“There are twenty at least,” he spat. “Get her out of here, Jack. I can’t hold them forever.”
A new, far worse terror seized her. Twenty? But they only worked in pairs, didn’t they? “Ben!” Suvi cried. “They’ll be after him too. You should...”
“It’s all right.” Tom raised the gun and fired, sending a red beam tracing across the garden. “Jack got a warning to us in time. He’s safe and so is Katy.”
She turned away, back to Jim. Another projectile blew a hole the size of a basketball in the chimney just to the side of the porch, showering her with hard pellets of brick. “Help me,” she begged Jack. “I can’t leave him.”
Tom flicked his eyes in her direction. “Let it go, Suvi. He’s a dead man.”
Jack picked her up, forcibly. She struggled, flailing at his back with her closed fists, but he di
