Return to Paradise

CHAPTER ELEVEN

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.