Chapter 22

The shot wouldn’t be possible. They–

Case raised the window.

“Is the–” Fia dulled, swiped the curtains, and took aim in line.

It had cornered the building one stride. It was frozen, ceasing all activity within and without, stalled like a dead stop in speech – a perfect element of the background, all because its rolling, scanning, cut feline eyes had noticed their wall, their message ... their towers.

Three of them were ready to fire.

But its body receded; intentional, immaculate, wrong. It would disappear into the city.

At force of muscles alone, the Burned rebound opposite something it heard, then something from the roof where a Spotter lurked, and it was inside the building for cover. There was time to fire, but not anymore.

From the open doorway a flash burst. A third Spotter ran with the others. Rolling to Case went the trap’s explosion, until the force arrived, knocking his bones. They surrounded the entrance by windows. One shot, bright as the sun to it, and the other men knew what had been done.

The Spotters’ guns pointed lower. Two walked inside, unfazed, and the third stepped back, signaling, “Dead.”

Turning from the binoculars, glancing thousands of feet of open field outside, then to those at his left, the lagged gunfire popped into their room. Then he went back on watch.

... Roth, Fia, and the guard who called him all stayed kneeling, though all took their faces from the scope momentarily: the guard, to close his book of trajectory math, the wife, for no reason that could be heard, and the husband, after reading their signs, to state, “They’re saying it came from the east.”

...

Doing simple addition, the guard focused vocally on Case, “Two encounters in twenty-six days. Not even a month.”

“So?” Roth defended. “Texas is huge – the country is fucking huge – and their footprints were gone by the end of the day. Don’t be dumb.”

...

Fia said aloud, “Did any of you see it?”

Window let shut, they all unloaded their guns.

Roth answered, “Not a good look.”

And the guard, “Mhm.”

And Case... “Yes, I did.”

She looked to the direction where the spotters dragged its body out, everything of value stripped off its body, single hole through its cheek and, inevitably, back of skull. Only Case saw this ... except, they’d seen it before.

Underneath, convulsions put in metal at the ask of a wooden stick bringing the man posted there to stand, then to seat. Beside, clicks at the communicator, telling all what happened. Behind, a pull and release at the collar of his shirt – by Fia – for his ears to be hers. “Me and Roth will go brief everyone else on what happened; you should come.”

Why?

...”You don’t have to. Some people might appreciate you doing some of the explaining, and I know they can be ... difficult, at times.”

Three people could be doing anything else. They should be told; they shouldn’t appreciate him ditching. “I’d rather work.”

An agreeable shrug, then she joined her husband leading down, and Case with.

... Roth half-shouted after him, “You did good.”

At, “Hi,” Mallory knew why she’d come.

To the girl on her day off, who lay blocking any disturbance from sight in her personal room, Navy continued, “Got off work and thought I’d come over. Sorry if you’re ... busy; I can go. But your dad let me in and said it was, uh, fine to go up here. Plus your door was open.” She added, after a cough, “I washed already, so I won’t ... smell. Yeah.”

Almost not reacting, Mallory crawled out, “ ... Just thinking. You’re fine.”

Meaning ... Navy would take her lead, put back to rug in the space’s center, and stare at a ceiling carefully decorated like every other square-inch, posters, drawings, hanging models – and color coordinated. Some of the movies up there she’d seen before, and the planes she had were well-detailed, well-crafted (from memory, in part, as Navy could mostly see landing gear and wingspan) replicas from different eras of aviation. Glowy, orange-y evening light shone well, somewhat soothingly, off their reflective fuselages. Pretty sure it was impossible for Mallory to have seen those movies ... Guess she liked the pictures.

Navy could think. Or maybe not. That room was temperate and clean, crossing stuffy, stale dust with a light breeze from her windowsill cracked open. Good for sleeping.

...

Was it the gunfire earlier? Had it scared her, or ... Someone died, even if they weren’t really a person, and Navy didn’t know how common that kind of thing was in Ballinger, then by extension, for Mallory. As for what the girl might have been thinking about that ... Navy could guess, and those guesses would probably be right, the problem being how that all affected her, and where that led her, and the way it mixed with her life and what she knew, and didn’t know. There’d have to be ... a conversation, if Navy wanted to be of any help... If that was on her mind.

Maybe she just wanted to think in peace.

... There was no good way to open her mouth, whether she directed it one way or any other, but as a friend, Navy had to take the best she could think of; if it was nothing, then that’d be fine, and if it wasn’t, then she’d get the opportunity to say so.