Dimitri, Danny, and Shay were driving west along the Southern State Parkway two and a half hours later as they made their way toward home. Shay had been surprised to see the boys come walking up to her on campus, but as soon as they explained what was happening she immediately agreed to go with them. Her sister was missing, nothing else mattered. All kinds of horrible images had been flashing through her mind as she sat in the back of Dimitri’s car on the ride home. There was no doubt in her mind that it was their group the strangers were looking for, and she could only think that it had something to do with their abilities. But that still left her with more questions than answers.
When they were a few exits from their turnoff, Danny’s phone rang. He spoke briefly to Tom who described the new developments that had occurred during the time they had been away. After agreeing to meet the others at the clubhouse Danny ended the call and stared at Shay as he tried to organize what he wanted to say.
“Dude, say something,” Dimitri said as he glanced over and saw the shocked expression on his face. “You’re scaring her.”
In a halting voice Danny relayed what Tom had told him. They had found Paige’s car abandoned on the side of the road only to be attacked by four mysterious strangers whom he and Reed had managed to fight off, but now Amanda was missing as well.
“They’re hunting us,” Shay said when Danny finished talking, “picking us off in ones and twos. But we still don’t know who they are or what they want with us.”
“I forgot to tell you,” Danny said, suddenly remembering something Tom had said. “They got the plate number from the bad guys’ car. As soon as we get to the clubhouse I’ll run a DMV search and see what we can dig up on them.”
Shay felt a spark of hope at that news.
“If we get an address for them maybe we can go get the others back,” Shay said hopefully. Paige could be a pain in the neck, but she was still her little sister. Someone had kidnapped her and Shay was going to do everything in her power to get her back safely. As she was trying to come up with a plan to rescue her sister and the others, Shay felt the car slowing down.
“What’s wrong?” Shay asked, leaning forward to look through the windshield.
“Traffic,” Dimitri grumbled. The road ahead was a river of brake lights.
Shay looked around. They were only one exit away from their turnoff, but from the way the traffic was crawling it would probably take them another fifteen to twenty minutes to cover the distance.
“Get off here,” Shay suggested. “We can take Peninsula Boulevard south and cut through the park.”
“On it,” Dimitri said. It took him a little while to force his way over to the exit lane through the lines of creeping cars, but soon they were curving around the exit ramp and heading for the back roads. As they took the ramp up to the overpass, Mayfair Lake came into view. In the distance they could see the top of their water tower rising above the trees. They were almost there.
Several other cars had followed their example and they found themselves leading a short caravan off the parkway. Soon they were cruising along the wide boulevard toward the back entrance to the park that bordered their town. A few miles later the park turnoff came into view. As Dimitri slowed to make the sharp right onto Eagle Avenue, Shay noticed that he was paying a lot of attention to his rearview mirror. Looking behind them she saw a car slowing down and following them into that turn. From this angle she couldn’t see much more than the car’s color: black.
“They’ve been following us for a while,” Dimitri said quietly. “I first noticed them a couple of exits back on the parkway.”
Danny twisted around to look at the car as well.
“Do you think it’s them?” Danny asked with a slight quaver in his voice.
“I don’t know,” Dimitri said uncertainly. “It looks like it could be the same car, but I’m not sure.”
As they watched the car, it pulled out to their left and started to pass them. It slowed as it came alongside and paced their car for a while. With its windows tinted they couldn’t see who was inside. Suddenly, the black sedan jerked toward them. The sides of the two cars banged together and the teens felt themselves being forced off the road.
The color drained from Dimitri’s face and he clutched at the steering wheel as he fought to keep the car under control. Unfortunately there was little room to maneuver on the narrow road and he could feel the back end of the car starting to slide away to the right as they drifted onto the loose dirt at the edge of the road. They were only a few feet away from the chain link fence that separated the road from the main body of the lake and he could see the support poles blurring past. If they drifted much further to the right they would end up crashing through the fence and diving into the lake.
Once again the strange car slammed into them, forcing them further off the pavement. Then, as they started around a bend in the road, the fence disappeared as they moved past the lake and came into a wooded area. A bridle path suddenly appeared to their right. Dimitri turned them into the path then stood on the brake pedal with both feet. The car’s tires dug into the soil and they came quickly to a full stop. The black car shot past and a moment later they could hear the scream of its tires as it braked on the road.
Dimitri wasn’t waiting for them to come back. He threw the car into reverse and stomped on the accelerator. The car vibrated violently but wouldn’t move. He could hear one of the back wheels spinning impotently as it dug itself deeper into the dirt.
“Everybody out!” Shay yelled when she realized they wouldn’t be going anywhere.
Dimitri and Shay were piling out of the car when the black sedan backed into view at the end of the bridle path. Danny was fumbling nervously with his seatbelt and was still sitting in the passenger seat when the black car came to a stop. The sedan’s doors were thrown open and four strangers in dark suits quickly got out. The men immediately drew guns and aimed at the teens. As the strangers sighted on the kids it became clear that they weren’t interested in talking.
Shay wanted to run but there was nowhere to go. She was just squeezing her eyes closed as she braced herself for the fatal shots she knew were coming when Dimitri suddenly appeared in front of her. He wrapped his arms around her, shielding her with his body just as she heard several pops. Dimitri shuddered as he was hit.
Shay immediately felt his arms go slack around her as he began to slump to the ground.
