Return to Paradise (5 page)

SARAH AND I GET OUR FIRST CHANCE TO TALK
together at school the next day. The FBI—in a rare moment of kindness—didn’t inform Sarah’s parents about the events of Saturday night, so for all they knew, Sarah had just been out way past her curfew and got caught up in the attempt to catch wanted-criminal John Smith. As part of her punishment, she’s on a strict schedule: one that includes bus rides to and from Helena High and no more quality time with me. It’s a bummer, but it’ll pass.

I’m waiting near the entryway of the school pretending to be interested in reading a book for English class when she arrives. We lock eyes, and I motion my head towards the deserted hallway that leads to the back of the school’s auditorium.

“Hey,” she says. She seems in good spirits, which is a vast improvement over the last time we spoke.

“Hey yourself,” I say. “How you holding up?”

“I’m on complete parental lockdown right now, but other than that I’m okay.” She looks away from me. “No word from You Know Who.”

“I wouldn’t worry about that. From what I can gather, they made a clean getaway.” And then I realize what she means. John escaped but didn’t contact her. He didn’t come back for her. “Oh, but . . . I’m sure he’s thinking about you?”

It’s by far more of a question than a statement.

“It’s cool. I’ve had a lot of time to think it over while barricaded in my room. Of course he didn’t come for me. It’s not like I can just leave my family and go gallivanting across the world fighting aliens—or whatever it is he’s doing. And dropping by again to see me just puts me in danger. I’m sure when the time is right, he’ll come back for me.”

Great. It’s possible that a part of me was hoping that this whole “questioned by the FBI about my arrested boyfriend” thing would snap some sense into Sarah. Looks like I’ve got more waiting to do.

“I just wish there was some way we could figure out what their next move is.”

Something clicks in the back of my head. I see a way for me and Sarah to spend some time together.

“You’ve got no absences in art after lunch, right?” I ask.

“Right.” Her voice has a hint of suspicion in it. “It’s only our second week here.”

“Good. We’re going to try to gather some intel.” Her face scrunches in confusion. I smirk. “An explosion at the Goodes’ house the same night John’s in town. Can’t be a coincidence, can it?”

“Of course not,” she says. Her lips start to morph into a mischievous smile.

“That’s not something you sleep through. I bet Mrs. Goode saw some stuff. Maybe she even got to talk to Sam. I mean, you know she’s been worried about him. Maybe he gave her some idea about where they were going.”

“And what do we do about art class?”

I shrug. “We had a flat tire at lunch. You’re allowed a few unexcused absences. Where’s your sense of adventure, Sarah Bleeding Heart?”

She lets out a laugh.

“Don’t you dare tell me I’m trying to lead a boring life.”

At lunch, we leave hell and travel back to Paradise.

Sam’s house is on the outskirts of town, and I stick to all the back roads I can—the last thing I need right now is to run into my dad when I’m supposed to be lifting weights twenty minutes away.

We ring the doorbell a few times and loiter on the
porch, but no one’s around. I peer through the front windows and some lacy curtains, but there don’t appear to be any lights on inside.

After five minutes, we make our way around the back of the house, where I see exactly why the police rushed out to the Goodes’ place. Half the backyard is scorched. It looks like a little well or something has been blasted to pieces. There’s a huge window that’s been blown out and covered with some kind of plastic tarp. It gives me sudden flashbacks of the way campus looked during the Mog attack.

“They were definitely here,” Sarah says, coming up beside me.

“There’s no evidence of this being other than a fire, though. No weapons or anything like that. Everything must have been taken away.”

“The cleanup crew is thorough.”

I nod, and we walk over to the truck, defeated. I’m ready to drive back to Helena when Sarah sees it.

“Mark,” she whispers.

She’s pointing at something in the passenger-side mirror. We turn in tandem, and I immediately see what’s caught her eye. There’s a black car parked in the middle of the road about a football field away. Unmoving. The windshield is so tinted that I can’t even tell if anyone’s inside or not.

“That car . . . ,” I start.

“Doesn’t look friendly.” Sarah finishes my thought.

