“Barely a man.” He turns to his men behind him and one or two of them laugh nervously. “I’m going to give you a counter offer. Your men show yourselves, and we might let the rest of them live. Course, we’re going to kill you either way. There are too many rats like you as it is.”

“This is your last chance,” Lucas says.

Scarecrow shakes his head. “No. It was yours.” With barely a squeeze of the trigger, he lets off a round. The bullet goes through Lucas’ forehead and out the back before he can even respond. I try to scream out as his body falls to the ground, but like a spirit, my screams are silent and go unheard. 

Another bright, white flash and I find myself sitting next to Lucas again as he is about to raise his hands into the air.

I feel like the air has been sucked out of my lungs. I look up at Lucas and try to tell him to stop, but words barely escape my lips. What did I just see? My legs feel weak, but I want to stand. I want to reach out and grab Lucas by the shirt and pull him down, but gravity holds me with the weight of a boulder.

“It’ll be okay, Waverly,” he says to me as he reaches out into the air.

I feel shock…confusion. What is happening to me? What just happened to me?

Scarecrow and his men point their guns at Lucas as soon as he makes himself known. He ducks his head as if expecting to be shot, but the raiders let him be.

“Lucas,” I say barely above a breath. “Please, just get back down here! We can run. Lucas!”

He doesn’t seem to hear my soft cries. I know in my heart what is about to happen, but something inside of me says that’s impossible.

“There are more of you rats,” I hear Scarecrow say. I can’t see him where I’m sitting, but I know that he raises his gun at Lucas. “Have them show themselves or I’ll split your head open like a rotten fruit.”

“We don’t mean any harm,” Lucas says. “We’re just trying to pass through.”

I know the response from Scarecrow before he even says it…I don’t care what you’re passing. Have your men show themselves or I’ll blow your head off.

Almost as an answer to my thoughts, Scarecrow speaks. “I don’t care what you’re passing,” he says. “Have your men show themselves or I’ll blow your head off.”

The pit in my stomach is growing and it’s all I can do to keep down what little food I have inside me. I look at the other two across from me. Ethan holds to his weapon tightly as Gilbert mutters to himself in anger.