Then something whipped between Benny and Nix and flew across the clearing toward the lioness. Benny had a splintered second’s glimpse of it. A cylinder of bright red paper that trailed a plume of thin gray smoke. It struck the ground between him and the lioness, bounced once . . .

. . . and exploded.

BANG!

The flash was as bright as the sun and as loud as a gunshot. But it was a . . .

Benny’s stunned mind scrambled for the word.

. . . a firecracker?

The lion hissed in fear and confusion, looking wildly around to find this new attacker.

Then a second firecracker dropped out of nowhere and exploded before it even hit the ground. The bang tore a howl of anger and fear from the smaller cats, and they scrambled backward, falling, snarling, twisting away.

A third firecracker snapped through the air and burst inches from the lioness’s face.

Her shriek was earsplitting.

Another and another detonated in the air around the lioness.

She tore deep gouges in the ground as she spun around and ran flat out for the tall grass. Despite her wounded shoulder, she passed the smaller cats like they were standing still, and even the powerful male ran in the dust kicked up by her passage.

In seconds the four lions had dwindled to specks in the distance and then were gone, totally out of sight.

Benny stood with his sword forgotten in his hand, mouth open. Nix and Chong were as still as statues. Benny heard a soft footfall to his right, and he turned to see a figure stand up out of the tall grass a dozen feet behind where one of the lions had crouched. A stranger whose presence had not been noticed by anyone, human or feline, who had moved with all the silent stealth of Tom or Lilah.

It was a girl. A teenager. Beautiful, tall, and wild.

But it was not Lilah.

This girl was maybe seventeen, with large brown eyes, a small mouth, and a scalp that had been completely shaved to reveal a complex series of tattoos. Wild roses and thorny vines. She had multiple silver rings pierced through the upper parts of both ears, and a silver necklace from which hung an old-fashioned skeleton key. She wore tattered camouflage shorts, sneakers that were worn to threads, and a vest that was buttoned up over, apparently, nothing else. A Marine Corps belt was strapped around her hips, and it supported a leather-handled hunting knife, a whistle, and a lumpy pouch of what Benny guessed were stones. Crisscrossed over her torso were bandoliers—not of bullets, but of firecrackers.

The girl held a slingshot in her hands, and there was a sharp-edged rock seated in its leather pouch.

The rock was aimed at Nix’s throat.

“I think y’all better lower that gun,” said the stranger. “Right now.”

“Well,” said Chong with a disgusted sigh, “I guess it’s fair to say that this day can’t get any worse.”