Chapter 25

"You can't explain!" Ty scolded, apparently awake. "What are you thinkin', man?"

"Ahhhhh," Raylay stammered.

Relda drew her knees up to her chest. Raylay might have replied, but an electric ringing drowned it away. The colorless, transparent window panes flooded with gunmetal gray steel. The steel locked into place.

"Oh, no," Relda muttered.

A quick glance through the front shield confirmed: space had stopped expanding before them. It stopped as metal clinked all around them.

Sirens wailed down the hall until an explosion silenced them. Footsteps drummed the floor, wrapped in an echo. There were dread-inducing pauses at various points. First at a distance, but each stop was closer. It always resumed, and the sound conquered the cabin. Then it stopped. Too closely. Relda squirmed at the hot breath against her head. Dense metal pressed into her spine.

"You'll come with me," the voice boomed. "All of you, or the girl dies."

Now wasn't the time to argue, so Relda fumed in her mind instead. It didn't take long before the fuming weakened into desperate helplessness.

"Do what he says," she pleaded as memories replayed: the plague, the escape, her uncle's death, standing alone on the temple grounds.

Ty and Raylay trembled as they found their feet.

"We're coming," Raylay announced.