the door, but Stacy grabbed his hand.
“Wait,” she said. “I need to tell you something.”
His heart started to pound.
She took a deep breath. “This is totally embarrassing, so I’m just going to come out and say it,” she said. “I need to apologize.”
“For what?”
“I know you still have feelings for Lily and . . . well, I need to respect that,” she said. “Danielle told me that you two are perfect for each other, and I don’t want to get caught in the middle of it. It’s not fair to either one of you.” She pulled him toward her and kissed him on his forehead. “Good night.”
Numb, Colt thought as he walked down the path back toward his dorm. Numb to the touch of Stacy’s lips. Numb to the devastation on the campus. Numb to the storm of sirens and flashing lights. Numb to the body bags.
The skin of his soul thickened with the skin of his body. And this, he thought, this is how the Thule did it—a singular focus on the mission set before them and no extra thought or feeling or pain given to anything except that mission. He knew what their fury tasted like. It sat in the back of his throat now, metallic and strangely sweet. Pain was only spice to this sugar, devastation like yeast.
“No! Please, no!”
Colt stopped when he heard Glyph’s voice cut through the cool mist.
“I’m not one of them,” Glyph said. “I’m . . . please. You can’t.”
Colt ran off the path and into a grove, where he saw Glyph backed against a tree. Pierce was holding a gun to the alien’s midsection, which according to their xenology textbook was where the Fimorian brain was located.
“What are you doing, Bowen?”
“Back off, McAlister!” Pierce said without so much as looking at him.
“Please . . . ,” Glyph said, his voice weak.
“He’s on our side.”
“No, he’s not. He’s one of them!”
“I’m more Thule than he is, so if you want to shoot someone, why don’t you shoot me?” Colt walked toward Pierce with his arms held wide to show that he wasn’t armed.
“Don’t tempt me,” Pierce said.
“Your dad is going to make it,” Colt said, each step slow and methodical. “They’re moving him to Fort Meade. Doc Roth even said they could get him a prosthetic that will look and act like the real thing. It even has nerve endings.”
“I know what you’re trying to do, and it won’t work.”
“Listen, just give me the—”
“Shut up, okay? Just shut up!”
Glyph winced as he closed his eyes.
“The universe is bigger than we thought,” Colt said, trying to keep a steady voice. “But that doesn’t mean everyone and everything out there is our enemy.”
“Think, McAlister. Sooner or later they’re all going to turn on us.”
“No, we won’t,” Glyph said, his voice feeble as a tear ran down his cheek. “Please, we came to help you in your fight. You . . . you must believe me.”
“Liar.” Pierce curled his lip into a snarl.
Colt leapt. He snatched the weapon away, tossed it, and had his fist cocked to flatten Pierce when Glyph called out, “No. Don’t. He’s scared, that’s all.”
Pierce exploded, but not in anger. Sobs, so consuming Colt thought the cadet would rip his lungs out. Glyph’s long arm snaked around Pierce’s ribs and he pulled him tight. “Come,” he said. “Let’s go find your father.”
Pierce nodded and let Glyph lead them in the direction of the commissary.
: :
CHAPTER 26 : :
As news of the attack spread, people around the world fled dense population centers in search of somewhere to hide. The Black Hills. The Gobi Desert. Pitcairn Island. Even the boreal forest of Canada, which was supposed to be uninhabitable in the winter.
Some tried to pack things like precious jewels and fur coats, afraid that looters would break into their homes, but most stuck to canned goods, water bottles, and weapons that ranged from baseball bats and butcher knives to hunting rifles and handguns.
Colt and Oz sat in Grandpa’s apartment, watching a reporter from one of the twenty-four-hour news networks interview Senator Bowen in his hospital bed. His hair was perfect, his teeth almost too white, and his skin looked orange from all the makeup. But his eyes were heavy and his voice was weak.
“Check it out,” Oz said. “Pierce is in the background. See him?”
“Yeah, I see him,” Colt said.
The reporter asked the senator about the attack and what his first thought was when he saw the Tracker, but when she asked him about