“Scoot over!” Patrick yelled.
Grabbing his shotgun, he tumbled over Alex and into the driver’s seat.
He unlocked the door.
“Patrick!” Alex shouted. She grabbed his arm, but he twisted free.
I looked past him through the driver’s window. Amid the churning sea of orange, I made out a flash of polished black—one of the Drones pressing himself into the mix.
Patrick reared back, his shoulders knocking Alex into me and me into the passenger window. He raised one of his cowboy boots and pistoned it into the driver’s door.
It flew open into the mass of bodies. Leaning against us, Patrick raised the shotgun, aimed it down the length of his body between his boots, and fired.
The blast tore a hole through the orange wall. The pellets wouldn’t hurt the Hatchlings—we’d learned that already. So what the hell was he doing?
Patrick shucked the shotgun, the shell flying over his shoulder and pinging off my cheek. He fired again through the temporary hole.
And hit the Drone.
The Drone exploded, blast mist firing out of the armor gashes, blowing back our hair. But it also blew back the Hatchlings, clearing a small circle by the driver’s door.
A makeshift grenade.
Patrick rolled forward, lunging out of the truck and onto his feet in the short-lived clearing. He swept his boot across the ground, kicking the deflated armor before the front tire.
Then he jumped back an instant before the Hatchlings regrouped. They hammered the door into the frame behind him hard enough to knock him across the bench seat. Alex ducked, so I caught my brother’s full force, both of us piled against the passenger window. My face was mashed to the glass. On the other side, I could see nothing but bulging black eyes and fangs snapping for purchase.
Alex jackknifed sideways beneath Patrick’s legs and stomped on the gas pedal.
The tires spun in place and kept spinning.
And then the front tire grabbed the armor, yanking the truck into a partial turn. Hatchlings flew away from one side and slid from the cracked windshield as cleanly as if we’d wipered them off. Only one female held her place, clinging to the lip of the hood.
The tire pulled itself farther onto the armor, and then we shot free.
Patrick and I seesawed toward the driver’s side, but Alex shouldered up into place, ramming us off with her elbow so she could hold the wheel.
On the hood the female Hatchling drew back a plump fist, aiming for the center of the spiderweb.
The shotgun rolled across Patrick’s knees.
Without looking over, Alex grabbed it, digging her finger through the trigger guard, and swung it in front of her.
She fired through the windshield, turning the Hatchling’s face into an orange smear. The Hatchling rose up, and then the wind caught her and lifted her off the truck like she’d been tied to a passing plane.
Through the shattered windshield, air blasted our faces. Our eyes watered. Alex didn’t let up, though, not for a second. We careened across the parking lot and bounced violently onto the slope of the hillside.
A shuddering exhalation left Alex, making a sound like a moan.
In the rearview mirror, we could see them bounding after us in that terrible apelike gait. They were falling farther and farther behind.
I had forgotten to breathe. I told my lungs that now would be an okay time to start again.
We veered upslope, jolting in our seats, dodging felled trees and stumps left behind when the Drones had cleared a swath of the mountain in their pursuit of me. A half-depleted gravel pile flew by on the right, and then a familiar knoll lurched into sight ahead.
The rise from which I’d shot the Queen.
I squinted into the wind. My eyes locked on a massive tree stump a few strides from the knoll. I couldn’t see inside, but I could tell that it was hollow.
“Stop!” I yelled. “Stop here!”
Alex hit the brakes. I tumbled out of the cab, falling onto a soft patch of moss. The Hatchlings surged up the hillside at us, a tide of orange. I tried to rise, my sneaker skidding out on the moss. It felt like I was moving in slow motion.
“Whatever you’re doing,” Patrick said, “do it faster.”
I ran to the giant hollow stump and peered inside.
Sure enough, there lay the Rebel’s empty suit like a cast-off shell, left behind when he’d died. And his helmet. I’d dropped it there after twisting it off to peer down the neckhole. I’d found only wisps of smoke.
I snatched up the helmet and turned.
Alex and Patrick were staring at me, their eyes flaring.
“Chance,” Patrick said. His voice was dead calm, like the time he told me to hold still before he shot a rattlesnake coiled two feet behind my heel.
I knew he was trying not to panic me, but it had the opposite effect.
I didn’t know what was wrong, but his and Alex’s eyes were locked on a spot a few inches to my side.
And then the smell hit.
Rancid. Like rotten eggs.
I knew I had to turn my head. But I really didn’t want to.
Something detached from the bark of the tree beside me—it seemed to be made of the tree itself. A shadow flickered toward me.
A long, three-digit hand.
Even as it reached for me, I could see the color of the skin changing from a barklike pattern to a familiar orange.
A single word spun at me through the panic whirl of my thoughts: chameleon.
The hand clamped over my forearm, singeing my skin. I yelled. I couldn’t help it.
You would’ve, too.