“Not just your house,” he said. “I saw Levi’s too, and the old movie theater, and the steel mill.” He shook his head. “The whole town was being destroyed. The roof was ripped off Wayne Hastings’s house. Its whole top floor was destroyed, and so was yours. Beams, hubcaps, pieces of refrigerators were everywhere. There was . . . this thing. This big metal thing. A machine, I guess. I think it was causing it. Like maybe it was a weapon.”

He tipped his chin toward Nick. “Like you talked about with the piano, except . . . something huge, and made of steel.”

Sofía sank onto the hood of the car, her face paling, and creases etched between Arthur’s eyebrows.

He took a step, rubbing his chin. “The E.T. must want us to stop it. That’s got to be what all this is about. It’s given us some kind of—coded information, and Franny’s ability because it . . . it wants us to save Earth.”

Remy gave me a dark look.

I wondered if he was also thinking about Bill’s e-mail:

Impulses to do things that are utterly unfamiliar to you—commands, as it were, from the presence you are hosting.

I swallowed a knot. “Or maybe it wants us to destroy the planet.”

Arthur shook his head. “That’s not it. That’s not what’s going on.”

“Of course it is,” Nick said, voice uncharacteristically restrained. “Think about it, Arthur. Remy’s got the overview, and Levi’s wandering around at night, probably doing that thing’s dirty work, and Franny’s probably like . . . a freaking battery.”

“And what about you?” Arthur poked Nick’s chest. “And Sofía? You’re playing the piano like an angel, and Sof’s able to watch over us from anywhere! Those are gifts, Nick!”

Nick scoffed. “For all we know, I’m just here to operate some alien control panel, and as for Sofía—she could be your precious E.T.’s security feed, keeping track of our progress! That thing didn’t come here for us! It came here for steel, and we’re the poor saps who happened to cross its path and get roped into this! Fifty bucks says when we watch that video from the cave”—he whirled around to point at Levi—“it’s him lugging those beams out of there.”

The blood drained from Levi’s face.

“He wouldn’t have had time,” I argued, though I wasn’t sure. “I heard him leave the house.”

I clutched the shell in my hand, but it was no comfort.

Someone knew what happened to us, and if they’d told anyone . . .

Another crackle of thunder shook the puddle-heavy asphalt, the hood of the Metro, the misty woods behind us.

Maybe it was for the best if someone found us, someone took us away before we could do . . .

Whatever that thing wants us to do.

The whole world seemed to kaleidoscope in front of me.

I felt sick again. Actually, the nausea had been building for some time, along with a sharp, cramping pain down my center. I leaned into the car, trying to hide the jolt ripping through my spine.

“This has gone far enough,” Sofía said. “We have to tell someone!”

“No,” Remy snapped. “Not yet. That’s a last resort, only.”

“Well, we’ve officially reached the land of last resorts!” Nick said. “Haven’t you been listening? We’re possessed by an evil alien!”

Possessed.

The word sent shock waves through me. Was I? Possessed? And what about the others? Micro-possessed? Tainted by alien shrapnel, as if it had whittled itself down to a size that could fit inside me, and stored the final slivers in them?

Was that why Sofía could see through our eyes?

Because that thing was in all of us, in some capacity?

Levi looked as queasy as I felt. He rocked between his feet, swaying like a redwood considering just packing it in as a tornado spun toward it.

“You want me to prove you’re wrong?” Arthur said sharply. “Let’s go watch the video.”

“Fine!” Nick stormed to the car’s back door. Arthur stomped around to climb in on the opposite side, and Sofía sighed and followed. Levi still hadn’t moved. His bottom lip was trembling, from cold or fear.

“We don’t know anything,” I told him.

I’d meant it to sound comforting; it didn’t.

“The video will help,” I added.

Remy bumped his elbow. “We’ll get answers,” he said for the second time that night. “This is good.”

“Sure,” Levi said. “Answers.”

The problem with answers was you almost never got the ones you wanted.

Sometimes it was better to float through that liminal space that came before you found the truth. If I could go back to the hospital waiting room, and stand there, alone, inside those sliding glass doors, and exist forever in a world where I still might hear that Mark was okay, I would.

But I couldn’t.

We got in the car and drove to Levi’s house in silence. When we arrived, no one climbed the lattice; we filed through the door and went straight to his bedroom.

Mr. and Mrs. Lindquist were still out of town, and the house had fallen into disarray, the lowest point it reached between their bimonthly housekeeper visits. Usually, we would’ve teased Levi about the paisley socks left on the floor, the mustard-yellow trousers discarded over the sofa arm, and the novelty soda bottles resting on the bathroom sink.