We spend the next twenty minutes walking south while listening to Allie and Ty argue about where we should go next. They go from L.A., to Miami, to New York City before agreeing on D.C.
“Why D.C.?” Lilly asks curiously.
“Because the president is there.” They reply in sync.
“Was there.” Jace chimes in with a smirk.
“Well, I bet that there are so many Grey Ones there that we can kill.” Ty says loudly while holding up his bow and arrows. For being homemade by children, the weapons turned out pretty good.
“We?” I say to Ty with a look of disapproval.
“Yeah, all of us. Allie and I have been training every day. We want to help.” He pleads with his wide, blue doe eyes.
“No,” I reply, “If we don’t need to put your lives in danger, we won’t.”
“Besides you guys have been training for like a week. Those aliens would eat you alive. Pun intended.” Jace says smiling widely. He laughs at his own joke, but even Travis and I can’t help smiling.
“Yeah, right!” Allie says loudly. She pulls an arrow from her backpack and lines it up on the bow. The arrow spins when she shoots it at a tree some fifty yards away. The homemade arrowhead pierces into the bark of the tree, leaving the wooden arrow sticking out.
“Nice shot, but you need fire to kill them.” Jace states, still smiling.
Allie shrugs her shoulders then replies, “Ty and I will shoot fire arrowheads then.”
Falling back, I pull Lilly aside, “Hey I need to tell you something. About your dad.”
“He’s dead isn’t he?” She asks bluntly. She must have known this was coming.
“I’m sorry, but yes.”
“I figured he would have come looking for us by now. Plus, you weren’t that discreet when I asked at camp.” She smiles wearily. She’s probably right about that. I’ve never been good at lying or keeping secrets.
Before I can say anything back to her, black smoke catches my eye from up ahead. “What’s that?” I ask, pointing a finger.
“Come on, let’s go.” Travis replies.
We sprint towards the dense smoke. My chest aches when I race around the corner and find the Humvee flipped over onto its roof. A few yards ahead, a bloody hand hangs out the passenger side.
“Katie.” I say under my breath.
Without wasting a second Travis, Jace, and I head straight for the military truck. All around the crash site is glass shards. How did this happen?
Travis reaches the Humvee first, followed closely by Jace. After ripping the driver door open, Travis checks Chad’s pulse. His eyes move up to me and he shakes his head. Chad didn’t make it. On the other side of the Humvee, Jace has already pulled Katie out. Her head is bleeding profusely, but she’s still conscious.
I run over to help stop the bleeding. When she finds me standing beside her, she whispers, “They took them.”
“They took them?” Jace repeats. He drops his head back and looks up at me with a furrowed brow.
“Billy and Heather.” I say quickly.
The backseat of the vehicle appears empty. I run to the back and rip open the doors. All I find are the chains that were holding them in place are now sitting all alone.
“God dammit!” I yell. My foot swings wildly and kicks the back door shut. “They’re gone! Billy and Heather are gone.”
A loud whoosh comes from over our heads. High up in the sky the F15 flies south. I wonder if Colonel Kirk Samuels knows what’s going on down here. Probably not.
As the jet ascends higher into the sky I realize how lucky we were that the samples Katie took from Billy and Heather are with him, and not in the Humvee. Those blood samples are the only things left that can help us in this war.
I glance back at Lilly who is keeping Ty and Allie distracted by the flying jet. For the first time in months, Ty is smiling up at the sky instead of being scared of it. When the breeze blows my long hair back, I stare up at the partly cloudy sky and smile. We may not have the aliens, but at least we have their DNA.
Suddenly, the jet blows up in a fiery explosion above our heads. As wreckage falls from the sky I find myself frozen. I’m scared; I’m intrigued; I’m confused. I can’t move. My heart pounds and my chest aches. Even when large pieces of debris begin landing all around us, I stay in place. My eyes are fixated on something behind the black smoke. Staring past the dark clouds, I can see what happened.