Finally, he speaks. “I wish I were like you. You would have let go already.” Something ugly twists, fleeting, beneath the surface of the words.

I lick my lips. I raise my voice to be heard over the storm. “That’s not true,” I say, even though I’m not sure if it is or not.

“You pointed a gun at me, Callahan. And you pulled the trigger.”

Wind buffets me. “I wouldn’t have killed you, though. I swear.”

His hand tightens, twisting my shirt a little more. “But you did kill my brother.”

“I sold him a telescope.” I also sold him back his own glasses, though I’m not about to tell Elliott that. “Your mom is the one who killed him.”

He’s silent. Wind whistles across us, pushing me sideways. I squeeze my eyes shut. A curse, shakier than I would like, slips out before I can stop it.

But apparently the sign of vulnerability sways Elliott. He takes a half step back, just enough for my shoes to get a tiny bit of purchase on the concrete ledge but not enough to take me completely out of harm’s way.

“She had to do it,” Elliott says, his voice flat. The words are rote, practiced. He’s said this a lot. Probably to himself.

Sensing weakness, I push harder. “After what she did to him—to both of you—you’re still going to defend her? She didn’t know the gun would jam, man. She told me to shoot you, let me actually shoot you, and she didn’t know the gun would jam.”

“Neither did you,” he snarls.

Lightning shatters the sky, illuminating us for a moment. Below, the fog has swirled into new patterns. Fear thickens my throat.

I look back to Elliott. “We can work together,” I repeat. “We have to, if we want to survive. We need each other.”

He barks a short, scoffing laugh. “Why would I need you?”

I grimace. My plan to jar him into action worked—a little too well—but now I’ve got to follow through, convince him I can contribute to his survival. I talk faster. “I know how to hot-wire a car. We could get to street level, find something that’s still got some fuel—”

“And drive through the fog, constantly on the lookout for Beings, to try to get where? There’s nothing left. Better to just die quickly.”

I clamp my hands a little tighter over his wrist. “No, not better, that is not better. There is something left. There’s London, there’s Singapore. Maybe there are other places too, cities we just haven’t been able to get a signal from yet.”

Another surge of lightning splits the clouds. I turn my head to check the fog below again. It may be a trick of the shadows, but for a moment it looks like the fog is moving, shifting.

Or something in it is.