Scott Westerfeld - Blue Noon

“Not just for them,” Rex said. “You should leave town too.”

“I’d love to. Except in about… five minutes I’m going to get my brain turned to mush.”

Rex shook his head. “No, you’re not. I’m not going to let Melissa touch you.”

Angie snorted. “You’re just saying that so I won’t slit your throat.” She let out a deflated sigh and put the knife back into her coat pocket. “Well, you can relax. I think maybe my child-sacrificing days are over.”

As the knife disappeared, a cool sensation went through Rex. Not just a feeling of relief, but a decision. “No, I mean it. We’re not like that. Melissa doesn’t need to touch you at all. It’s quiet out here, mind-noise quiet, and she can tell if you’re lying to us, even in normal time. After midnight—when you unfreeze—just tell us everything Ernesto said.”

“And you’re going to trust me?”

Rex shrugged. “Like I said, Melissa will know if you’re lying… without having to touch you. But once midnight passes, you can just walk away if you want. So yeah, I’m trusting you.”

She narrowed her eyes, glancing at her watch. “And after midnight I’m not going to find myself suddenly mush-brained or wanting to give you my bank account?”

“Bank account?” He shook his head. “Did you get a look at this piece of crap? It’s not exactly a Mercedes, like your buddies’ cars back there.”

“I guess not.” She took a slow breath. “All right, I suppose I don’t have much choice about… Uh-oh. Speaking of cars.”

Rex followed her gaze through the front windshield. Headlights had reappeared on the horizon, making their slow way through the ravaged cactus patch.

“Crap!” he cried, reaching for the Ford’s dashboard and killing the headlights. “I hope that’s not the cops.”

She squinted. “No, it’s not a police car. Or a Mercedes, either. Looks like … I don’t know. Looks about as crappy as this piece of junk.”

Rex breathed a sigh of relief—it was Jonathan and the others.

“Okay. It’s just friends.”

A shudder went through Angie. “Including the mindcaster?”

“Yeah, but I promise she won’t touch you.” He leaned forward and turned the headlights back on, then blinked in disbelief as the car rolled to a stop a few yards away.

Jonathan and Dess were visible through the front windshield, but there was no one in the backseat. They’d followed him and Angie here without picking up Melissa and Jessica, expecting to be heroes.

He let out a frustrated sigh. Had they actually thought they were going to save him from the Grayfoots? Didn’t they know how full of darklings this part of the desert would be in two minutes?

“What’s the matter?” Angie asked. “You said they were friends, right?”

“Don’t worry. It’s not a problem… for you.” He shook his head. “Just the rest of us. If we all disappear after midnight, don’t bother leaving any more notes. We’ll all be dead.”

“Dead? Why?”

“Because your darkling pen pals are very nasty, Angie, much worse than you’ll find in any court records. And because my brilliant schemes don’t seem to be working very well tonight.”

Rex leaned back in the driver’s seat, waiting for the last few seconds of normal time to tick away. He’d been following his darkling instincts when he’d turned the car onto the flats, and they’d led him out here—miles into the deep desert, farther than he had ever been before at midnight.

Maybe part of him had wanted this.

It looked like his meeting with the old ones had come sooner than he’d planned.

“Well, as of now this plan officially sucks,” Melissa said. “No way is Jonathan getting here before midnight.”

“We should have gone along with them.” Jessica groaned, huddling in her coat against the chill wind. “I told Rex I wasn’t afraid to.”

“It’s not your fault, Jess,” Melissa said. “Rex didn’t want all five of us in Broken Arrow. You heard him.”

Jessica nodded sullenly. He’d said something about a Grayfoot trap catching them all at once—the end of the midnighters. It seemed unlikely to her.

“He probably just figured I was worried about getting busted for curfew violation,” she said. “And was trying not to make me feel like a weenie.”

She sighed. So now they were stuck here at a cold, windy roadside picnic stop just outside the county line, sitting on their butts. Next time she was going to announce to Rex that she was the new, non-weenie Jessica, unafraid of official, parental, or even sisterly punishment.

“No, Jess. I happen to know it wasn’t you he was trying to protect.”

“What do you mean?”

“It was me.” Melissa held out her hand, palm down. It was quivering in the cold. “The thought of driving fast gives me the shakes.”

Jessica looked at the mindcaster, wondering if she was kidding. Of course, flying through a windshield at eighty miles an hour might make you not want to repeat the experience.

“And they might not be here yet because they really did get busted by the cops,” Melissa continued. “In which case, we’re both lucky we didn’t go along.”

Jessica sighed. “That’s a lovely thought.” Jonathan wasn’t a big fan of spending the secret hour trapped in a jail cell, bouncing off the walls.

“Just trying to make you feel better. There are worse things than being arrested.”

“I suppose so.”

“I mean, you’ve got kidnappers and high-speed car chases involved,” Melissa continued.

“Jeez, Melissa. Who elected you Miss Sunshine?”

“I’m just saying is all.” The mindcaster looked at her watch. “Anyway, we’ll know for sure in five, four, three…”

The secret hour struck, spilling toward them across the desert floor like a sudden tide of blue ink. The picnic table shuddered beneath them, the air grew warm and still, and the stars turned ghostly pale above.

“Yeah, that’s the stuff.” Melissa sighed, tipping her head back to sniff the air. A few moments passed, then a faint smile broke across her face. “You can relax. Everyone’s okay.”

Jessica breathed a sigh of relief, glad that Melissa was here. When Rex had put the final touches on his plan, she’d been nervous about spending a whole hour in the middle of nowhere with Melissa. But actually, it hadn’t turned out so bad. Melissa wasn’t the bitchy snob she used to be.

The mindcaster fixed her with a cool glare. “Gee, thanks, Jess.”

“Oops. Sorry.” Jessica reminded herself to censor her thoughts, especially now that midnight had fallen. “But I mean… it’s true, though,” she sputtered. “You are much nicer these days.”

“Whatever.” Melissa looked skyward again, closing her eyes. “Okay. They’re all together, way out in the desert for some reason, miles off the access road. Something got screwed up—tastes like Rex and Flyboy have been arguing.”

“Funny, but I could have guessed that last part.”

Melissa smirked. “Now Jonathan’s on his way here. In a big hurry…” She frowned. “Things are waking up out there.”

Jessica drew her flashlight, whose new name was Enlightenment, from her pocket. “Are they going to be all right?”

“If we get out there before anything big jumps on them.”

“We?”

One of Melissa’s eyes opened a slit. “As in me, Flyboy, and you.”

Jessica realized it was pointless to hide her dismay. “That’s right, you’ll have to fly along with us.”

“You got it, Jess. I don’t want to, but the whole point of this plan is for me and Angie to have a little face time. And it’s not like I’m going to walk.” Melissa spread her hands. “Look, don’t worry about it, Jessica. I’m not going to spew my crippled mind into your boyfriend’s, all right?”