Chapter 150

Henry felt the hope of his mother’s return sink in the depths of his soul.

The memories of his life with his mother were being scrubbed away. In a way, he knew it from the start but refused to believe it. Now the token of the lone shotgun realized his deepest fear.

Dawn Murphy had been taken.

“But you stopped the Fracas at the door,” Henry said, “I saw it!” He pleaded into the night air, trying to convince reality that it should have acted otherwise. “You killed them all!”

Even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t true.

There had been more.

Thom’s arrow brightened and the green secretion crackled away. The arrow disappeared from his hand.

“I should have known,” Thom said. “There’s always more.”

A large grinding sound echoed through the night. It was the same sound Henry had heard earlier.

He jumped and looked around, his bo in a ready position.

“Henry!” Charley said.

He followed the sound of Charley’s voice. She sat in the operator’s seat of the large orange crane. She worked the lever for the giant mechanical arm, and the large grinding sound returned to the night. Henry saw the crane basket open above their position, like a giant serpent’s mouth releasing death upon them.

He understood how the Fracas got close. They cascaded down upon his mother.

“The fumes are pungent,” Thom said. “They are still fresh. She wouldn’t have been taken long ago.”

“Where did they go?” Charley asked, returning from the crane.

“The water’s edge.”

Henry didn’t hear anything else. He couldn’t contend with the nausea he felt. The dizziness. The apprehension.

She was gone . . .

Thom had said Henry didn’t have to worry because Dawn was with him. She was a Salient.

But that didn’t mean anything anymore. Not even a Salient had stopped the Nekura. What hope did he have?

His legs buckled. He collapsed on his knees.

He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t. Anything, anything but her.

The memories flooded him. Her smile, her kindness. She had always been there for him.

She wasn’t anymore.

He couldn’t live without her.

He squinted his eyes until they hurt. He wanted to scream into the night. This was the one thing he couldn’t give up. His mind reeled. What the Nekura would do to her, the darkness they would smother her in . . .

His mother . . .

Gone.

All was lost.