THE SQUAD CAR was in the driveway. Sep swore under his breath and crept as soundlessly as he could toward the house.
Something moved at him from the darkness. His heart leaped, and he cried out before he could stop himself.
“Oh, thank God, it’s only you,” he whispered, his heart pounding.
The fox hopped a little in expectation.
“I don’t have anything. Go! You’ll get me in—”
“Sep?” said his mum, opening the screen door.
“Hi, Mum,” he said as casually as he could. “I was just getting—”
“Where have you been?” she said. She’d been making a sandwich, and a slice of ham was still clutched in her hand. “I’ve been so— Oh my God! What’s happened to you?”
“Ah,” said Sep, remembering his bashed-in face and bloodstained clothes. “I . . . fell. Over. From a tree. I fell over a tree.”
“You’re covered in blood! And you’ve been sick! Are you all right?”
“I’m fine, Mum, honestly. I am—it’s not my blood. Or my vomit.”
She pulled him into a hug, then shook him hard. “Where have you been?” she said again. “I told Matt to keep you in—”
“Oh, he told me. I went to Lamb’s house instead.”
She let him go and stepped back. Candlelight from the porch surrounded her body, its shadows hiding her expression—but he could see her skin was waxy and gray.
“I told you to stay in school,” she said evenly. “It doesn’t matter that it was Matt who gave you the message—it came from me, and I expect you to do what you’re told. We haven’t found out who assaulted Mrs. Maguire, and until we do I need to know you’re safe. I came home for a change of clothes and something to eat, and to see if this was where you’d gone. But I’m going back to the station now, and you’re coming with me. Go and get cleaned up, and we’ll—”
“No! I’m not going there!”
She turned and looked at him. “Excuse me?”
He took a step toward the garage. “I’m not going with you. I’m—I’m going with my friends.”
“Your ‘friends’? And who are they?”
“The ones you asked about yesterday: Arkle and Lamb and Mack. And Hadley,” he finished, taking a deep breath.
“No,” she said, shaking her head.
“I am!”
Sep ran to the garage, pulling open the door with a screech.
“You’re— Wait, Sep!”
She grabbed his arm as he fumbled for the light switch. “You’re to come with me right now! I can’t deal with you as well as everything else. I just—”
“You don’t have to deal with me, honestly. I don’t mean to make you feel any worse. I just—you have to trust me. I know how to make this go away.”
He found the switch and clicked it back and forth. The bulb sputtered, then winked out. But in the half second of light he’d seen his old yellow Chopper, tucked away behind the lawnmower and the charcoal, its frame buried under years of neglect.
“Go away?” his mum said. “Make what go away? What are you talking about?”
Sep grabbed the bike, shaking the worst of the dust away.
He looked around, trying to find something that connected him to the others, that could convey the strength of the bond he’d rediscovered in the last twenty-four hours. But there was nothing in the dirty garage, and he knew there was nothing in his room, either: no photos, no mementos. He’d buried his life in schoolwork and thoughts of escape, and he saw now how stark his life had been—how he’d shut out the happiness he might have had.
An old notebook and pen lay on a shelf. He grabbed them, tore out a blank page, and wrote for a moment, then folded the scrap of paper into his back pocket.
His mum was talking.
“. . . don’t feel good just now, Sep, but that’s not anything you need to worry about. You’ve got so much going on: school and your scholarship and everything, and once the sickness passes—”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
“What? But, Sep—”
He put his hands on her face. “Mum,” he said. “Have you ever known me to misbehave—or let you down?”
“No,” she said after a moment.
“So trust me. All right? Trust me.”
He hugged her. Her hair tickled his nose, but he let it sit there as she cried, thinking of the times she’d held him, in the quiet space that was only theirs.
“Everything’s okay,” he said quietly. “I promise.”
“No, no, I—” She wiped her face. “I need to go back on shift, so—”
“So I’ll stay at Arkle’s. You like Mrs. Hooper, remember?”
She laughed a little—and he knew it was going to be okay. “You be careful then. I trust you, my brave boy.”
“I will,” said Sep.
They held each other’s eyes.
“I will,” he repeated, then he wheeled the bike into the driveway.
In front of him were two shining eyes—little specks of light in the dark. His mum gasped, her hand on her chest.
“That bloody fox,” she said. “I nearly had a heart attack.”
The fox pawed at the path and moved forward.
“Can I have that ham?” said Sep.
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “No, you know what I think about you feeding that animal—they’re vermin, Sep.”
The fox padded another step forward, then scampered back. It yawned—a wide stretch of pink and white—then licked its lips.
“Please?” said Sep. “I’ve been feeding him for ages. He’s my—he’s my friend.”
He kept his hand out.
She rolled her eyes, but gave him the ham. It was slimy and cold, and Sep tossed it on his hand as he held it out.
The fox came forward slowly, reached out, and took the meat. Sep held on tight, just for a moment, just long enough to run his hand through the animal’s fur. It was soft and warm and thick, and he felt the life inside it, hot and sharp, felt the animal jump at his contact.
“Shh,” he said, “it’s okay . . . it’s okay. . . .”
“Sep?” whispered his mum.
Sep moved the fox’s fur again, letting it flow through his fingers, watching how the moonlight caught the layers of color; then he tickled its ears and it rubbed against his hands. He felt his pulse thudding as he tried to contain the surge of excitement—then the fox backed off, its eyes flashing in alarm.
“I’m sorry,” he said again, smiling. “On you go.”
The big amber eyes blinked at him for another second—then the fox ran off, sprinting into the trees, prize gripped in its teeth.
Sep breathed out, felt his heart slowing down, and looked around his garden, at all the safe little spaces he’d made here over the years, behind the bushes and in the trees.
“Never do that again,” said his mum. She climbed the steps into the house. “Phone if you need me,” she added before she went inside.
“Your number still 999?” said Sep.
She laughed, then blew him a kiss and closed the door.
Sep climbed onto his bike. Rust covered the frame like blisters, and when he settled into the saddle, it whined shrilly. He kicked the pedals.
The chain was solid.
He stood up, forcing the greaseless wheels to turn and climb the hill, and, as he swung toward the farm and away from town and school and human life, he looked up at the sky and wondered how, on a spinning ball of rock, this madness had found him, now, at this exact moment in time.
He looked for the comet, but could not find it in the clouds, and, as his torn leg shot a white noise of agony into his brain, he wondered how he could ever have thought anything other than the sacrifice box was to blame; how he could have imagined this chaos could have come from such an earthly concern as space dust or fallout when it was focused on the five of them—that special five who’d filled one summer with so much happiness.
He swung off the road, the bell chiming on his bike as he rattled onto the pavement—unaware that the fox was ghosting through the shadows behind him, its soft paws silent on the ground.