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“Hush, Norine,” Aunt Patrice said from behind the steering wheel. She was struggling to see the road in the murky dark. “Dr. Porter is with him, which means he’s getting the best care available.” 

“What could cause a rockslide? I bet,” Norine said, fixing her eyes on Briar, “it was one of those powered people gone out of control. Can you imagine?”

“You don’t know what happened,” Briar snapped. “You’re just making that up.”

Norine shrugged and then turned to her mother. “Momma, I’ll just die if the road isn’t fixed by Tuesday. You said Briar and I could go window shopping in Denver so we can see what sort of dress she’s going to make me.”

Briar jolted. She had been avoiding going to Denver for months now. She couldn’t stand the thought of seeing her brother Arthur again. She hadn’t seen him since the day of the Firelight Festival. The day everything changed. 

Norine was still pleading. “I have to decide what I’m going to wear for the New Year’s talent show, and it has to be perfect.” She burst into an only-slightly nasal version of “I’ve Got My Love to Keep Me Warm.” 

“That’s enough now, dear,” Patrice said. When Norine kept singing, Patrice said, “Norine, don’t waste your voice. It’s too powerful for this small car, and I don’t want you to overdo it on the practicing.”

Aunt Patrice’s words warbled and twanged, and Briar turned her face toward the window to hide her laugh. She had to give it to Aunt Patrice—the woman lied beautifully.

Briar had come to live with Aunt Patrice when she was eleven years old. They had never met before; Briar’s father had left Independence Falls for Texas before he even graduated high school, and had never brought his family back to his hometown. But Aunt Patrice was Briar’s only living relative, and she had agreed to take in her niece. 

Briar wondered now why Patrice had bothered. Aunt Patrice didn’t seem to feel much family loyalty. She never talked about Briar’s father, her brother, or about the other people she had lost. Both of Patrice’s parents—Briar’s grandparents, she supposed, though she never thought of them as such—had died long ago. Her husband, George, had been killed in the war when Norine was young. In some ways, Briar thought, they were similar—both orphans, both familiar with tragedy. But Aunt Patrice never reached out to Briar, never wanted to bond over their shared pain. 

Ever since her powers manifested, Briar had suddenly been able to see another way she and Patrice were similar. Patrice lied all the time. 

Where Briar had lied to cover up her past, Patrice lied to manipulate people. She was very skilled at using compliments and kind words to encourage people into doing what she wanted, without hurting their feelings or creating offense. Norine, after all, had stopped singing. 

Briar’s power allowed her to admire Aunt Patrice’s technique, but forbade her from imitating it. She no longer had the luxury of lying to her cousin. If Norine asked what Briar thought of her singing, she would have to tell the truth. 

That was the worst part about her powers. All those convenient lies that people told to smooth social situations and avoid hurt feelings were impossible for her now. Telling nothing but the truth meant that, more often than not, it was better not to say anything.

Thank God no one had asked her where she had been when the rockslide occurred. She would have had to tell them that she was in the woods, rubbing her hands all over a mountain lion that turned out to be Charlie Huston, her next-door neighbor. A tingle went up her spine as she thought of the way his chest had rumbled when he purred. 

When they came around the corner of the winding road, they found a column of abandoned cars. Several of the cars had their headlights on, providing some illumination as Dr. Porter carefully loaded a man into the back of a truck on a makeshift stretcher. 

Patrice stamped on the brakes and was at the doctor’s side in a moment. “How can I help?”

The doctor looked up at Patrice. His normally-ordered dark hair was askew. “I’ve got this. But there could be more injuries. Ruth is checking to see if there’s anyone on the other side. But the rocks are unstable and if she falls …,” his voice faltered. 

Patrice laid a hand on his shoulder. “That won’t happen. I brought supplies. Bandages, antiseptic. What do you need?”

Dr. Porter blinked twice, seeming to drag his thoughts back to the matter at hand. “I’d like to splint Bill’s arm. And some morphine, if you’ve got it.”

Patrice opened her trunk and Dr. Porter grabbed what he needed. “Now go,” he said. “You and I are the only people in this town with any medical knowledge, and if something happens, I need you to take care of it.”

