It struck him like a hammer. Each time he entered the dream to see the sickness at the hospital, and looked beyond to the stone formations beyond, he would see eyes. Eyes still in the stone. Even though Lily was with him.

He kept his focus on Lily. “That isn’t you, is it?”

“I tried to get Ava out,” Lily wept. “But she was trapped. And I was so scared.”

“Lily, who is Ava?”

“William! Drop now! All of you, drop now!” the voice commanded.

“I don’t know how I got out. I promised her I would come back for her. I tried to tell you…” Guilt and anguish washed over Lily’s nine-year-old face. “My sister is in the mountain. With the monster.”

William wanted to ask more, but a red laser light from a high-powered rifle appeared on Lily’s forehead. He stepped in front of her, the light now squarely on his stomach, and dropped to his knees.

TWENTY-ONE

Through a child’s eyes, the mesas did look like mountains.

They’d arrived by helicopter at the military encampment at the Theodore Roosevelt National Park at dawn, in time to see the sky awaken the silver of the sage, the bluish gray of the sandstone, the gold of the clay. It would have been a breathtaking view: the morning sun on the expansive canyons where broken towers of stone loomed over the vast emptiness. The swath of all-terrain military vehicles, forming a barrier to prevent anyone from entering what the locals had come to call the death zone, was like a camouflaged stain on the earth.

William looked out the eastern window, the other helicopters sweeping in like a flock of blackbirds. As he leaned forward, the soldier in front of him stirred, his finger moving an inch or so closer to the trigger. The four other camouflaged men did the same, their eyes constantly focused on him and the girl beside them.

The fact that he and Lily were even allowed in the same space was an almost impossible feat.

As the military swarmed them in the orchard, William had reached out with his mind to the others: Show no aggression. I won’t let you be harmed. Before they were all ushered away at gunpoint, he could see the immigrant’s terrified expression at the voice inside his head. Jane tried to stay with Ryan, but they were quickly separated.

It cut deep to see Lily’s terrified face as she was surrounded by soldiers. Quincy swiftly lifted her in his arms, yelling that his only mutant ability was to eat a double quarter pounder. Not daring to actually touch Lily, the soldiers hesitated and then began to motion Quincy away with their rifles.