Page 9 of The Midnight Knock

Except when she arrived at her destination, Kyla realized she wasn’t alone. The last of the silver streets ended at a tall stone archway, past which there rose a column of silver light that Kyla knew, in the way of dreams, was the source of all this unstable power. This was the heart of the city. The light was coming up, up, from deep in the earth, and so Kyla must go deeper still.

But a man stood between her and the light. A tall man in a faded gray suit, the kind no one ever wore anymore. The man was staring at the light, a hand outstretched like he wanted to hold it.

The man’s index finger ended at the second knuckle. Something had seared the rest of it away.

In his other hand, the man held a long, long knife. Its blade dripped with blood. With a shivery rush of fear, Kyla knew that this man was dangerous. That he had done things more horrible than Kyla could ever imagine. She eased herself back the way she’d come, as silent as she knew how, but it was no good. The man in the gray suit knew she was there. He had always known, because she was always here.

The man turned to give Kyla a wide, wide smile. His teeth ground together like stones.

His face was coated with blood.

“Oh no, Miss Hewitt,” the man said. How did he know her name?

How did he know her name?

“It is I who shall have audience once more.”

Kyla jerked awake in the passenger seat of a Chevy Malibu at four o’clock sharp, just in time to see the glare of silver light pass over the desert sky. She wondered if she was still dreaming. That silver light: it looked almost identical to the column of energy she’d seen rising from the dead city’s heart.

Her mind was still cloudy. A word came to her lips. A word, or maybe a name.

Te’lo’hi.

And then reality returned. Kyla remembered why she was in this Malibu, where she was going, who she was with. She remembered who the car belonged to. She remembered what had happened this afternoon at Fort Stockton. She reached for the gun resting in the pocket of her door. She wished she could go back to sleep. Even if it meant seeing that horrible man with the grinding smile—

How did he know her name?

—Kyla wanted to be dreaming again. Kyla wanted to be anywhere but here.

“You are awake,” Fernanda said.

Fernanda was driving the car. She was tall, sharp-boned, in her early twenties, a little younger than Kyla. And yet unlike Kyla, Fernanda possessed the dignity of a much older lady, a classy hauteur that made other women jealous and turned most men into simperingfools. Kyla had never done either, which was probably why Fernanda liked her. The feeling was mutual. Usually.

In spite of the circumstances, in spite of the afternoon the girls had endured, Fernanda still looked poised and restrained at the Malibu’s wheel: chin up, eyes wide, long hair falling to either side of her face in two perfect black sheets. Fernanda was from Mexico—she’d arrived in Fort Stockton last year in very unpleasant circumstances—and somewhere in Monterey she’d picked up a cool, precise English. No contractions, no split infinitives, no swearing. Fernanda’s English, like her poise, always made Kyla feel vaguely ashamed of the way Dallas had raised her.

Fernanda said, “Are you feeling any better?”

Kyla said, “Are you fucking kidding?”

They were still in the desert. Still driving this same endless road. Still exposed from every angle. There was too much sky overhead, too much horizon. Kyla turned to peer out her window at the empty nothing behind them, her eyes searching the sky for drones, planes, even a fucking hot-air balloon (yes, really). Franklin O’Shea had all the toys a bad man could ever desire.

Kyla had no doubt he’d deployed them all by now.

“I think we are safe,” Fernanda said. “Frank never sends his men down this road. He told me so himself.”

“We won’t be safe until we’re in Mexico. Not with this.”

Kyla toed a bright green backpack that rested at her feet. Their future was in that backpack. Their death sentence, too, at least while they were stateside.

“I do not think you need to be so scared,” Fernanda said. “We would have seen trouble by now.”

Kyla gave her naive friend a long look. She shook her head. “You don’t know what trouble is.”

Fernanda glanced her way. She tried to smile. “Have you heard the story of the rabbit who met the pirate king?”

“No stories. I feel like I’m already living in one of the awful ones.”

Fernanda winced. That had stung, but Kyla was in a stinging mood. Fernanda was part of the reason they were in this mess in the first place.