“My God, should we stop?”

“No time,” Jessica said. They had to halt this invasion. All of it, everywhere, not just in this one backyard. “But slow down a little.”

She pulled a flare from her pocket and put one end into her mouth, yanking the top off. Then she banged it against the friction pad clenched between her teeth, sparks flying into her face, the first hiss of the flare burning her eyebrows before she could whip it away.

At the top of their next bounce she threw the flare down into the matted center of the thing. It ignited, the scream echoing across the blue time, its tendrils beginning to slip from the costumed people.

Jessica looked over her shoulder as they flew onward and saw that the crowd had sprung to life and were pulling at the thing’s arms with a sudden and terrifying madness, as if trying to rip it apart.

“There’s more,” Jonathan said softly.

Ahead of them two of the old darklings were stretched across the railroad tracks, like hovering spiderwebs.

“Go around them?” he asked.

“They move too fast.” Jessica pulled out another flare, then realized that it was the last one she was carrying. “Crap.”

She yanked off its top with her teeth, managing to light it without burning her face this time. She thrust it out before them as they soared into the joined webs of tendrils.

At the touch of the flame the two darklings screamed, but Jessica felt cold feathers brushing her legs, her arms, her neck—slithering around her waist for a fleeting moment. Fear welled up in her again, a paralyzing horror that she had made the wrong decision. It was crazy leaving Jenks defenseless, her sister doomed. And suddenly she knew: the darklings had opened up the blue time because of her, because they hated Jessica Day so much….

The end of the world…it’s all my fault.

Only the feeling of Jonathan’s hand in hers kept her from giving in to the awesome despair that racked her being. He wouldn’t abandon her, she knew. But they were wrapped around Jonathan as well; she had to fight.

Jessica gritted her teeth and slashed with the flare, carving into the matted tendrils, ripping herself free.

One by one, the fears fell away.

Then the feeling vanished, and she was filled with weightlessness again. The tracks reared up, and she reflexively took another bounding step. She glanced backward; the two darklings lay in a smoldering wreckage, scattered along on the tracks.

“No!” Jonathan yelled, his hand wrenching hers.

“Ow! What’s wrong?” she cried.

“Huh?” He looked at her, dumbfounded. “Wait a second. I caught you…?”

“Caught me? I wasn’t falling.”

“But I thought…” He stared at their joined hands.

“Oh.” Jessica’s eyes widened. “Is that your worst nightmare, Jonathan? Dropping me?”

He blinked. “Of course. But…”

Jessica felt a smile spread across her face. “That is so sweet!”

They landed and launched themselves into the air again. Jessica saw a glowing red boundary rising up before them. “What the—?”