“Look,” she said, “I know you think that because you have Tom’s sword, you have to be the great warrior, but here’s a news flash, Benny: You’re not Tom. The sword doesn’t give you superpowers.”

Benny felt his face grow hot. “I never said—”

She pointed back toward the field. “You think Tom would have just waltzed in there and sorted this out?”

“I know he would. This is the sort of thing he was good at.”

“No, he wasn’t,” snapped Nix. “He was never out this far. He doesn’t know these people. We stepped into the middle of something big and nasty that doesn’t concern us. It wouldn’t have concerned Tom, either. He’d have steered us around this and left these people to sort out their own troubles.”

Benny seethed for a moment before he tried to speak. “Tom would never have walked away from that little girl.”

Nix’s eyes were as hard and cold as green glass. “Tom brought us out here to find that jet, not to solve the problems of everyone in the world.”

“So . . . what? Are you saying we should just walk away from Eve?”

“She’s with her parents,” she said, “and here’s another news flash: Eve’s parents tried to kill us back there. I’m going out on a limb here, but I pretty much think that means they don’t want our help.”

“That’s because they were looking for her and were probably scared out of their minds, Nix.”

“Doesn’t change anything.”

“And they thought we were reapers.”

Nix cocked her head to one side. “It’s that bald girl, isn’t it?”

“What?”

“You want to go back and talk to that bald girl with the slingshot.”

“Oh, for—”

Screams tore through the air behind them. A male voice, but high and filled with terrible pain. The sound was cut off in a way that suggested the worst.

The air was filled with screams and the roar of quad engines.

“Chong—?” Benny gasped. “We have to—”

“No, that’s not Chong,” Nix said with a firm shake of her head. “Chong made it to the woods before we did. I never saw him run that fast before. He’ll be okay.”

There were more screams and shouts, male and female voices; and every now and then the blast of a shotgun.

“Sounds like a full-out war,” said Benny.

“You still want to go back?” asked Nix.

Benny said nothing.

“Look,” Nix said, “Chong knows which direction Lilah took. He’ll head that way, and if those machines chase him, then Lilah will hear it. She’ll know what to do.”

When Benny still said nothing, Nix touched his arm.

“Benny, let’s find the others and see what they want to do, okay?”

He sighed and nodded, and kept to himself so many things that needed to be said.