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“
And you
’
re with me,
” Trevor’s mother repeated.
 

“Fine. I guess.”
 

“Good. Because — ”
 

His mother, judging by black hair moving in the corner of Trevor’s eye, seemed to look up, interrupting herself. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of looking over, so he kept shoveling oats into his mouth, his eyes on the table’s center.
 

Trevor heard Terrence, his voice tentative and wary.
 

“Christopher? What is that?”
 

Trevor looked up.
 

“Christopher? Why do you have that?”
 

Terrence was referring, apparently, to what looked like a small black tablet in Christopher’s hands.
 

Lila was beside him, one hand on her big belly.
 

Heather was watching them both, while Lila’s eyes, in turn, focused on her mother’s.
 

“Christopher … ”
 

“I wanted to ask you about this, Terrence,” Christopher said, his free hand finding Lila’s waist, both of them keeping their distance. “I wanted to get your help, so I think if you just listen, you’ll agree with us.” The tension in Terrence and in Dan, still in the living room, was obvious, though Trevor hadn’t yet figured out why. Both looked like they might be weighing odds. But Christopher and Lila were by themselves in the middle of the combined room, Christopher’s thumb hovering above the tablet’s surface.
 

“Agree with you about what, Christopher?”
 

“I figured if you
didn
’
t
understand and agree, there wouldn’t be another chance. So there was really no choice. This is what’s best for everyone. But not everyone will agree right away.” His eyes flicked toward Heather, who was still locking eyes with Lila.
 

“Just set it down. Just put it down, and I’ll listen to your … your
plan
. Okay?”
 

“We can’t stay here.” He was looking around the room, addressing them all. “I know this might sound kind of crazy, but … ” He looked at Lila for help.
 

Lila had looked self-assured while watching her mother. Now, facing everyone — including Raj, who looked wounded that she was doing whatever this was with Christopher rather than him — she seemed far less sure. Lila looked like a girl asked to sing in front of a crowd, suddenly uncertain about the voice she’d once thought so fabulous.
 

“Terrence,” she began, seeming to find a loophole. “Remember how you felt after finding those rocks outside?”
 

“Surprised.” Terrence removed his sunglasses and poked them into what was becoming a large, untidy afro.
 

“No, I mean … we could see it on the video. Or, I guess, since you were wearing the camera, maybe we could
hear
it. In your voice. Your mind kind of opened up, didn’t it?”
 

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Christopher took over. “Come on, Terrence. We all saw it. You lit up like a Christmas tree. Then for days afterward you were acting like you’d intercepted the secrets of the universe. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
 

“Maybe.”
 

“Well, I think the stones must be doing something to me. Or to … ” Lila looked down, but Trevor thought he could pinpoint the second she decided not to attribute anything to her unborn baby, knowing how nuts it would sound. “To me,” she repeated. “And I can kind of see some things. Or hear them, or whatever. And I know that … that … ”
 

“You didn’t even go outside, Lila.” Terrence had his palm out, presumably for Christopher to hand over him the tablet. Trevor still wan’t sure exactly what it was, but he could see the way Dan was looking, too.

“It doesn’t matter. I can tell the difference between normal and …
enhanced
thoughts.”
 

Terrence turned his outstretched hand into a pacifying, palms-forward gesture then leaned against the kitchen table.

“Okay. What do you think you know?”
 

Heather stood, apparently unwilling to let Lila hog the floor.
 

“I know it too,” she said.
 

Terrence’s eyes ticked toward Heather. So, Trevor noticed, did Christopher’s. If the thing in Christopher’s hand was dangerous, someone on the ball could have easily snatched it. Trevor almost wanted to. He’d thought Christopher was his friend, and yet he hadn’t been told about any of this. Somehow he’d ended up shackled to his mother instead. Was it too late to change sides? Maybe he could just stand and join them, as a show of solidarity.
 

“This place is important to them somehow,” Heather went on.
 

“To who?”
 

Heather looked up. “Them.”
 

Terrence looked from one woman to the other. “So you’ve talked. You agree about something.”
 

“Talked, yes,” said Heather. “Agreed? No.”
 

Terrence stood fully again, moving slowly. He looked again to each party in turn then held out his hand. “If you all seem to know something, we’ll talk. Of course we’ll talk. But we’ve gotta do it rationally. Hand me the controller, Christopher.”
 

Christopher looked like he wanted to obey but shook his head. “If you don’t agree with us, we’ll have missed our only chance.”
 

“What chance?”

“To destroy it.”
 

“Chris … ”
 

“We can get out. There’s still that one brick we left outside, by the garage. I can blow that one first. That’ll create enough of a distraction to get us out without anyone stopping us or trying to get back in. Slam the door behind us. I won’t trigger the rest until — ”

“Christopher,” said Terrence, his voice mostly steady but beginning to hitch with nerves, “tell me you didn’t wire up any of the other bricks. Tell me you weren’t stupid enough to try and do that by yourself.”

“I saw where you stuck the spare key to the weapons closet.”
 

“Chris … ”
 

“And I’m not
stupid,
” he said, a tad defensively. “I can stick detonators into bricks of clay.”
 

“It’s not that simple. This isn’t your grandfather’s C-4. It’s — ”
 

“I know they’re armed.” He held up the small tablet. “I did it right. We’re still here, aren’t we?”
 

“Where is it, Christopher? Where did you wire the explosives?” Both hands up now, palms out and hoping for peace. Christopher was starting to crack, and Lila had grabbed the back of a chair for stability. She looked like she might cry or pass out. Maybe both.
 