I put my truck in gear and start driving, my eyes locked on the rearview mirror, hoping that the car will stay put.

It doesn’t.

“Mark,” Sarah says.

“I know.” My foot presses harder on the gas. I tell myself this is just a coincidence, but there’s no way I can talk my brain into believing that.

“It’s gaining on us,” Sarah says. She’s completely twisted around in the seat, her hands gripping the headrest.

I glance down at my speedometer. I’m already going sixty in a thirty, but I speed up even more.

“SHIT!” Sarah shouts, and I look in my rearview mirror again just in time to see the front bumper of the car disappear under my tailgate.

The car gives me a fairly light love tap—probably not enough to cause any damage but enough for me to feel it, and to rattle me pretty hard. It lets up a little, but it’s still trailing me by only a few feet. Instinctively, I speed up. The car does the same.

“Get back under your seat belt,” I yell at Sarah, who’s wiggled out of it to keep her eyes locked on the car.

“What do we do?” she asks.

My mind races. I can’t slow down. Luckily, the street we’re on is fairly straight, but there’s a curve coming up
I’ll never be able to take at this speed.

“I don’t know,” I mutter. I’m pushing ninety and rising, but the car’s not letting up. I can barely make out someone behind the wheel—just a big black blob vaguely in the shape of a human. I wonder for a second if it’s a Mog or an FBI agent or some new type of alien we didn’t even know existed, because that’s a very real possibility at this point.

“What do they want?” I ask.

“Obviously to murder us,” Sarah shouts. She grips her seat.

We’re approaching the curve in the road when the car suddenly zips into the oncoming traffic lane and revs up beside me until we’re speeding along parallel to one another. The tinting on the car windows make it impossible to see anything but the reflection of the outside world—like the car is some sort of automated machine out for blood without an actual driver inside.

Sarah gasps. “Crap! Is it going to—”

I see what she’s guessing at a split second before it happens. I slam on my brakes. Sarah screams. The black car whips into my lane, missing the hood of my truck by what looks like inches. I can feel my antilock brakes pumping beneath my foot as the bed of my truck starts to slide to the right.

“HOLD ON!” I shout, bracing myself with one hand on the wheel and one gripping Sarah’s arm—as if I’m
going to be able to hold us in place if we start to roll. I can feel the truck start to fall over.

But we don’t roll. The truck tips, then shudders, and finally comes to a stop after spinning a quarter turn. Smoke from my tires drifts through the air around us, filling my nose with the stench of burned rubber. Every muscle in my body is contracted, and I can already tell that I’m going to have some kind of bruise where my body’s been thrown against the seat belt.

There’s no sign of the black car. It’s disappeared around the curve.

“Are you okay?” I ask Sarah, who looks at me and nods. Her hair’s been thrown over her face, and her eyes are wide. She wriggles a little, and I realize I’ve got a viselike grip on her. I let her go. My fingers feel stiff.

I put the truck into park and start to shake a little, adrenaline rushing through me.

Ahead of us, the black car appears, stopped at the head of the curve in the road.

“Mark,” Sarah says. “Get us out of here.”

And then there’s smoke coming from the car’s wheels as it peels out. It careens straight for the passenger side of my truck.

I flip the truck into reverse to try and get us off the road, but I’m too slow. There’s no way we’re getting out of the way in time.

And then, at the last second, the car swerves to the
right and misses us completely, then continues to barrel down the deserted road as I stomp on the gas and back up as fast as possible. I end up slamming into a thin, tall tree. It falls over with a crack. Splintering.

We watch as the car disappears from sight again, this time miles and miles away. I’m breathing like I’ve just played the most intense scrimmage of my life. Sarah’s hands are shaking.

“What the fuck was that?” I ask.

“I think that means we were poking around where we weren’t supposed to.”

“That car just tried to kill us.”

“No,” Sarah says, shaking her head. “It was just trying to scare us. To warn us about what would happen if we keep digging. If we get more involved.”

I glance at the clock. The period after lunch is starting in Helena. Shakily, I put the truck in gear and head towards our new school. There’s nothing else for us in Paradise right now.

