“How could that happen?”

“He was cut from behind. Never saw it coming,” Yosh told her, straightening. “Down low like that? And with a child’s fingerprints on the vibraknife? You thinking what I’m thinking?”

“No! And neither should you. None of our kids would do something like this. It’s totally . . . I mean, do you hear what you’re saying?”

“How could they? Felix is only eight, for God’s sake. Sheena and Felicity are seven. Breez was with us last night. This is freaking impossible.” Yosh’s face worked; he swallowed hard. “None of our kids would do this. Not to Bill.”

Michaela fought for air. “This is a nightmare. An impossible fucking nightmare.”

Yosh had tears streaking his face when he turned to face her. “What’s happening to us?”

60

Dek had ducked beneath the first of the vines and was crossing a shallow root mat when the quetzals began to insert their presence into his mind. At first it came as a subtle warning to step right, to avoid putting a foot on a particular greenish root as he followed Talina. What left him unsettled was a feeling of turmoil, once removed. A realization that something seethed and flexed just below the surface, that it was locked in conflict. But inexplicably, recognition hovered just below his consciousness. Like it teetered on the edge of breaking free—and if it did, it would consume him. If he had to put it into words, it might be likened to having an unfelt inferno in his core, nothing he could physically experience, but he sure as hell knew that his gut was twisting itself into a knot.

It’s all of them. Locked in milling, moiling, and mayhem.

The determination to end it all, the plunge over the falls—the river—had reshuffled the deck. All that TriNA intelligence, Flute’s, Rocket’s, and Demon’s, was resorting.

Talk about toilet-sucking weird. A battle was going on inside him, and he couldn’t even act as spectator. Those competing, replicating molecules were deciding his future. Realization engendered a queasiness in his muscles, bones, and nerves.

What if Demon’s side wins?

And all the while, he had to remain focused on the bush. Everything he’d gained could be lost in an instant with a single wrong move. For the moment, brown caps, a pincushion, or some unknown creature, not to mention thorncactus, claw shrub, or purple burst flower, could kill him dead.