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“They won’t shoot us,” I said. “It might scratch the paint on their shiny SUV.”

Asher chuckled, but Bronte clearly did not appreciate my joke. Her chanting of “we’re all going to die” grew louder, faster.

“Ok, there’s the gate,” I said.

“And there are the Watchers.” Kylie indicated the solid line of Watchers standing between us and the gate. “Uh, they’re not moving out of the way. Maybe I should slow down?”

“We’re all going to die!”

“No, keep going. They’ll move,” I told Kylie.

“Uh, they don’t look like they plan on moving,” Kylie said.

“It’s just a stupid game of chicken. They’ll move,” I assured her.

“We’re all going to die!”

“You’d better be right about this, Winters,” said Asher. “The General will destroy us if we run over his soldiers.”

“We’re all going to die!”

“Bronte, please, you’re not helping,” I chided her.

“We’re all going to die!” she squeaked.

I expelled a heavy sigh.

“Here goes!” Kylie said.

“Everyone, hold on!” I shouted over Bronte’s agitated chanting.

The SUV shot forward, the Watchers scrambled, and I pressed the button on the display to open the gates. As soon as we were through, I closed them again, trapping the Watchers on the other side.

“Ok, now slow down,” I told Kylie. “Drive casually. We don’t want to draw attention to ourselves.”

“Yeah, it’s a good thing the windows are shaded,” Asher commented.

As we drove through Killfield, slow and steady, Bronte’s panic simmered down. Outside the windows, large single-family homes gave way to smaller houses and much larger apartment buildings.

“You’re doing great, Kylie,” I said.

“We’re coming up on the Black Obelisk,” said Dutch.

“Ok, so this is where things will get interesting,” I replied.

Bronte leaned forward, squeezing her head through the gap between the front seats. “I think things have already been far too interesting.”

“Yeah, well they’re about to getveryinteresting. There’s no remote code to open the Black Obelisk.” I swept my hand across the dashboard display.

The list was extensive—pages long. But there was no Black Obelisk. There wasn’t even a ‘home’ or ‘work’.

“It appears the Watchers are even more paranoid than we thought,” I said, frowning.

“Thanyouthought. This isyourplan. You said we’d be able to get into the Black Obelisk with the Watchers’ SUV,” Dutch said—no,accused. Like it was my fault that the Watchers were so crazy-paranoid.

I could see the Black Obelisk now. It jutted out of the ground like an alien crystal. Entirely covered in black glass windows, the building oozed menace, warning everyone to stay far, far away. The security fence around the property did that too. The array of metal posts and spiked wires looked like the weaponized interior of a monster’s mouth.

Far in front of us, way at the end of the road, another black SUV came to a stop at the Black Obelisk’s gates. A guard walked up to the driver. They seemed to be discussing something.