Patrice was a little pale, but she nodded. “You can count on me. Girls, help me carry this stuff. We’ll leave the car here.”

Briar wondered, not for the first time, why Patrice treated her so differently than she did everyone else in town. To Norine, to the doctor, to their neighbors and friends, Patrice was kind and helpful. But to Briar ….

“Stop lolly-gagging,” Patrice said sharply, giving Briar a little shove in the back as she stalked past her, weaving through parked cars. “This is important.”

To Briar, she always acted like that.

Briar glanced back at Norine, who was carrying less and moving slower than she was. There was no point in complaining about the unfairness. It wouldn’t change how Patrice acted. 

The old adage didn’t lie. The truth hurt.

When Briar emerged from the maze of cars parked in the road, she caught her breath. A massive pile of rubble stood in the road, limned by moonlight.

Briar felt an inexplicable jolt of relief. 

It took her a moment to find the truth in her reaction. Now she had a good reason not to see Arthur. She could stop feeling guilty about leaving him at Ridge Home alone. 

Beside her, Norine was whining. “What are we going to do?”

Patrice began to push her way through the crowd that was huddled around the rockslide. “Excuse me, I’m a nurse,” she said authoritatively, and Briar and Norine followed in her wake. All the faces in the crowd were turned up, and Briar tracked their gazes to the top of the rockslide. 

It took her a moment to discern the figure moving carefully up the side of the rocks. “Who is that?” she asked at random.

Her question was answered when the figure held up one arm and it burst into flame. Ruth? Two months ago the girl had been scared of her own shadow, and now she was bright and bold. Briar wished her powers made her feel the same way.

The crowd cheered for her. “That’s a piece of luck,” said Peter Powell. “No one else was hurt.”

Almost before his words were out, the cheers turned to screams. Ruth’s other hand went up, and now there were two pillars of flame on the ridge. 

There was a thunderous noise as a spotlight clicked on in the sky. It fixed Ruth in its glare. For a terrified moment, Briar thought of the stories she’d heard about UFOs, which seemed to her even more fictional than her own lies. But it almost looked like Ruth would be sucked up in some sort of force field. 

Then the beam moved over Ruth onto the road below, and with it came a ferocious blast of dusty air. The crowd pressed back, shielding their faces from the light and wind, ducking behind the first cars and trucks parked on the road. 

Briar heard someone yell, “It’s a helicopter!”

“Not at this altitude,” someone else replied, but sure enough a huge silver machine was descending from the sky. It looked like a bulky dragonfly with its large cabin and long tail. 

The spotlight fixed on the asphalt as the helicopter lowered. Briar was amazed that such a large machine could make such a delicate landing. She thought she could make out the letters “UH-40” painted on the tail. When the massive blades came to a stop, the only sound Briar could hear was the short breathing of the terrified citizens of Independence Falls. 

The door of the helicopter unlatched and slid open. A tall man ducked through the door, dressed in military fatigues and highly polished boots. 

“Colonel Deacon, United States Army,” he said, his voice carrying in the still air. “I’m here to help.”

CHAPTER SIX

Charlie

Charlie cursed with frustration for most of the drive back to Independence Falls. It hadn’t taken him long to get to his truck, but after he’d transformed he had a hell of a time getting back into his clothes. Haste made him careless, and he’d fallen painfully while trying to put on his pants. The humiliation burned in his belly, even though no one was around to see. 

He needed both hands and his good leg to negotiate the big truck around the hairpin turns of the road back to town. He counted himself lucky that his truck had been parked on the town side of the rockslide. Otherwise he would have had to run back through town as a mountain lion, which, given the number of gun owners in Independence Falls, probably wouldn’t have worked out so well for him. 

Most likely, Briar was somewhere ahead of him, since it had taken him so long to dress. He hoped so. Whoever had been driving that sedan needed help. 

The closer he got to town, the more anxious he became. He didn’t recognize the car he’d seen crushed under the rocks, but he had to tell someone he had seen it. Whoever was in that car, he wasn’t going to leave them alone any longer than absolutely necessary. They could be hurt, bleeding, even ….

