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The kids all safe, Carlos ran to the 8x8 even as the crows—those that weren’t trapped in the bus by Betty’s heroism—descended upon Kenny, who was already bloody and battered and still firing the flame thrower. Monique lay dead and bloody next to him.

As the crows overwhelmed Kenny, the flame thrower spun wildly around.

An arc of fire headed straight for Carlos.

He had only a microsecond to hope that his death would be quick.

Then, suddenly, the flame split, going around Carlos. He felt the heat on his face as the fire went around him, as if he was a rock in the middle of a river.

What the fuck?

Then the fire started to twist and spiral as if it had a mind of its own.

Or, rather, a mind controlling it.

Looking around, Carlos caught sight of the one person he knew who could do this sort of thing:

Alice.

She stood about twenty feet away, a bunch of saddlebags and weapons at her feet. Her arms were at her sides, and her blue eyes were fluttering back and forth like crazy.

The fire split off several more times, each tendril of flame of greater intensity than the original shot from the flame thrower that almost killed Carlos. Each shot straight at one of the crows.

Soon the sky was ablaze—literally. Strangled caws of dying crows filled the air as they all caught fire and fell to the ground, scorched and dead. Carlos held up his arms to protect his face from being singed by the ones that fell a little too close.

Seconds later, it was over.

Otto, Betty, Freddie, Dillon, Jared, Blair, Kenny, Monique, Jason, and Richard were all dead. The school bus was damaged probably beyond their ability to repair.

But the crows were gone, too.

Thanks to Alice.

Her eyes normal now, she walked over to him with that damned smirk on her face. “You miss me?”

Carlos shook his head as he stared at the woman he hadn’t seen since Detroit. “Well, I’ll say one thing for you, you still know how to make an entrance.”

The smirk blossomed into a full smile.

Then she fell over, and Carlos reached out to catch her.

Her eyes were fluttering again, but this time it was behind closed lids. The effort of saving the lives of those few who had survived had done her in.

He shook his head and snorted a bitter laugh. “Welcome back, Alice.”

TWENTY

“Another spike in alpha and beta waves detected. Forty-five-percent probability that this is Project Alice.”

“Triangulate,” Isaacs said to the White Queen in an intense tone. “Find her location.”

“I am familiar with the definition of the word ‘triangulate,’ Dr. Isaacs,” the White Queen said in a snotty tone that, were she a real child, would have led Isaacs to having her drowned.

Rather than respond to the comment, he called up a graphic of the waveform of Project Alice’s second psionic outburst. This one was similar, but the frequency was shorter and the amplitude much higher. Almost as if it were more focused…

“Impressive,” he muttered. “If it is her, her development is extraordinary.”

“Her powers would appear to have grown at a geometric rate since her escape from the Detroit facility.”

Isaacs winced. He preferred not to be reminded of the debacle in Detroit. He wondered if the AI did that deliberately after his triangulating comment.

The door to Isaacs’s lab opened then, which irked him. Only one person in this facility had the authorization to override the privacy seal, and that he had it was a source of grievance to Isaacs. Sadly, his protests had, as usual, fallen on uncaring ears.

Switching off the image of the waveform, which he had no interest in sharing, he turned to see the irritating face of that person: Alexander Slater, who was holding a digital clipboard and looked as if he’d sucked down a particularly sour lemon.

“You’ve made ten trips to the surface in the last twenty-four hours,” Slater said without preamble. “All unauthorized. Any trip to the surface, especially to gather fresh specimens, puts my men at risk. We’ve already lost Timson and Moody, and