“Stop!” came a command from a dark vehicle parked at the gas station. Another man, dressed in all black, was kneeling beside the driver’s-side door, his pistol aimed at him.

William continued to walk. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a white flash. An SUV passed on the intersecting street, turning behind a rundown tire store and down the alley stretching behind the motel.

“Stop! Right now!”

William kept on walking. Get out that window, Quincy. Get her out.

“Do not shoot!” William yelled. “Do you hear me? I am William Chance! There are innocent people in there! Do not shoot!”

He then calmly laid down on the street. She had to be out now. Quincy could fit through. Go. Go. Get in and don’t stop.

He knew no one anticipated this. The agents or police, whoever they were, were frantically talking about what to do. But the gunfire had stopped.

“Do not shoot!” William cried out.

A few moments later they were on him, all wearing dark sunglasses, their weapons drawn. He heard the squeal of tires and the car from the gas station was beside them.

One of the men reached out and patted him all over. Feeling nothing, they rushed him up and into the car.

Once inside, they forced off his shoes, inspecting them thoroughly, patting him down once again.

The car took off with such force that William had to steady himself. “I’m OK—”

The entire car then violently shuddered as it pulled around the corner. William whipped his head around to look out the back window.

Smoke poured through the windows of the hotel room, the door flying off its hinges as the room exploded in a rain of fire.

The mass of beetles swirled above the treetops. Lynn had come out to observe them as they hovered, dipped and soared, thinking of Don’s last words as the signal dropped out.

“Something is controlling us.”

It continued to send shivers through her like a fever, an ailment finally diagnosed.

It had been so long since she’d experienced it that she’d forgotten. She liked to pretend that she had imagined it, like a barely recalled moment of a nightmare that seemed so real that only the morning light through the curtains could prove it was false. That she’d been wrong to even think it ever existed.

She’d realized its absence not long after she’d returned from Colorado with William. Even in the chaos and uncertainty of that time, she’d felt different: lighter, warmer, like a burden had been lifted.

She could have easily dismissed the vacancy, believing it had been replaced by relief that her grandson was alive. That his return, at last, relieved her of the dark lining she’d carried with her all her days. Something she never even recognized was there until it was gone.