MY DAD’S ALREADY HOME BY THE TIME I GET
back from school that night, which is strange, because he’s recently been getting home about an hour after I do. I back my truck around the side of the house—there’s a good-size dent in my bumper and some scraped paint on my tailgate that I’d like to hide from him as long as possible. Stupid tree.

I can hear fighting when I walk inside. I rush to the dining room, where Nana’s reprimanding Dad about something. There are several cans of beer on the table.

I walk in on him midsentence.

“. . . bastards have no right to kick me out of my own damned office.”

“You may be an adult,” Nana says, “but you won’t use language like that under my roof.”

They notice me at the same time, and Nana moves to usher me out of the dining room while my dad swigs
back a beer.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“Apparently the FBI has completely taken over your father’s station,” Nana says, pushing me into the kitchen and pointing at a plate of cookies. I shake my head.

“What?”

“He’s less than pleased. Apparently a man named Perty or Purdy or some such kicked him out of his own office.”

Purdy
.

“How can they even
do
that?” I ask.

Nana just shrugs. “I wouldn’t ask him right now if I were you. Let’s give him some space.”

I nod. I’ve seen my dad drink beer all my life, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen him day drinking like this. Or even actually drunk. So I head upstairs to put my stuff away and check in on what I’ve missed online during the drive home from Helena while trying to figure out why the FBI might have taken over the police station. The logical part of me says that it’s just because John’s escaped and they’re concerned he’s going to come back here, but there’s also a nagging thought in the back of my mind: Does this have anything to do with the fact that I was digging around at the Goodes’ today? Is this another FBI warning—one more subtle than a car trying to run me off the road but definitely more personal?

I shake my head. This has got to be about the search for John and Six. That’s what I have to believe.

I’m bummed Sarah’s not online to chat with. I want to tell her about these new developments, but now that her cell is gone and her parents are wardens of the landline, the internet’s my only way of communicating with her. When I see she’s not there, I email her, telling her I’ve got some news she’ll want to hear but don’t actually mention anything specific.

Later that night—when my dad has passed out watching reruns in the recliner downstairs—I get a text from a weird number I don’t recognize:

I guess Sarah got a new phone after all. Hopefully a burner. I text her back:

A few seconds pass and I get a response:

I sigh and text back.

And then nothing.

I lie on the foldout couch with my phone on my chest, waiting to feel it vibrate as I stare at the ceiling. I try to work things out in my head. The FBI has basically taken over Paradise. They’re working for the Mogs, or at least aren’t on the Loric’s side of things. And earlier today, some crazy person tried to kill me and Sarah. Or just scare us badly enough that we’d stop poking around.

But I can’t stop digging—can’t just go back to the way things were before everything went nuts at the school. Which means that things could get even more dangerous for me, and for Sarah.

I start to wonder what my family would do if I just disappeared one day. If the FBI or Mogs took me. What would the editors of the blog think?

Would all the research and fact-finding I’ve tried to do have been for nothing?

After a while I pull my computer to the bed and start typing up everything I can remember about the Mogs from the attack on the school. It’s part eyewitness account, part profile on the evil aliens. I don’t want to forget any details, and it may come in handy one day if we ever have to try to explain to people what really happened that night—or how to fight the Mogs. Or if I
get in over my head and suddenly disappear.

I leave the document saved as a private draft on the blog, unsure of what to do with it. Posting it will just send the FBI after me—or the Mogs. They’d probably show up in the middle of the night and gut me with their glowing weapons. It’s not a pleasant thought, which is probably why I have a terrible dream once I finally go to bed. It starts off great—one of those dreams where it seems so mundane at first that there’s no question that what you’re seeing is reality. Sarah and I are in an old cabin that my family used to vacation at up in Michigan—one that I don’t think I’ve been to since I was twelve years old. We’re sitting in the room I always used to claim as my own, the one with two twin beds that were covered with these amazing electric blankets that I’d refuse to get out from under on cold mornings. But it’s not cold in the dream. In fact, it feels like spring, everything bathed in this peaceful golden light.

