Gretchen McNeil - 3:59

“Is it?”

Nick turned around. “Yeah. Selfish. Jo’s used to getting what she wants. Mr. Byrne’s a nice guy, but he’s the government liaison with the Grid. Pretty powerful. Has his office up at Fort Meade on the Grid campus and everything. Jo likes to talk it up like she can decide who gets power from the Grid, and who doesn’t. She uses it as a threat.”

“Right.” Josie remembered Penelope’s comment in the lab, and the way people went out of their way to be friendly without actually wanting to be Jo’s friend. She was a bully.

“It’s weird, though,” Nick said after a pause. “Why she’d want to stay there.”

Once again, Josie couldn’t prevent her natural reaction. She laughed out loud.

“What?” Nick asked, half turning toward her.

“Why wouldn’t she want to stay there? This place is awful. She’s in love with you, while you clearly can’t stand her, and—”

“Whoa,” Nick said, holding up his hand. “How did you know she’s in love with me?”

Crap. Loaded question which Josie had no intention of answering. She cleared her throat and barreled on. “Everyone avoids her at school. She has no friends. Oh, and when the sun goes down the darkness tries to eat you alive.”

Nick cocked his head. “No Nox in your world?”

“Hell, no. What are those things anyway?”

“Hmm,” Nick said, ignoring her question. “Still, not enough to make her stay there. Not with her mom and everything. Unless . . .”

Josie started. “Wait, what about her mom?”

“She didn’t tell you?”

Josie narrowed her eyes. “There’s a lot Jo didn’t tell me.”

Nick laughed softly. “Yeah, that sounds like her too.” Nick paced back and forth, ignoring her question about Jo’s mom. Suddenly, he swung around. “Your mom, on the other side. She’s okay?”

“Yeah, I guess. I mean, she’s been kinda weird lately, but she’s not sick or anything.”

“And Jo knew this?”

Josie nodded. “Yeah.”

He tilted his head to the side. “What does your mom do? Like for a living?”

“She’s a theoretical physicist.”

“Specializing in quantum gravity?”

“Yes!”

“Experimenting with ultradense deuterium?”

“How did you know?”

“I wonder . . .” Nick bounded across the room and grabbed Josie by the hand, yanking her out of the chair. “Come on.”

Josie jerked her hand away. “Whoa, crazy. I’m not going anywhere with you.”

Nick’s eyebrows pinched together over his nose in a look of utter confusion. Then his eyes drifted to the gun on the bed. “Oh. Right. Look, I’m sorry about that, but you don’t understand. I thought you were one of them.”

“One of who?”

“I’ll explain on the way. But we need to get out of here.”

Josie folded her arms across her chest. “I said, I’m not going—”

Nick rolled his eyes, then snatched up the gun. Josie backed away, cursing herself for being so stupid. He was going to kidnap her.

Instead, Nick flipped the gun around so the barrel faced him, and handed it to her. “You can carry this if it’ll make you feel better. But I need you to come with me right now. Please.”

Josie tentatively reached out and took the gun out of Nick’s hand. She’d never held a weapon before. It was heavier than she’d thought. “Why should I trust you?”

Nick smiled at her. A real, sincere smile. The first she’d seen from him. “Because I might be the only person who can get you home.”

4:45 P.M.

THE SUN CREPT TOWARD THE HORIZON AS NICK continued to drive. Josie fidgeted in her seat, craning her head to get a look at how dark it was getting, as her fingers lightly traced the bandages on her arms. The last thing she wanted to do was get stuck outside after the sun went down.

“We’ll be fine,” Nick said, reading her mind. He tapped the roof of his SUV. “This baby’s got a full set of interior lights, plus the high-intensity floodlights I had installed on the roof. I go out at night all the time, no trouble. Trust me.”

Josie glanced at the handgun in her lap. “Right.”

“Besides,” Nick said with a shrug. “There’s plenty of light where we’re going.”

“And where’s that exactly?”

Nick smiled, but didn’t answer.

What was with all the mystery? She couldn’t figure it out. Nick seemed to be taking a random route: first they were on Annapolis Road, then the old Crain Highway, before doubling back on Route 32 to Route 50, almost exactly back where they started.

It wasn’t until the second loop that Josie realized what he was doing.

“You think someone’s following us.”

Nick shrugged. “Maybe.”

“Why?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“Oh.”

They fell back into silence, but only for a moment. There was one question Josie was dying to ask.

“What are the Nox?”

“Good question.” Nick made a right-hand turn onto the highway for the third time. “You really don’t have anything like them where you come from?”

“Nope.”

“You sure?”

“Pretty sure I’d know if there were man-eating monsters living in the darkness.”

“Okay, okay. Don’t get touchy.” Nick glanced at her. “It’s just hard to imagine life without them. A life where you can actually go outside at night or sleep in the dark.”

“Was it always like that?”

Nick shook his head. “Not always.” He sped up, keeping one eye on the rearview mirror. They were passing an off-ramp and at the last minute, he veered over two lanes and took the exit.

Josie grabbed the “oh shit” handle as the SUV screeched around the bend. Another quick turn and Nick slammed on the brakes and veered the car off the road behind a thick growth of scrub brush. Lo and behold, about sixty seconds later, a black sedan car sped down the same road they’d just been on.

Josie gasped. “You were right.”

Nick held up his hand, and continued to watch the road. A few minutes later, the same car slowly drove by in the opposite direction, backtracking, looking for them.

Nick stayed put. After ten minutes, another car passed by—a black SUV this time. As before, it drove slowly, and circled back after a few minutes.

As the SUV disappeared back onto the highway, Nick exhaled deeply. “Okay, I think we’re good.”

Josie tightened her seat belt. “Wow.”

Nick started the engine and shifted into neutral, then let his car slowly coast down onto the road. They had a clear view in either direction. No black cars in sight. Without waiting, Nick turned right and resumed normal driving speed and tactics as he crossed the train tracks.

“Who’s following you?”

Nick shrugged. “The first was a government tail, most likely. The second was definitely from the Grid. That’s who’s usually following me, just in case I know something.” He looked at Josie sidelong. “We’re all being followed. Anyone who had a connection to Project Raze.”

“Project Raze?”

“I’ll explain it all when we get there, I promise,” Nick said, cutting off the question on the tip of her tongue. “But yeah, the Nox. I’ll give you the history-book version since apparently you’re clueless.”

“What gave me away?”

Nick laughed. “Besides walking down an unlit trail through the woods after dark?”

“Exactly.”

“We’re taught in kindergarten,” Nick said, in a sugary-sweet tone, “that the Nox are like the boogeyman—they come to get children who are bad, in the night while they’re sleeping.”

“That’s awful.”

“Isn’t it? You should see the picture books about it. Scare tactics to get kids to behave and follow the rules. Twenty years ago, parents would use them as punishment. If you were bad, you’d get stuck out on the back porch all night with just a single light above you to keep the Nox at bay.”