After the End

“We are your escorts to Blackwell Pharmaceutical. Mr. Blackwell has something he wants to chat with you about.”

“So you’re just going to kidnap me and drive me to L.A.?” I ask defiantly.

“No,” the man in the backseat says. I turn to look at my other captor. He’s got a brown crew cut and thick neck, and his clothes look too small. He sees me looking and puts two fingers inside his collar to loosen his tie. “We’re not driving you to L.A. You get the special princess treatment.” He glares at me as Baldy pulls into the Salt Lake City airport. “We’ve been looking for you for days,” he says, as if I have been hiding expressly to piss them off.

“That’s not my fault,” I say.

“Well, it doesn’t make me like you more,” he says.

We pull into an isolated section of the airport with signs for PRIVATE: CHARTER AIRCRAFT, and drive straight up to a tiny plane with BLACKWELL PHARMACEUTICAL painted on the side. My stomach drops, and I feel all the blood leave my face. I’m going up in the air. In an airplane. Oh gods.

Baldy clicks the unlock button, and we all get out of the car. “Don’t bother ru

Baldy slaps handcuffs on my wrists and pulls me writhing to my feet. The heels of my hands are scraped raw, and my elbows and knees sting from my collision with the concrete.

“Got a live one,” he chuckles to Necktie, but he’s red and panting with exertion.

I take a deep breath and try to look calm. “You guys are going to feel pretty stupid when you take me to Mr. Blackwell and I tell him I don’t know anything about a drug formula.”

“Not our problem,” says Baldy, and puts a hand on my back, steering me toward the plane. There’s nothing I can do but go with them. I consider metamorphosis, but that only lasts a few minutes, and there’s nowhere out here to hide once I’m visible again.

I grasp for straws . . . I could try to call any animals in the vicinity. I glance around at the barren landscape. Nothing to work with. I could try to Conjure a strong wind, I think, but before I can form a plan, I am walking up the stairs toward a man in a pilot uniform who steps aside to let us board.

“Didja get my message?” Baldy asks him.

“Yes. Ready to go,” the pilot confirms. I am trying to control my shaking, but my bowels are twisting and I feel like I’m going to be sick. And we haven’t even left the ground.

Planes were one of the evils of society that De

I saw pictures of planes in the EB. I know that the pilot sits in the cockpit, in the front of the plane. That the passengers sit behind in rows. But this plane only has six seats, and they look more like overstuffed armchairs, all grouped around tables. I stand there, not knowing what to do, and Necktie points to one of the chairs. “You sit there,” he says, and pushes me down into a cream-colored seat that smells like new leather. As soon as the pilot closes and locks the door, Necktie produces the key to my cuffs. “You can’t go anywhere now, but you can be a pain in the ass. Tell me you won’t, and I’ll uncuff you.”

“I won’t,” I say, but only because I haven’t yet thought of a plan.

I’m not sure what to do once I’m uncuffed, but I watch Necktie pull seat belts up from the sides of his chair and click them together, and I begin to do the same. And then I remember something and unclick the belt. “I need to go to the bathroom,” I say.

“She needs to go to the bathroom,” he yells to Baldy, who has stuck his head through the cockpit door and is talking to the pilot. The sound of the plane’s roaring engine and spi

“Well then, let her go to the bathroom,” Baldy shouts back, shooting him a what are you, stupid? look.

“It’s back here,” Necktie says, and standing again, leads me to a door in the back, stationing himself just beside it, thumbs through his belt loops as he waits.

“Are you going to wait here by the door while I pee?” I ask, raising my chin. Daring him.

He looks offended. “No!” And he sits back down in his seat.

I squeeze into the toilet, find the door lock and pull it over, and then fish in my pocket for the paper that Whit left for me. It’s a page torn from a map. Printed across the bottom is “. . . w Mexico.” About an inch above Roswell—in the middle of nowhere—is a circle drawn in blue ink. And at the bottom of the page, in handwriting that I know as well as my own, Whit has written, “Things aren’t as they seem.”

55

MILES

“IS JUNEAU IN DANGER WITH THOSE MEN?” WHIT asks.

I cross my arms defensively and stare at him.

“Are you and the men who took her working for Blackwell Pharmaceutical?” he asks, and something in my expression must be giving it away, because he nods like he’s thinking, I knew it! One of the guards in the backseat shuffles uncomfortably.

“Since when does Murray Blackwell hire teenagers to do his dirty work?” he prods.

I don’t say a word. I just give him my eat shit and die look. But it doesn’t seem to be working on him because he just gives me an astonished look, like he read my mind and knows exactly who I am. And then I notice that his hand is positioned over the gearshift so that his fingers are lightly touching my jacket.

“You were Reading me!” I say.

“What on earth are you talking about?” Whit protests, but something in his eyes tells me that’s exactly what he was doing.

“Come on, let’s get this show on the road,” urges Thick-tongue from behind me.

Whit puts the Jeep in gear, and I scrabble to pull up the door lock while yanking on the handle. It’s already unlocked! I manage to think before I tumble out the door, landing hard on the sidewalk and sending a shock wave of pain through my right shoulder. Rolling to my hands and knees, I leap forward and make a run for the Dairy Queen.

I hear swearing behind me, but don’t dare look as I sprint across the parking lot and in through the glass door. I push it closed behind me and see Thick-tongue stop mid-run as Whit yells something at him. The burly guard turns his head and gives me a scorching glare, pointing his thumb and index finger at me like a gun. He shoots. And then he turns and stalks back to the Jeep. They drive off in a screech of rubber, leaving skid marks on the sidewalk.

“May I help you?” I swing around to see a teenage girl standing behind a cash register. I stick my hand in my pocket and pull out my cash. Juneau paid for our uneaten lunch, so I still have change. “What can I get with a dollar twenty-nine?” I ask.

“Water,” she says snippily.

I look back at the street. They’re definitely gone, although who knows if they’re just turning around to come back for me. I have two choices: hang out drinking water in Dairy Queen in case they come back, or risk it and make the trek back to my car.

“That’s okay,” I say. “Not thirsty.”

She rolls her eyes, and I walk out the door.

A twenty-minute walk later and I’m amazed to see that my keys are still on the ground where I dropped them when Portman and Redding smashed into the Jeep. Our lunch is still sitting in the bag on the dashboard where Juneau had set it. And Juneau’s pack is still in the backseat.

I’ve got this Tabasco-hot anxiety burning in my chest, but it quickly turns into anger as I think of Dad’s men snatching Juneau. They better not lay a finger on her. I’m comforted by the knowledge that Dad will treat her well as long as he thinks she can help him. But knowing her, she won’t be very helpful. Even if she knows the formula or technique or whatever it is that they use to stay young, there’s no way in hell she’s going to give it to him.