Sarah’s on one of the twin beds and I’m on the other, and we’re just talking. She’s saying something about an upcoming cheerleading competition, and I’m telling her she’ll be perfect. And she’s smiling so much. We’re both so happy. The dream is filled with happiness, like it’s in the air we’re breathing.

And then there’s a noise outside. I look through the window and see a huge beast—one of the creatures that attacked the school. A Mog monster, all yellow eyes
and claws and horns. It’s coming right for us.

I turn away and go to grab Sarah, but she’s gone. Mog soldiers have poured into the room, their swords glowing different colors. They’re all grinning this sick grin, showing off their gray teeth.

One of them has Sarah.

She reaches out and calls my name. I step towards her. And then something juts out of her chest, right where her heart is. Something long and sharp and glowing.

Sarah screams. Her eyes go wide, and then her body goes slack. And then she’s gone. Her body turns to ash and blows away as if she were an alien.

It’s my own shout that wakes me up, sweating in the upstairs office. I text Sarah on the new number, but she doesn’t answer.

She must be asleep.

At some point I must pass out again, because the next thing I know, light is filtering in through the windows and I can smell bacon cooking downstairs. I’m a little disoriented but head to the bathroom and brush my teeth and stuff before meeting Nana in the kitchen.

“Your father’s still asleep up in his room,” she says with a bit of an edge to her voice. “Probably will be for a while. And he’ll wake up in a crappy mood.” She smirks a little. “Serves him right.”

I grab a slice of bacon from the ever-growing stack
she’s got going beside the stove and devour half of it in one bite.

“He’ll be okay, right?” I ask.

“Oh, of course. The James men have always just been a stubborn brood.” Nana raises a white eyebrow towards me. “You’re no exception.”

I act hurt, as if she’s wounded me with some imaginary bullet. She chuckles to herself. Then there’s a knock on the door. She gives me a questioning look, but I just shake my head. She sighs.

“They’ll be for your father, I bet.” She looks down at her apron, which is smudged with grease.

“I’ll stall them,” I say. “You go get him up. He won’t yell at you as much.”

She pats me on the shoulder and walks away. I shove the rest of the bacon slice into my mouth and head for the front door, expecting to find Todd or one of Dad’s deputies.

Instead, I open the door and see Agent Walker. At the foot of the porch, Agent Noto stands tall, with his hands clasped in front of him.

My face must register my surprise, because Agent Walker raises a hand in front of her chest as if to calm me down.

“What do you want?” I ask, not trying to hide the anger in my voice. For all I know, it was these two who tried to run me and Sarah off the road yesterday.

“Calm down, Mr. James,” Walker says. She frowns. “We’re only here to ask you a few questions.”

“I’m sure you are.”

“Mr. James—Mark—it’s imperative that you tell us anything you know about what Sarah Hart was doing after school yesterday.”

“Why should I tell you anything?” I ask.

“Because Sarah never made it home last night,” Walker says.

There’s a silence that settles over the porch. I can’t tell if I’m imagining it or if it’s just being caused by the sudden pounding in my ears.

“Wh-what do you mean?” I manage to stammer.

“Her parents filed a report last night,” Walker explains. “Since Ms. Hart is a person of interest, we’re bypassing the normal waiting period required to declare someone a missing person and jumping straight into the investigation. So I ask you again, Mark: What did Sarah do after school yesterday?”

I shake my head. None of this makes sense. I talked to her just last night. She texted me. She—

The text. From a number I didn’t recognize. It could have been anyone.

A voice keeps repeating in my head.
Sarah’s gone. Sarah’s gone
.

“Nothing,” I say. “I mean, I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her since lunch yesterday. She took the bus
home.”

Agent Walker nods. She seems satisfied with this answer. For a moment her face changes—like some kind of mask slips away—and she looks at me with concern. Maybe even pity, as if she wished she could do something for me. Maybe even give me a hug. But the moment passes, and her steely expression resurfaces, her mouth with a glued-on smile.

“We’ll be in touch,” she says, turning away from the door. And then she’s gone, into one of the ubiquitous black SUVs that have flooded our town.

Sarah’s gone.

I failed to protect her.

What am I supposed to do now?

No, that’s an easy question to answer. I find her.

But how am I supposed to do that?