His radio clattered to the asphalt, and I kicked it out of his reach. Both of his hands went up, trying to shield his face from another hit, but I wasn’t going to go easy on him. I wasn’t going to let him take me back to Thurmond.

My hand closed over his exposed forearm, and I yanked it, forcing him to look down at me. I watched his pupils shrink in his hazel eyes before blowing back out to their normal size. The man had a foot of height on me, but you never would have known by the way he dropped to his knees in front of me. He hadn’t even been able to catch his breath, let alone keep me from walking straight into his mind.

Leave! I tried to say. My jaw was clenched, the muscles there seized as though the White Noise was still running through them like a current of pulsing electricity. Leave!

I had never done this before, and there was no way to know if it would actually work—but what did I have to lose now? His memories flooded over me, wave after wave lapping at my brain, and all I could think was, I’m going to do this. It is going to work.

Martin had said that he pushed feelings into people, but my abilities didn’t work that way, and they never had. I only saw images. I could only muddle, sort, and erase images.

But I’d never tried to do anything else. I had never wanted to, before this moment. Because if I couldn’t help these kids, if I couldn’t save them, then what good was I? What point did I even have? Do it. Just do it.

I imagined the man picking up his radio—every detail, from the way he would fumble for it without his glasses to the way his jeans would wrinkle. I imagined him canceling the request for backup. I imagined him walking down the rocky hill that kissed the edge of the road, into the wild.

And when I released my fingers from his arm, one by one, that’s exactly what he did. He walked away, and each step brought a new jolt of shock. I had done that. Me.

I turned to where black smoke spilled out over the road, coating the hill’s grass and hidden edges in a thick, ugly blanket. Then, I remembered.

Zu.

I could see the wreckage clearly now as I limped forward. The pickup truck, which at one point had been parked beside Betty, was now several hundred feet away, resting in the empty green field. The smaller silver Volkswagen was on its side in front of it, a heap of twisted metal that I barely recognized. It was smoking wildly, belching out thick smoke, as if it were only one small spark away from exploding.

It rammed it, I realized. The truck rammed it out of the way.

I followed the trail of tire marks and glass, but I only found Truck Driver. What was left of him.