“No! Dimitri!” she cried as she desperately tried to hold him up. For an instant their eyes met. There was an anxious expression on his face until he saw that Shay hadn’t been hurt. Then he smiled. A moment later his eyes closed and his head drooped as he collapsed.
In spite of her best efforts Shay found that she was not strong enough to prop him up. Rather than let him collapse into the dirt she held tightly to him and slid with him to the ground, breaking his fall as best she could. She ended up sitting on the ground with his limp form sprawled before her, his head cradled in her lap.
“You in the car, Daniel Vidal,” one of the men called. “Step into the open with your hands over your head. Do it now. We will not tell you a second time.”
Shay heard the passenger door open behind her and the sound of Danny’s hesitant footsteps on the graveled path. As he slowly walked to where she was sitting in the dirt, Shay gently brushed the hair out of Dimitri’s face. She was amazed that he had thrown himself in the line of fire to protect her. The sight of his slack features filled her with anguish.
A burning fury ignited in the pit of her stomach, and she looked up at the strangers from the tops of her eyes. Two of the men had taken up defensive positions on the far side of their car, using it as a protective shield while they kept their guns trained on the teens. Meanwhile, the two on the near side cautiously started toward them, their guns held in the classic two-handed police grip.
The fury inside Shay quickly grew into a raging inferno. They had done nothing to justify the way these men were treating them, running them down like rabid dogs. Had the stranger
s been close enough they might have noticed her pupils beginning to dilate, expanding until her irises were hair-thin rings encircling wide black pits.
In moments the whole area grew strangely quiet. The wind itself seemed to have died away. Then the sky darkened. A soft rustling sound began in the distance and gradually grew louder.
Danny paused when he reached the spot where his friends had collapsed in the dirt. As the sky continued to darken and the strange sound grew louder, he craned his neck and started looking around.
“What is that?” Danny wondered aloud.
Shay kept her attention focused on the approaching men who had begun casting surreptitious glances about them.
“Get down,” Shay whispered to Danny through clenched teeth.
Danny looked down at her. “What?”
Reaching out with one hand, Shay grabbed a fistful of his pants leg and pulled him down beside them. “Stay right next to me and keep your head down.”
The men who had been advancing on them suddenly stopped in their tracks. Holding their weapons defensively in front of them, both men started turning in slow circles as they scanned the treetops.
“What’s going on?” Danny asked as the strange sound swelled in volume.
“Just keep your head down,” Shay said. “They won’t bother you if you’re with me.”
“Who won’t bother me if—”
At that moment the men looked up and froze as their eyes went wide. After staring at something behind the teens for a moment, both men turned and sprinted back toward their car. In that instant a storm of wings rent the air around the teens as an immense flock of large, black birds tore past them and attacked the strangers.
As the birds dive-bombed the men, pecking and clawing at their exposed flesh, the strangers began beating the air around their heads with both hands as they fled from the vicious assault. The two who had stayed with the car pulled the doors open and dove inside only to be pursued by swarms of angry birds. Unfortunately, the confined space within the car made it even more difficult for the men to protect themselves from the slashing talons and beaks. Since they were unable to find safety inside the car, the men kicked open the doors and made a mad dash for the tree line across the street, crashing their way through the dense foliage as the birds followed in their wake.
Then, as quickly as it had appeared, the flock of birds was gone, although they could still hear the thunderous beating of hundreds of wings and the dwindling rustling of the men forcing their way through the underbrush.
“The crows say it’s getting hard to chase them through the trees,” Shay said suddenly. “They’re getting bored and are going to stop attacking them soon.” She slid Dimitri’s limp form off her lap as gently as she could and stood up. “We have to leave before they come back.”
“But the car’s stuck,” Danny said, glancing desperately at the rear wheel of Dimitri’s car which had dug its way deeply into the dirt. “We don’t have the time to get it out of there.”
Shay pointed at the black car sitting at the mouth to the bridle path. The engine was still running.
“So we’ll take their car.” Bending down she took hold of one of Dimitri’s arms. “Help me. I can’t move him by myself.”
Between the two of them they managed to half carry, half drag Dimitri to the waiting sedan. They quickly folded his lanky frame into the car’s back seat then pulled open the front doors. Shay was about to get in when something on the ground nearby caught her attention. As Danny started to climb into the driver’s seat Shay ran back into the bridle path.
“What are you doing?” Danny called anxiously after her as he stood with one foot inside the car.
Shay ran the last few feet to the object she had seen, bent and picked it up, then raced back to the car.
“What was all that about?” Danny asked as they both climbed into the car.
Shay held up the tranquilizer gun she had gone back for. “Don’t you watch action movies? The bad guys always drop their weapons but the good guys never pick them up. Well, I’m picking up their guns. The next time some of them come for us I’m going to have a surprise for them.”
Danny reached for the gear lever and froze.
“Whoa!” Danny’s eyes had locked onto a complex center console that had been added to the car’s normal controls. Above that on some kind of swiveling tray was something that looked like a portable computer terminal.
Shay was surprised by the strange additions to the car’s dashboard as well, but knew that they needed to get moving.
“We’ll figure it out later,” she said. “Right now we need to put as much distance between us and them as possible. Go!”
Danny pulled the lever into drive and stomped on the gas, pressing them back into their seats as the car tore off with a surprisingly abrupt acceleration.