Ryan said, “She certainly seemed keen to keep y’all from investigating the crime.”
Kyla considered this. She didn’t deny it, but she had a question of her own. Frowning to Ryan, she said, “You still haven’t explained something.”
With a grunt of pain, he said, “Shoot.”
“Why did you go to Sarah’s room in the first place tonight?”
“Because I wanted to know what The Chief’s message meant.” Ryan let out a grunt of pain. “?‘The mountain is getting restless.’ I wanted… I wanted…”
He broke off as the trio rounded the side of the motel and saw what was waiting between them and the old house.
The Guardians were standing in the moonlight. They’d assembled themselves in two parallel lines—their eyes down, their wings extended tip-to-tip—forming a tunnel through the desert just wide enough for Ethan and Kyla and Ryan to walk through. It felt ceremonious, deferential. It made Ethan think of a military battalion offering an honor guard.
The creatures were silent as the trio crossed the dark to the old house. Feathers rustled in a soft breeze. The tunnel of bodies seemed to breathe around them, in and out, with a slow steady hiss.
The mountain had grown massive, its silhouette seeming to swallow the sky. The house with its strange angles and its bright silver window was ready for them. Through the crackle of the fire, Ethan heard a familiar voice coming from the darkness of the desert.
“You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
It sounded like Hunter.
Ethan kept walking. He looked at his watch. It was 3:09.
“You know what else has been bothering me?” Kyla said, turning her attention to Ethan. “When you first got here, Sarah Powers somehow knew who you were, but she still told that lie about meeting your mom when her car broke down. Remember? Something about an engine fan?”
Yes. Ethan remembered.
“If Sarah knew you, she would know you worked on cars. She’d know you’d see through the lie sooner or later.” Kyla chewed her lip. They had to walk even slower: Ryan could barely handle a step at a time. “And then Sarah told me and Fernanda about how she had a satellite phone, how she was going to talk to Frank O’Shea, even though she must have seen how jumpy we got when his name came up. She would have known we wouldn’t have wanted her to have that chance.”
Ethan said, “And to top it all off, she told us all that her doors would be unlocked. That y’all should drop in whenever to look at her photographs.”
Through chattering teeth, Ryan said, “It sounds like she wanted to put a target on her back.”
Another voice came through the desert, this one a woman’s.
“I will destroy that man.”
It sounded like Fernanda.
At the end of the line, they encountered a Guardian that stood a solid foot taller than the rest. It watched them approach, its feathered arms crossed across its chest, clearly unimpressed.
“Is it just me,” Kyla said. “Or do these things almost seem like people?”
Ethan held out the stone egg in his pocket. The largest of the Guardians regarded it, regarded Ethan, and stepped aside.
They climbed the steps of the old house. As they neared the door, Ryan came to a stop. He leaned against the wall and slid slowly down, coming to rest on the porch’s boards. His shoulder left a trail of blood along the house’s paint. His teeth chattered hard.
“Y’all go ahead,” he said. “All this stuff is getting… over my pay grade.”
“You shouldn’t stay out in the cold,” Kyla said.
“Just… find Penelope for me, yeah? Make sure… make sure she’s all right.”
“At least come inside—” Kyla began, but Ethan touched her arm. Ryan’s eyes had already gone cloudy.
The man let out a long, long breath. He didn’t draw in another.
Ethan stepped past him to open the front door. He said, “See you tomorrow.”