 He gripped the wheel tighter to keep his hands from shaking. He tried to remind himself that it wasn’t like his accident, out on the empty road leading to Angela’s house during a snowstorm. Not like the hours he had spent with his leg trapped under a crushed dashboard, listening to his girlfriend scream until she died.

He inhaled and exhaled, just to remind himself he was still breathing. 

Suddenly he saw a truck coming around the bend toward him. It was nearly dark now, but he could see enough to recognize Ivan Sokolov behind the wheel and, sharing the cab with him, an anxious-looking Dr. Porter. 

Relief surged through him. The doctor was here; whatever could be done, would be done. Tension drained out of his neck and shoulders as he realized that the task he had set for himself was already done. 

More cars were following behind Ivan’s truck. Charlie had never seen anything like traffic in Independence Falls, but he was seeing it now—a long line of trucks and sedans stretching back toward town. 

He beeped his horn as a car swung out of the line and pulled over to the side of the road. He recognized his Uncle Rick’s truck and raised a hand in acknowledgment. 

Rick hopped out of the truck and strode toward Charlie’s window. His slightly-bowed legs and leathery skin attested to the fact that Rick spent most of his time outside on a horse, tending to his acres on the southeast side of town. Up until the accident, Charlie had spent every summer of his life working with Rick on the ranch, learning to run fence and shoe horses.

Now it had been months since he’d set foot in Rick’s house. He sometimes drove across the property, in search of a place high in the hills to transform, but with his injuries, helping Rick with the chores was completely beyond him. 

“You’re facing the wrong way,” Rick said as he approached Charlie’s open window.

“I was headed back to town to tell everyone there’d been a rockslide,” Charlie said.

“Looks like somebody beat you to it.”

There was no judgment in Rick’s tone, but Charlie felt it anyway. “I started back as soon as I could. I got … caught up.”

Rick chuckled. “One of those books you like so much?”

“No,” Charlie said curtly. Rick had always ribbed him about being a college boy, but since Charlie had lost his baseball scholarship after the car accident the comments no longer seemed as funny. “Was someone hurt?”

“That’s what we’re on our way to find out,” Rick said. “Gail Goodman came rushing into the town meeting and said Bill was trapped.”

Charlie sucked in a breath. He didn’t know the Goodmans well, but the idea of anyone being trapped in a car made his heart stutter. “I saw the doctor. He’s on his way. He’s ….”

To Charlie’s dismay, his voice shook. His anxiety and relief were so mixed up inside him he could barely draw breath. 

Rick laid a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll get him out in no time. All right?”

The idea that he might cry in front of the manliest man he knew had Charlie straightening in his seat. “Yeah. Yeah. Okay.”

Rick eyed him for a moment, then squeezed his shoulder before letting go. “Your father and mother went back to your house to get some supplies. You think you could go pick them up?”

“But ….” Charlie glanced back in the direction of the rockslide.

“Ain’t nothing you can do that the doctor isn’t already doing,” Rick said, and his voice held gentle sympathy.

“I can help,” Charlie said, hating the stubborn petulance in his words. 

Rick looked down at Charlie’s ruined leg. It was just a flick of his eyes, but Charlie saw it. Shame washed over him. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t wield a shovel or a pick, he couldn’t load up a cart full of stones and toss them into the ravine below. Bill Goodman might live or die, and there was nothing he could do to change that. All that was left was the filthy, grueling work of clearing away the rocks. The men in town would come together to see to it, the same way they came together when someone needed a new roof or needed help raising a barn. 

It wasn’t glamorous, and the work was brutal. Charlie would have given anything to be working alongside the rest of the men. 

“All right,” he grumbled, turning away from Rick. “I’ll go pick up my parents.”

“Good man,” Rick said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Well, I better get out there. See you in a bit.”

“Yeah,” Charlie said shortly, using the pole built into his clutch to shove his truck into gear.

He maneuvered his truck around Rick’s and started back toward town. The seemingly-endless line of headlights glared in his eyes as he drove the opposite direction of everyone else. 

Christ, he was pathetic.