His eyes ticked toward Trevor and his mother. “In the generator room.”

Terrence’s eyes flicked toward the closed door.
 

“I set it right, Terrence. Blast directed straight down, just like you explained outside.”
 

“Christopher, we’re inside a concrete block. It’s not like outside.”
 

“That’s why we’re leaving before I blow it.”
 

“We’re not leaving,” Heather said.

“We’re leaving.”
 

“We’re
not
leaving.” Then, unbelievably, Heather took a step forward.
 

Lila spoke up. “Mom, I know you think that — ”

“
I don
’
t THINK! I KNOW!
”

“You
don
’
t
know, Mom! Just because you’re having dreams of Dad doesn’t mean the real Dad would — ”

“Not ‘would’! ‘Does’! We shared things. I know goddamned well when it’s him I’m talking to rather than just … just
dreams
… and — ”
 

“That’s such bullshit!” Lila blurted.

“Why haven’t the ships broken their way in here and killed us all if you’re right, Lila? If they think we’re a threat — ”

Lila jabbed a finger at Christopher’s tablet. “We goddamned well
are
a threat!”
 

“And you think they don’t know that? They’re in my head! They’re in your head! They’re in
Terrence
’
s
head, for shit’s sake!” A finger jabbed at Terrence. “You saw what happened when they tried to plant just
one
little explosive outside. What happened, Li? The ship showed up and killed Vincent, that’s what. Then it killed a bunch of those assholes outside to stomp its foot. But it didn’t kill us, did it? And that doesn’t sound like a
warning
to you? A threat that you’d make if you didn’t want to hurt anyone else but needed to make a point — ”

“That ship killed a whole bunch more people! And you want to do what they want? You
don
’
t
want to destroy this thing that’s so important to them, and
protect
it instead?”

“But look at
who
they killed! They got Vincent, to make a point. But not Christopher, or Terrence. They left the bunker alone, even though they have to know we’re here. Why, Lila? Stop your tantrum for a fucking second, and ask yourself
why
,
why
they’d leave us alone as long as we didn’t mess up their plans, and what they might do if you go and do something stupid, if … if … ”
 

Heather’s head cocked to the side.

“If … ”
 

Trevor could hear what she was hearing, too. A small noise between his mother’s angry words. A tinny, canned sound, coming from one of the control room speakers.

Raj was closest. Ignoring Christopher’s tablet-based threat, he looked around the rest of the group then went through the door without a word.
 

“Raj, get out here right now or I’ll … !” Christopher stopped when Raj stuck his head back out, his face puzzled.
 

“It’s Piper,” he said. “She’s outside, asking to come back in.”

CHAPTER FIFTY

Lila looked toward Raj. Christopher looked toward Lila. Terrence looked toward Christopher, and then, in the split second of distraction, kicked hard at his knee.
 

Christopher crumpled. Despite being the tech wizard and appearing far less impressive than Vincent, Dan, or even Christopher, Terrence must have been trained in combat because his strike was precise, hard, perfect.
 

Lila gasped. Christopher slid almost sideways, leg buckling, grasping at his knee, face twisting in pain. Lila saw it all. And she saw the tablet seem to leap from his hand, flat like a place setting atop a yanked-away tablecloth.
 

She tried to grab for it, but it had been in Christopher’s other hand. She’d lost her agility to pregnancy and wasn’t close. The thing struck one of the kitchen rugs on its corner, and she gasped again, somehow certain that a strike to the trigger would cause the explosives to fire. But as the tablet seemed to bounce and settle on its face, she realized that didn’t make sense. Attaching the detonators and programming the trigger had been far simpler than they’d imagined. They didn’t need Terrence’s help for something so idiot proof.
 

And of course, idiots dropped things.
 

Lila tried to dive for the tablet, but Terrence beat her to it, stepping on the thing and pinning it to the floor. He swung back as if to hit her but seemed to reconsider striking a pregnant teenager and reached to help her up instead, still pinning the tablet.
 

Lila liked Terrence a lot. But stopping whatever evil stuff the aliens had in mind was important enough to risk killing them all, so instead of taking his offered hand, she punched him hard in the groin.
 

Terrence, unprepared, teetered with abject shock. He didn’t fall but did stutter-step, sending the tablet under his foot backward, toward the living room.
 

Dan watched it skid out of the kitchen and leaped gracelessly over the back of the love seat, landing awkwardly in a heap. Terrence had fallen to one knee, nowhere near it.
 

Christopher was back on the move. Hobbling, he fell forward. His fingers grazed the tablet’s brushed-metal back, but Dan’s feet had landed close, and he kicked at it with the backs of his shoes, trying to knock it away from Christopher, toward his hands.
 

Christopher heaved, got his hand on the tablet. Dan kicked down hard, driving his rubber heel into the back of Christopher’s hand.
 

Lila, still on her knees, could only watch. She stood in slow motion, finding herself beside her mother: the two Dempsey women reunited by turmoil. Raj was to Heather’s right, still with his head stuck out of the control room like a groundhog heralding spring’s arrival. He seemed torn between the screen that had so recently shocked him and the fighting outside.
 

Lila felt the ticking clock. Christopher had wired the bombs, placing most of the stash directly above the hole her mother had squirreled in the generator room. Lila had watched with mixed feelings. It was hard to believe that a handful of hours ago, her biggest concern hadn’t been the thunderclap they were setting to destroy all her father had built — but was instead her newly implied obligation to Christopher, and what it might mean in her conflicted relationship with Raj.