“I’m sorry, Jack. I’ll explain later,” Mara said as she ran from the truck to her motorcycle parked out front of the house.
“Are you sure I can’t help?” Jack called out to her.
Mara hated not answering him and leaving him standing there confused and anxious. She would find a good explanation later. But not now. Nothing mattered other than getting to Anna before anything bad happened to her. She started her motorcycle and sped down the dirt road, racing to get out of Jack’s line of sight before she took flight.
“Anna! Can you hear me?” Mara shouted over the iCom.
No response—the only sound came from the whine of the motorcycle engine and the wind buffeting her ears.
Night felt like a wave slowly rolling across the valley floor. Mara glanced in the side mirror. Behind her, the top of the Armstrong house disappeared beneath the soft rise of the hill and out of view. The road behind her was now clear. She leaned her bike toward a thick patch of weeds along the side of the road and let go of the handlebars as she silently took flight.
The riderless motorcycle followed along beneath her for the first couple of seconds on its own, forward momentum keeping it steady. Then the handlebars wobbled violently to the left then right before flipping in midair to land hard in the thick brush along the roadside.
“I’m sorry, Mara,” Anna’s voice came over the iCom.
Fear closed tight like a vise around Mara’s throat and lungs and made it hard to breathe. She leaned forward and willed her body to go as fast as it could.
“SID! Where is she?”
<Anna is approximately thirty seconds away at current speed. Follow the coordinates I provided.>
Mara passed over Tyson Lake, the light from the newly risen moon reflecting off the water’s surface. From this elevation, farm fields sprawled out in a square patchwork of varying shades of gray. Lines blurred. Then, just ahead, along the black line where the woods and the fields met, Mara could make out a cylinder of light pointing up toward the sky like a beacon. She zoomed in and saw the source of the light. She saw a young man with a rifle walking forward, his back lit up by a truck’s headlights. The rifle was aimed at a figure crouched on the ground. It was Anna.
Mara wanted to scream, to lash out, but focused every bit of her attention on a spot just inches in front of the young man and sped downward in a blur. She covered more than a hundred feet in the time it took the young man to move one step forward. Within the next second, she had halved the distance between them. The young man took another step closer. Just a few seconds more. Mara had one chance to pull up from her dive before hitting the man at a speed that would kill them both. The ground raced up to meet her. She calculated the coming shift in gravity, the direction of her body, the air resistance, and her speed, then slowed her descent as she swung her legs up in a kicking motion.
The sudden deceleration caused her stomach to flip and her eyes to blur, but she knew she had to kick out now. The heel of her boot came down hard against the rifle barrel, knocking it out of the man’s hands and away from Anna.
The young man screamed out at nobody and began flailing his arms blindly in a circle. Mara landed gently in front of him—making sure to stay out of his reach—and turned off her cloaking mode.
She raised the palm of her hand and the pulsing glow from her hand seemed to calm the young man. With each pulse of light, the will to fight or even move appeared to flow out of his limbs like water..
“Mara!” Anna called out.
Tyler turned his head, surprised by the distant voice.
Mara signaled for Anna to be quiet while never losing eye contact with the frightened young man in front of her. She took a small step forward, her hands held up in front of her. A sign she meant no harm.
“Anna. Take the creature and go to the lake. Now,” Mara said calmly. No sense of urgency in her voice. “I’ve got this.”