The Boy Who Glowed in the Dark

CHAPTER 19

Bobby watched the first man plunge the knife through Nakamura’s neck. He stuck it in one side, and a third of the blade came out the other. The killing mesmerized Bobby. It shouldn’t have. He’d killed two people himself, in self-defense, so he shouldn’t have been shocked. But he was. He’d never seen a knife thrust through a man’s throat. It was so grotesque he couldn’t stop thinking about it. His mind replayed the scene as the doctor’s body fell limp on the road—

Johnny was in trouble. He’d fought off his man but now the man with the knife was coming for him. And the man he’d fought off would soon recover. There would be two of them. Two on one.

Johnny had saved him from a life in prison.

Help him.

Bobby started toward the truck. Someone shoved him to the ground. He turned. It was Nadia. She picked up a boulder and raced to help Johnny—

A fourth man came flying from around the house. Clearly the athlete of the four. If you send a man to watch the back of the house, make sure he’s the one who can run, just in case he has to chase someone.

Bobby jumped to his feet. In the time it took him to rise, the fourth man blew past him. Nadia threw her boulder. It hit him in the chest and slowed him down but just for an instant. He raised his knife in the air.

Bobby raced toward her, knowing he was too late, fearing that he would only get himself killed, too, certain that he couldn’t live with himself unless he did everything possible to save her.

A whistling sound. Like a hockey puck flying past his left ear on open ice, only louder. A light gust of wind ruffled the hairs on the nape of his neck.

An object hit the fourth man in the neck. His head fell off his body. His legs collapsed beneath his headless torso. A black object fell to the ground beside the body. It looked like the wing from a toy airplane.

Bobby glanced behind them to see where the object had come from, who had launched it, and how. He saw nothing and no one.

He pivoted toward the truck. The man with the knife was about to jump on top of Johnny.

Bobby exploded, summoning all the power in his hips to catapult himself forward. The man with the knife jumped on Johnny. Slammed his fist into Johnny’s neck. He raised his knife hand in the air—

Bobby was twenty strides away. He wouldn’t make it in time.

Another whistling sound. This time he heard it in his right ear. A black blur flew through the air. It twisted and turned and sailed across the lawn toward the man with the knife. It severed his arm and landed in the side of his head.

The severed arm and the knife in its grip fell to the ground. The man went limp on top of Johnny.

Bobby raced to Johnny. Bobby reared back and kicked the man in the head repeatedly until he lost consciousness. Then he hauled him off Johnny’s back. Up close he could see the object buried in his head. It was a boomerang, its wings sharpened to a razor’s edge.

Bobby pulled Johnny off the unconscious man beneath him. Johnny coughed and gagged.

“Are you okay?” Bobby said.

He stammered and nodded.

An engine rumbled to life. Exhaust billowed in their faces.

Nadia arrived breathless. “Shit.”

A whine was followed by a grinding noise. The truck slipped into gear. The engine wailed.

Two dead men. One unconscious. Johnny struggling to regain his breath.

The truck rolled forward. Genesis II was on board. Bobby had caught a glimpse of him from behind while the third man — the driver — pulled him off the street into the truck. There was nothing familiar about this Yoshi at all. He was just some Japanese kid, who quite possibly had the key to the formula that would change the world, and someday save it from the people who inhabited it.

Bobby watched the truck pull way. There was nothing he could do to stop it. Nothing he could do to save Genesis II.

A face appeared in the window of the back door. It stayed there for one second, just long enough for the eyes to lock onto Bobby’s and for the image to register in his brain.

The truck gathered speed and started to pull away.

Bobby stood staring at the empty window trying to understand what he’d just seen. It made no sense, but one thing was certain.

He could not let that truck get away.