Angie just looked at him.

“What?” he said. “You didn’t know that?”

“Yeah, I’ve read the accounts. But I never got used to the idea of you midnighters,” she said. “It’s one thing that spooks live in the secret hour, but human beings walking around while the rest of us are frozen?” She shivered. “It’s so creepy.”

He snorted a laugh. “Trust me. They’re the creepy ones, not us. Whatever you’ve read about the darklings, I’ve seen them.”

“But you haven’t read their words,” she said. “And I have.”

Rex was silent for a moment. It was true—Grandpa Grayfoot had managed to do something that no seer had ever done before. He’d communicated with the enemy.

But now Rex had gone one better—he’d actually communicated with a darkling face-to-face. He thought again about heading out to the desert, meeting with the old minds there, hearing what their perspective was about all this history.

Now, that would be a brain bender…if they didn’t kill him first.

As Rex stared out the window, he saw a car flash past at the end of the alley. He swallowed, glancing at his watch again. They were early.

Angie hadn’t seen it, though.

“Well, whatever,” he said. “When time freezes, it’s blue. But this last week something really strange happened. Something that’s not in any lore I’ve ever read.”

“A timequake.”

He looked at her. “A what?”

“A spontaneous fluctuation of the prime contortion. Releasing the energies built up over the centuries.”

“Um, yeah.” He drummed his fingers on the seat. Prime contortion? Maybe Angie really had read a few things that Rex hadn’t. “We’ve been calling it an eclipse. But it might be more like a tremor, a warning of bigger things to come.”

“And that’s why the Grayfoots’ houses all sprouted For Sale signs last week?”

He nodded. “We think that the blue time is going to expand, suddenly and without much warning, getting big enough to swallow Broken Arrow.”

She stared at him for a moment, then said, “Jesus. No wonder they’re running. When?”

He shook his head and smiled. “I think I’ll save that piece of information until you tell me more. Such as, when are the Grayfoots leaving Broken Arrow?”

“Well, I’m not a hundred percent sure,” she said. “But there is something they’ve all been talking about for a while.”

“What is it?”

Suddenly lights swept through the interior of the car.

“What the…?” Angie said, turning to look back.

Rex winced as he glanced in the mirror. A pair of headlights loomed at the other end of the alley. Jonathan and Dess, you morons, he thought. Can’t you read a clock?

They’d come way too soon.

But there was only one thing to do: stick with the plan. He started the engine.

“What the hell are you doing?” Angie shouted.

“They’re coming for us,” he said. The headlights were closing fast. “They must have followed you!” He put the car in gear and rolled down the alley.

“Oh, Christ! Let me out!” She started to open her door. Rex accelerated, and the door crushed a trash can with a sickening sound, swinging closed with a thunk. Sorry, Melissa, he thought.