All because an alien race landed on myplanet.
“He’s a sweet guy,” I told him as the song changed to one of Bruce’s more up-tempotunes.
Damien looked sideways at me while he clicked the lid into place. “When are you going to let me take you on a realdate?”
My heart beat rapidly in my chest. “I—"
The baby monitor squawked as I was about to answer. Everyone’s heart rates were elevated: 120, 115,133.
“They’ve only been in for like thirty minutes!” I exclaimed, both stood and ran for the bedroom. I was moving as fast as I could on mycrutch.
As I burst through the doorway to see them all soundly asleep, Damien was hovering over his brother. “Should we wakethem?”
I looked at the icon that was measuring Maxine’s heart rate and saw 150. “Yes. Maxine’s heart rate being high worries me.” She wasn’t scared of much. If it was high, she was gunning downghouls.
Damien started with the left side of the bed, waking Josephine and Jeremy. I hobbled to the right and picked up my crutch, bringing it down on Maxine’sshoulder.
“Wake up, woman!” I shouted. I’d never had to do this before, and it was terrifying. This must be what Tatum dealt with every time I contacted her to wake meup.
“They’re deep,” Damiensaid.
Shit.
“Get ice water!” I shouted, then yanked off one of Nox’s boots. The ghouls were keeping them in somehow. These twisted alien bastards grew smarter and smarter each night. They morphed and adapted and changed things, and it scared the shit out ofme.
Damien ran out of the room as I pulled out my left earring. It was a real diamond; Ronnie and I bought each other a matching pair. The point was sharp as hell with a screw-on backing so I wouldn’t lose it. I pressed the sharp tip to Nox’s ankle. “Sorry, buddy,” I murmured as I stabbed him with the pin and he woke upscreaming.
“Maxine!” he yelled just as Damien flew into the room with a large ice bucket. He’d filled it with water, and upon getting within range of the bed, he chucked the water into the air. It covered the faces of almost everyone in bed, waking them up with a jolt. Maxine was at the far end of the bed and still in, her limp form looked ashy andsweaty.
Nox had lunged over to wake her but it wasn’tworking.
I moved forward with my earring in hand when Ronnie sat up suddenly, pulled her gun out and pistol-whipped Maxine across thejaw.
The sound of cold steel smacking against her jaw made me cringe, but relief spread through me as her eyelids flew open and shegasped.
Everyone was awake, and no one was bleeding too badly. Maxine’s arm had a crazy rash forming, and Brisk’s eye was cut open, but otherwise everyone looked okay. Jeremy was covering his ears androcking.
“What the hell happened? You were only in half an hour,” Iasked.
Josephine was wide eyed as she ushered Jeremy out of the room quickly, Mr. Hansen right on her tail. “I’ll make coffee,” he said. He was limpingslightly.
Whatever it was, talking about it around Jeremy wouldn’t begood.
Maxine’s hand was shaking, pumped full of adrenaline most likely. “It wasbad.”
Geez.For Maxine to say that, it must’ve been trulybad.
Damien hadn’t even gone in and he was our ghoul attraction, so how bad could it be? I knew how it felt to be bombarded right after waking up from a crazy night, so I tried to bepatient.
“I got us in and everything was calm.” Ronnie finally spoke. “I took us to a nice spot near some oldbuilding.”
