THE MAN IN black with the dust and gravel in his eyes dropped his rifle. It landed with a clatter on the ground. He was still blinking. The other man was bleeding, a lot. Blood soaked his mask. He was teetering on his feet but managing to stay upright.
“You,” said Emily’s dad. “Handcuff yourself to your friend. Take too long and I shoot.”
The man with the cuffs went over to the other and clicked a metal ring onto his wrist, then its partner onto the other man.
“Emily, grab the rifle,” said her dad.
She moved as if her body belonged to someone else and she was just borrowing it. She picked up the rifle from the ground and took it over to where her dad was standing.
“What’s the plan now?” she said under her breath.
“I didn’t think much beyond this.”
“You don’t know what you’re doing,” said the man Emily had taken the gun from. His voice was thick, nasal, choking—Emily thought his nose was probably broken. “That thing is not your son.”
“We know that,” said Emily’s mom. “You’re still not having him.”
“He’s not a he. And he’s a security threat to this country and the property of the United States government.”
“No,” said Emily. “He doesn’t belong to anyone.”
Except me, she thought. For now. Or perhaps I belong to him.
“A prisoner, then. He entered U.S. air space. He’s an invader, an interloper, a—”
“Living thing,” said Emily. “And he’s going home.”
The man stared at her. His eyes were hard; flat. They didn’t go anywhere, open onto anything. Just darkness. “What are you talking about?” he said.
And that’s when Aidan whispered:
“They’re here.”
She looked up. But there was nothing. She felt it before she could see it: a sort of tightening in her skin, as if a storm were coming. She could smell ozone in the air. And was that a shimmer, a fish-scale flicker, in the sky above them? As if light were falling on something just behind the air.
And then she saw it.
Above, something beyond comprehension hovered in the vibrating air.
“I’m talking about that,” she said to the man with the broken nose.