Ghost Town

But the boy took her hand and said, “Trust me, Claire,” and she felt something inside that had been howling in fear go quiet.

Another wall of pain slammed into her, and she almost went down. It was all going away, everything she was, everything. . . .

She fell to her knees and realized that she was kneeling next to a man with a scar on his face. He was trapped under a fallen metal pillar, and it looked bad, really bad. She tried to move it, but he reached out and caught her hand in his. “Claire,” he said. “Get out of here. Do it now.”

He let go and rummaged through a bag that had fallen next to him. He brought out something round and dark green, about the size of an apple.

Grenade. The word floated through her mind and dissolved into mist. There was some reason she should be afraid of that, but she couldn’t really think what it was.

The dark-haired boy was yelling at her now, pulling her to her feet. He looked down and saw the thing, the grenade. “Dad,” he whispered. “Dad, what are you doing?”

“Get out of here,” the man said. “I’m not going to lose you, too, Shane. It’s starting to all go away, and I can’t let that happen. I have to stop it. This is the only way.”

The boy stood there, looking down at him, and then dropped to his knees and put his hand on the man’s head. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Dad, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” the man said. “I need a little help, and then you need to get your friends out of here. Understand?”

The boy was crying, and trembling, but he nodded.

He reached down and took hold of the metal ring in the grenade, and his dad yanked his arm in the other direction. The pin sprang free.

“Go,” the man said. “I love you, son.”

The boy didn’t want to go. Claire practically dragged him across the room, in the direction all the others had already gone. They stopped at the mouth of the tu

She knew him. She was almost sure she did as he turned his head and smiled at her.

His name was Frank. Frank Collins.

Frank said, “Good-bye.”

Claire gasped and yanked Shane into the tu

In another second, the world exploded behind them.

She woke up to a ringing sound in her ears. Her whole body ached, and her head felt like it had been filled with battery acid, but she was alive.

And she felt . . . whole. Herself again.

When she moved, she found she was pi

Shane pointed to her and raised his eyebrows to make it a question. She made an okay sign. He gave her a thumbs-up on his own behalf.

A sudden burst of light overhead caught her by surprise, and she looked up to see a trapdoor fly open as light poured down. A lithe figure in a white suit dropped, landing lightly on her high-heeled feet, and looked around at the damage. If Amelie spoke, Claire couldn’t hear it; she moved over to stand beside Oliver, who was bending over Myrnin and holding him down.

Myrnin didn’t seem as if he needed to be held down. He was shivering, pale, and hollow eyed, and when he met Claire’s eyes, he looked quickly away.

She saw tears.

Michael and Eve were standing together, wrapped in each other’s arms, looking like they didn’t intend to ever let go. Claire reached down and took Shane’s hand, pulling him upright. She felt a cautious kind of joy, a dawning realization that they might actually be okay, after all.

Until Shane turned his head and looked down the tu

Claire ran after him, heart pounding.

The machine was destroyed. Really, truly scrapped. It was hard to believe just how ripped apart it was, actually; she supposed that there’d been some kind of chain reaction inside of it, because it looked like it had just crushed in on itself at some points. There were pieces everywhere, bent and scattered. Nothing moved. There was a thick, choking haze of dust hanging in the air.

Shane headed straight for the wreckage. Claire tried to stop him, but he shook her off, face white and blank. Dad? She heard a dim echo of the shout this time, and heard the dread in Shane’s voice.

She grabbed Shane’s arm, and he looked down at her. She had no idea what to say, but she knew her expression would communicate how sorry she was.

Shane pulled free and ran over to the machine’s wreckage—and stopped. Just . . . stopped, staring down.

Claire didn’t know what to do. She felt awful and scared and sick, and she knew she should go to him, but something told her not to. Something told her to wait.

Amelie touched her shoulder, frowning, and Claire jumped in tense surprise. Amelie looked from her to Shane’s motionless figure, and Claire saw knowledge dawn in Amelie’s face. She went to Shane and put her arm around his shoulders, then turned him around, and Claire knew that he’d seen something behind that tangle of metal. Something awful. There was a burned-out, dead look in his eyes again, and it felt like her heart turned to ash in sympathy for him.

Claire rushed over and into his arms, and after a few seconds, he hugged her. Then he put his head on her shoulder, and even if she couldn’t hear him, she felt the way his body shook, and the dampness of his tears against her skin.

Claire combed her fingers through his hair and did the only thing she could do.

She held on.

SIXTEEN

The only thing that approached the sadness Claire felt for Shane was the sympathy she felt for Myrnin.

Maybe it was all wrong; after all, it was his fault. All of it. But in destroying the machine, Frank Collins had reset things back to the way they should be—including Myrnin’s sanity.

Sane, he understood what he’d done, and Claire could hardly stand to look at him, to see that awful, stu

Oliver, as usual, had no sympathy at all. “West is dead,” he said flatly. “Or worse, perhaps. Collins sacrificed himself to put it right. Let him brood, if he wants to brood.”

Myrnin raised his head then, slowly, and fixed his dark, tragic eyes on Oliver. He said nothing, but there was something very nasty in the way they looked at each other.

“Well?” Oliver demanded. Myrnin looked away. “All because you couldn’t lose your precious Ada without going mad. Promise me, Amelie, that you’ll crucify me with silver before you allow me to fall in love.”

“I hardly think there’s any chance of that,” Amelie said. “I doubt you have the capacity.” She sounded remote and cold, but there was something almost painful in it, too. “There is some positive news, I suppose. Most people seem to have recovered their memories. Whatever damage has been done seems to be temporary.”

“Positive news,” Oliver repeated. “Except that our boundaries are down, and all our defenses. You know that can’t continue. The machine—”

“Isn’t working,” Claire said, and got up from the chair where she sat next to Shane. “It isn’t working. It isn’t going to be working, not for months, if it ever does again. Get over it, Oliver.” She was angry, she realized. Shaking. And she knew that it was because of Shane’s dad. “Could you maybe take a minute or something? Just feel something?”